Etsy Success Symposium!

Hey there Etsy sellers! Check out the latest Etsy symposium: The Art of Pricing for Profit. The event will be an online class held on May 15th. Hope you learn something great!

Congratulations AMANDA - you've won the Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway!!

Three cheers to commenter Amanda, who - by random selection - has won our Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway! Amanda told us that this vegan pendant from For the Animals is a great way to help donate to animal causes, this handmade brooch from Dark Fairie will proudly proclaim her veganism, and that she'd love to receive a Pansy Maiden bag for the holidays!

Thanks for your awesome entry Amanda, and thanks to everyone who entered and who supports us the whole year through. We couldn't do it without you!

It's Back: The Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway!

This giveaway is now CLOSED!! Thanks so much to everyone who participated, and keep your eyes peeled for the next one!

***It's the Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway!***

Hello friends! In this season of thanks and giving, we here at the Vegan Etsy Team would like to do some giving of our own... with The Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway! You'll enter by telling us about some of your favorite Vegan Etsy Team shops. If you win, you'll receive a Vegan Etsy Team prize pack full of items hand-crafted by our members! It's been a while since we've done one, and we have some terrific new items from amazing new team members in the prize pack.

So how do you enter? It's as easy as 1, 2, 3...

In a comment to this blog post, please:

1. Name a Vegan Etsy Team shop which donates a percentage of its proceeds to an animal cause, and tell us about your favorite item in that shop;

2. Name a Vegan Etsy Team shop which makes items that help you proudly proclaim your veganity to the world, and describe your favorite item in that shop; and

3. Name a Vegan Etsy Team shop which you think has great gifts, and describe an item in that shop that you would like to give (or recieve!).

And now, the fine print...

*You must complete ALL THREE STEPS to qualify for entry!

*Please INCLUDE LINKS to the items that you choose.

*Please make sure we know how to get in touch with you! You can't win if we can't find you. ;)

*You can find Vegan Etsy Team shops by checking out our Etsy Teams Page of Active Members!

*Winners will be chosen by random drawing.

*The giveaway starts NOW and ends at Midnight, Eastern Time, on Sunday December 11th. The winner will be announced on Monday, December 12th right here on this blog!

*As always, blog followers get double entry!

***Good luck, have fun, and Happy Holidays!***

* * * * * *

Example Entry:

1. Melissa Bastian's shop Melissa Bastian donates 10% of proceeds to Imaginary Animal Sanctuary. I love her painting of bunny rabbits because I have bunnies too! http://www.etsy.com/listing/74566476/september-hares-a-tale-of-three-rabbits
2. Melissa Bastian's shop Bright Design would help me show off my veganness with these cute "vegan" pins: http://www.etsy.com/listing/20700819/vegan-pins-show-your-veganity
3. I think Melissa Bastian's shop Libellule is the best gift shop ever, and I would love to receive this sparkly blue necklace: http://www.etsy.com/listing/74586654/on-the-town-some-enchanted-evening-a

Take it to go!

With our hectic, 0n-the-go lives, we all struggle with finding the best ways to reduce waste while still remembering to eat lunch and get the grocery shopping done. Luckily, teamie Johnson Family Zoo provides us with great options for food transport! Shop proprietor Lisa crafts super-useful sandwich bags and produce bags in a wide range of fun colors and patterns. Eco-friendly fun for the grocery store and farmer's market, school and work lunch, and wherever else life takes you!

So many fun patterns and colors it's almost impossible to choose...
so just get a variety pack! :D

Dish it out.

We vegans love to eat! And with all the celebrating of food that we do, it's no surprise that we also like to do it in style.

Teamie Jeanette Zeis creates and sells beautiful "vegan" dishware in her shop Vegan Dish. Got non-vegan roommates? Here's an easy way to say, this bowl is mine. And around the office, you can proudly proclaim that your coffee is creamed with soy!

Happy Vegan T-Shirt Day: Meet Eat your VegTees and Rare Tee Clothing!

We're excited that, for this Vegan T-Shirt Day, we can introduce you to some new teamies that are making excellent vegan t-shirts!

