The D.A.D. Project

Two sisters, Emily and Serena, operate an online fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society. As a member of the Capital Crafters Team on Etsy, I contributed an item of mine to this fund raiser. Serena's work is here.

About

Welcome to The D.A.D. (Drawing A Day) Project - an ongoing, online, art-based fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society, the largest national charitable funder of cancer research in Canada.

We are two sisters, Emily and Serena. Our father was diagnosed in May 2009 with metastatic stage 4 colon cancer in his lungs and liver. After a courageous year-and-a-half battle, he passed away in early October 2010.

One of the toughest things we faced when our Dad was sick was this overwhelming feeling of helplessness. As we are both illustrators, we launched The D.A.D. Project in June 2010 as a creative effort to give back to an organization that helped our father, and that helps so many others who are fighting cancer.

We are continuing this project as a tribute to our Dad whom we miss everyday.

Every weekday, we will take turns posting a new piece of artwork, which will be put up for sale as giclee prints here in our shop. Ten dollars ($10 CAD) from every print sold will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society, the largest national charitable funder of cancer research in Canada.

We will also invite other artists to participate by donating a piece of their artwork to our shop; we aim to make this a weekly feature.

***It's a win-win-win situation!***
If you like and decide to purchase something from our shop, you will be contributing to a great cause; and, of course, you’ll get something to hang on your wall!

We will collect funds as we go and make quarterly donations to the CCS. The other money we collect will cover administrative fees, such as: etsy and paypal fees, giclée printing, web domain and programming, and so on.

As an added bonus for us, we get to work on a creative project together, with a purpose that’s obviously very close to our hearts.

Blog: http://www.theDADproject.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/theDADproject
CCS Team Page: http://convio.cancer.ca/goto/dad

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And below is an example of Emily's work.


And here I am shown with Emily as she holds the hat stand or wig stand I donated to her online store.

See http://www.etsy.com/people/theDADproject# for more examples of Emily's work and that of her sister.

August Sales take off.

I opened my Etsy Shop on March 2nd. By July 31st I had made 12 sales, most of which were vintage items. I made very few sales of my baskets.

Then came August where I made nine (9) sales, seven of which were actual baskets.

The photos here show the result of the learnings I made with these August sales. They show the vintage cat basket I refurbished being readied to ship to a purchaser from California. It cost almost $80.00 Can to ship this, even though it weighed less than three (3) kg.

At the beginning of August, I had raised my prices a little and offered "free shipping" in Canada and the US. The early August sales showed me this was not a smart business move. Shipping costs came very close to equalling the total $US I received from these sales. After shipping them, I spent a half day revising my prices by adding in shipping costs to Canada and the US in $5.00 increments. Lower priced items had a shipping cost of $5.00. As prices increased, I increased shipping costs to $10.00, $15.00 and $20.00.

On August 21st, an article I wrote was published in the Etsy Storque magazine. Over that weekend I received five more orders, including that for the cat basket. The $20.00 US shipping cost I estimated proved to be way too low, as did other shipping cost estimates. I filled the orders and then spent that Monday morning revising both prices and shipping costs. Prices were increased for almost all items, and so were shipping costs. I tried to ensure that the ratio between price and shipping cost was 3 to 0ne at worst and 4 or 5 to one at best.

I then took part in the Capital Crafters Back to School for the last week of August. There I offered a refund of 15% of the selling price for purchases made in that week. I sold two baskets during that sale to one customer. The two items fitted nicely into one parcel. And its shipping costs matched the costs I had estimated for the larger item. So I was able to refund the buyer her 15% as well as the shipping fee on the second item. That was a good way to end the month.

I hope this last sale in indicative of better sales in the future.

Capital Crafters Sale: 15% of at my Etsy shop

As one of the participants in the Capital Crafters Back-to-School Sale, I am offering 15% off any and all items in my shop via a PayPal refund. What this means is the for a $49.00 Rib Basket, a $7.35 refund would be made, with a net price before shipping of $41.65. For a Sewing Basket at $65.00 the net price before shipping would be $55.25 with a refund of $9.75. For the Cruet set from my vintage collection, the price of $449.00 would be reduced to a net of $381.65 before shipping with a refund of $67.35.

This offer is valid until midnight on August 31st. Act now to save.

Capital Crafters Back to School Sale.

20% off sock monkeys and 10% off other items at BabyBundleBoutique

10% off and Free Shipping at RadicallyRiley


20% off all items in the Dame's Yarn Fun Emporium

15% off all items in Wendance Designs


15% off all items in John Toft Basketry


20% off all items in Handmade Fun by a Dame Named Redd


20% off all items in Little Studio Photography and Jewellery


There are more shops joining in each day, check back often to get updates!