It is not that easy...
I l o v e my new website. It only took me 6 months and a lot of help from website specialist guru Simone Howard of Magic Button on ETSY. http://www.etsy.com/people/mymagicbutton and a wonderful OS Commerce specialist Barbara to help me unlock the password.
I started my own website over 2 years ago and, well, I hated it. I lived with it for awhile and just primarily used my Etsy website... Simone, a wonderful, patient web designer who said I might do better with a OScommerce website went through the hard day by day with with me of the designing and creating this wonderful new, happy, pretty place in the web world. I new I wanted something feminine and girly, so of course, we went with pink. Love it. That was six months ago and then all of the hard work of photographing, uploading. I added maybe six products and well, got busy with life and ETSY. My business is growing by leaps and bounds. I have already doubled last years business in the first 6 months. I have been designing and creating for months and then I thought I better do something with this website I had made 6 months ago. I have a feature coming out September 26 with the most amazing Wedding Blog, "Style ME Pretty" and they can only link it to my own website, not a third party. So it was on... I had 3 weeks.
Well, the first problem. My computer with all of the information, crashed. I lost everything including all passwords and my photography. I contacted Simone with this grim task of helping me remember my pass code. It was not going to be that easy, nothing worked. Using an OS Commerce site proved very hard to retrieve this information, certainly nothing that my non computer brain could handle. I do not even now what a ftp file is. Simone is always going on about this and of course, I email back with... Come on Simone, really... She knows my brain just can not handle that kind of process. It took me forever to use go daddy lol... Simone's OS Commerce friend Barbara, who lives in France, fixed it. In about five minutes, very smart girl. I was happy and relieved and I sent them both gifts... One lives in Australia and the other is in France. You would think I could find someone that lives in the United States but these two girls were the best and I am so grateful for them taking pity on me.
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| Stress, doesn't even need to be said. You can see it all over my face... |
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| Karen, sister in law extraordinaire... |
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| Before the madness... |
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| Before the shoot... |
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| I love these dresses.... |
The second problem. Re shooting all of the jewelry, with my daughters and sister in law as my models. Everyone just so happened to be at our beach house that weekend, so I decided to have this big photo shoot. I even bought Wedding dresses (two). My bedroom at the beach house has the most wonderful light and really made these photos gorgeous...Forgot to mention, I am the make up artist, hair dresser and photographer. Did I also mention, this was not a "stress free" day. It was a crazy day, but we ended up with fabulous pictures and a memory with all helping including my sixteen year old son, Zachary. I had to go through thousands of pictures, cropping, lighting and just making them beautiful. That takes forever by the way.
The third problem is uploading thousands of photos to the actual website. This is a task, and my husband has been complaining literally for the last week. I have spent nearly 8-10 hours a day for a week to get this ready. I wish I had a team of photographers, designers, assistants and another me. I would say, I am a worker and I will not stop until it is done. Mostly the reason for that is, I will dream about it, every night, all night. If the hot flashes were not enough, ladies, you know what I am talking about, lol...
Here are some pictures of the final product, so please visit this website now that you know how much work has gone into this... I love to design jewelry but I do not think anyone knows exactly how hard it is to do everything else... This is just a snapshot of how hard it really is. So, the next time you look at someones website, blog or store that this is a undertaking and did I mention, very stressful.
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| Eternity Necklace |
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| London Blue Topaz Flower Earrings |
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| London Blue Topaz Statement Earrings |
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| Whisper of Pink Hair Accessory |
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| One of a kind Turquoise Re Inspired Vintage Necklace |
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| Bracelet Collection |
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| Apatite Statement Earrings |
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| Vintage Pearl and Rhinestone Head Piece |
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| We did some family photography that day too.... |
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| The fabulous Karen |
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| Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Statement Earrings |
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| Apatite Chandelier Earrings |
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| Keepsake Pendant Jewelry |
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| One in a million Snowflake Bracelets |
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| Mint Green Opal Statement Necklace |
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| Pink Quartz and London Blue Topaz Statement Earrings |
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| Pearl Floral Head Piece |
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| Our mascot... |
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| Turquoise lovelies... |
Lillyput Lane Design Company
Visit Lillyput here...
I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me achieve my dreams... Without all of you, it would never happen. I am so grateful to have my family friends for believing in me...
Laurie
XOXO