Cameron of Eat Your VegTees and Catherine of Rare Tee Clothing are two of the newest members of the Vegan Etsy Team. They're creating some truly awesome t-shirts and other fashionable items, while simultaneously providing AR education, donating proceeds to animal-related causes, and promoting a vegan message. These new teamies really epitomize what the VET is all about! Please make sure to check out their shops and show them some love.

Eat Kale Daily shirt from Eat Your VegTees

Philippines Tarsier Tee from Rare Tee Clothing

HAPPY VEGAN MOFO 2011!!!

Hooray for the fifth annual Vegan Month of Food! Every year vegan bloggers all over the world take a month to celebrate vegan food, and we call it Vegan MoFo. This year, the Vegan Etsy Team will be blogging every day during Vegan MoFo.

Appropriately enough, our theme is... The Foods of Vegan Etsy! We'll be telling you all about the wonderful foodstuffs made and sold by Vegan Etsy Team members, as well as sharing our own personal recipes and more. So stay tuned, enjoy, and GO VEGANS!

Vegan Etsy Gears Up for Vegan Mofo

It's that time of year again friends! October kicks off the 5th annual Vegan Month of Food or Vegan Mofo for short. Head on over to the Vegan Mofo headquarters and sign up your blog before September 28th. The goal is to blog at least every weekday about your vegan food adventures. Lots of people come up with fun themes to follow for the month but you don't have to. Take the challenge! The Vegan Etsy Team blog will be participating, as will individual members on their blogs. Participating team members include:

My Zoetrope
Veganosaurus
Veganville
Panda With Cookie
Vegans on the Move
Kittee: Craft Maker to the Stars
Miss Muffcake
Veggie Amanda (Newman Improved)
The Traveling Austin Vegan

Follow their blogs this month and see what the Vegan Etsy Team comes up with for Vegan Mofo!
And don't forget to follow the main MoFo blog for lots of giveaways including some by VET members Panda With Cookie and Sweet V Confections!

Vegan Etsy teams up with SASHA to help celebrate 10th Anniversary!

SASHA Farm, the largest sanctuary of its kind in the Midwest, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year! And the Vegan Etsy Team is excited to be part of the festivities. Team members will be donating various items to the Silent Auction that will be held during the 10th Anniversary Celebration Banquet, scheduled for March 12. Check out the SASHA website to learn more about this amazing place and about the event. And if you or your group has something to contribute, we're sure they'd love to hear from you too!

From the SASHA event announcement:

The 10th Anniversary Celebration Banquet and Silent Auction will be held at Weber's Inn in Ann Arbor on Saturday, March 12th. More details are available on the flyer, and tickets can be purchased online, at the sanctuary, or by sending a check to SASHA Farm, PO Box 222, Manchester, MI 48158. We have a great evening planned, and you don't want to miss it!

We're starting our plea for silent auction donations a little early this year... The only requirement is that the items donated are animal-friendly. The proceeds from the auction each year account for a significant portion of our income and all that money goes directly toward the care of over 250 rescued animals.

If you plan to donate this year, you can let us know by email or by calling the sanctuary at (734) 428-9617.

New year messages from handmade items.

Posted by Veganessa

Happy New Year everyone. Now that we've got past the celebrations, and settled back to work, I thought I'd look around VeganEtsy members shops for message of goodwill and hope for a good year ahead. Here are some of the fabulous items I found:

This adorable, bright print from Myzoetrope is part of a Love and Peace series of prints, that will inspire and delight anyone.

Beautiful copper orange carnelian pendant, handstamped with the word LAUGHTER. Handmade by ArtbySusmitha. It's a welcome word on a grey January day.

How about a 'Lucky' bracelet. This sweet bracelet by Pinkbubble may be just the lucky token you need to change your fortunes. Gorgeous green and metallic grey beads, and a cute stamped word with a lucky four leaf clover. Feeling lucky yet?

And finally, I'd like to add an item from my own shop Veganessa . A message of HOPE on a mixed fiber brooch. For 2011 lets all HOPE for a good year ahead, with lots of veganess and kindness to all.

VET Giveaway on VegWeb.com!!

Do you dream of winning a Vegan Etsy Team grab bag? Well now's your chance! This week's VegWeb Weekly Giveaway boasts a prize of just that - a prize pack jammed full of VET goodies. For a chance to win, you must enter by Midnight on Tuesday 12/21, so hurry!!

GVEG, V Spot Holiday Market, and holyohmygosh it's December!

Well everyone, we can't believe it either, but it's DECEMBER! That means that Hanukkah begins tonight, and Christmas is just around the corner. It also means that as of this morning, the November Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway is officially closed! Thanks so much for all of your wonderful entries! We will be selecting a winner at random and making the announcement this Saturday, so good luck to you all!!

It ALSO means that the Holiday Market at V Spot featuring wares from Vegan Etsy Team sellers opens in just TWO DAYS!! We are so excited about this project; it's really going to be something special. So if you're in the NYC area you really must stop by! Check out the event on Facebook, or if you're not all facebook-ey here's the flier on the V Spot website. Hope to see you there!

Exciting Announcement: Vegan Etsy Holiday Marketat V Spot, Brooklyn!

Hello world! This morning we are excited to tell you that the Vegan Etsy Team sellers have been invited to participate in a Holiday Market at the V Spot vegan restaurant in Brooklyn, NYC! The official launch party of the Market will be held on the evening of December 3rd. More details will be released as they become available; for now, just get ready to head to Brooklyn and get your shop on!

Are you following us on twitter yet?

If by some chance you've missed it, the Vegan Etsy Team is on twitter!! We've got a very active stream with lots of vegan and AR news, and of course lots of updates about member shops and activities. So what are you waiting for? Follow us today!

Vegan Craft Samples' Holiday 2010 Bag

The time is here: we are collecting samples for the Holiday 2010 Vegan Craft Sample bags! 100% of profits from each bag goes to an animal sanctuary voted for on the vegan samples blog.

Vegan Samples is back in full swing, with many goals for our future bags! Last year's holiday bag raised over $700 for Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary and we hope to beat that with this year's holiday bags! We are still accepting contributors and can accept samples as late as November 11th. Please sign up on the website.

Vegan Craft Samples is run by Heather from Holistically Heather and her partner in crime, Jessi, all out of their living room.

Photos from last years holiday sample bag assembly line!!

There is a blog and a facebook page as well:
http://www.vegansamples.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/vegancraftsamples
and of course their website
http://www.vegancraftsamples.com/

Vegan craft samples has been mentioned in VegNews magazine, reviewed on numerous blogs including Sarah Kramer's (go vegan calendar, how it all vegan cookbook trio). In order to continue raising funds for animals, vegan craft samples really needs more contributors and people who have a love for both animals and handmade. This is also a great way to advertise your shop!

For the Team - Activities in August!

Hello Vegan Etsy Team Members! We have some really fun stuff happening that you don't want to miss out on. It's been a great summer for the team so far, and heading into August we've got big plans:

• There's still all day Saturday to enter the July Great Vegan Etsy Giveaway, so if you haven't put in your submission yet you'd better get a move on!
• We've scheduled our August Team Chat for Monday, August 9 at 7pm. Check out the thread in Team Events for details.
• The July / August Team Challenge is still waiting for entries - come on teamies, you know you can come up with something great. And kudos to Panda with Cookie and Cards & Jewelry by Michele for the fantastic treasuries that won them the top slots for the June team challenge - though I must say that every entry was a delight!

So there you go - better get moving! Summer will be over before you know it. That's alright though, because as soon as fall hits we can all start baking again... vegan cupcakes anyone?! :D

Summer Inspirations.

While the sun shines, and the days are hot and long, I browsed through the Vegan Etsy Team shops for yellow delights, as a token of sunshine on Etsy.
Here are a few of my favourites:

This wonderful, happy, print declaring " sunshine makes everything better" by Myzoetrope epitomizes summer perfectly. This delightful, Peruvian sunflower card from MVegan5 just oozes warmth and brightness.

This darling little clay cyclops from Veganosaurus reminds me of a sweet little creature that fell to earth to explore the sunshine and happiness, and makes everyone smile when they see him. Then I found this adorable bumble bee desk topper from Monkey and Squirrel and it reminded me of all the gorgeous, plump little bees collecting their nectar during summer.

Such happy, summer images from the very creative, talented Vegan Etsy Team.

The VET is proud to support FARM's 2010 Animal Rights Conference!

The Vegan Etsy Team is at it again! We were contacted by, FARM, the Farm Animal Rights Movement, in the hopes that we would have some contributions for the auction portion of this weekend's Animal Rights 2010 National Conference. Of course this is exactly the kind of thing we love to be involved in! A few team members such as Ladies Blend, 3AM Art Productions, and myself (Melissa Bastian), sent contributions directly to FARM. But Pippi of Uber Duper Creations and Peace to All Creatures Zine took it upon herself to collect items from a number of fellow team mates and compile them all into a fabulous VET Gift Bag! Here is her own blog post about that project - enjoy!

* * *

Unlike we have in the past, Jessi and I cannot attend the Animal Rights Conference in Washington D.C. this year. So when Cindi Saadi of FARM USA wrote to the VeganEtsy Team seeking auction contributions, we knew this was a chance to be there in spirit. It's a great cause, and the team is always generous and jumps at the chance to help educate, outreach and save animals.

With only a very small window with which to seek contributions, some of the team members sent in contributions on an individual basis. (Would LOVE to see some of those items! hint hint) Even with the time crunch, the team pulled together and got their items in to me. Even as far away as Wales, UK! (Thanks to our very own 'zine project contributor, Kim Shay.)

Here are a few of these items. Oh! By the way, Starrlight Jewelry wins for best smelling contribution. As part of her contribution, she included Kona Coffee from Hawaii! My, oh, my, I almost couldn't resist! As the team leader, Starrlight also sent in a small VeganEtsy team promo package and a Team Sampler Package which included items like a "vegan" patch, bracelets and pins. She also included a beautiful hand painted cameo necklace.Who wouldn't look amazing in that? (I'm sorry I didn't take individual photos! The items contributed are high quality crafts. People will be excited for this prize!)
MidnightRabbits/Veganessa sent in a fabulous purse, which my husband aptly named "The Wookie Purse"! It was the perfect container for all of the contributions to be presented in! (see the last photo). She also included a lovely pair of red heart dangley (what? YES! That is a word) earrings. I also received 2 very pretty pins from MVegan5 to add to our collection (also a 'zine project contributor)!

Other items included in this fabulous team contribution auction bag are:

• A gorgeous Japanese Temari Ball by CraftyPanties,


• The awesome It's a Vegan Dog's Life Book, by VeganDogsLife,


• A very cool veggie magnet set by RadicalFringe


• Sweet Organic Cotton Pin Set & beautiful bracelet by VeganCraftastic


• And last but not least...A FABULOUS 'Zine Gift Pack which includes all 3 issues of Peace To All Creatures and The Peace 'Zine Logo Necklace by GingerCardCo and ÜberDuperCreations!
  

If you are lucky enough (smart enough) to be attending this year's Animal Rights Conference, I recommend attending the Saturday Night Banquet (Pre-register!!). And definitely stay for the auction afterward, or at least for some of it. It can get long, but I'm sure there will be some surprises and a lot of fun. Also, you won't be sorry for taking advantage of the free snack offerings (Scroll to the bottom) (Check your program for times on snacks).

~Peace!

(Oh, FYI, This entire contribution, not counting all the shipping contributors paid, is worth around $250 dollars! GO TEAM!)

Don't forget - Team Chat!

Hey Vegan Etsy Team Members! Don't forget that tomorrow will be our first ever official Vegan Etsy Team Chat! Check the thread on the boards (in Team Events) for details on where to find us and how to join. We want to have as many teammates involved as possible!

The goal will be to have a big monthly chat, and possibly smaller chats weekly or whenever a group of teamies can get together. Since we are such a very global team, and have a wide range of obligations as far as work and family life, we want to really mix it up as far as times of day and days of the week, so that as many of us as possible will have a chance to join in.

Personally I think tomorrow will get us off to a great start. Hope to "see" you there!

VET Current Events Update

There are two blog give-away contests currently being held by VET members:


Just For Fun Give Away By StarrlightJewerly
To view/enter this give-away, please click --> Here <-- Win a Hedgehog Pin Give-Away By vegancraftastic
To view/enter this give-away, please click --> Here <--
We also have two new great Team Treasuries!

so-many-beautiful-things-so-little-space by artbysusmitha
and
whats-vaaagan by DaisyWares

We Also now have a current Events Tab on the top tool bar of the blog, be sure to check there for member sales, give-aways and more.