Anyone know about setting up individual crafter's website?

[Tansy_Gold]

I've been a crafter for a very long time, doing anywhere from two to six shows a year on a more or less part-time basis. Since my husband's death in 2005, I've been working on turning this part-time crafting to a more full-time and more remunerative proposition.

I do a variety of crafts, from lapidary and jewelry (mostly wire-wrapping my own stones) to woodturning to quilting. I've done well at local shows, and since I'm in an area (Phoenix metro) that has a lot of winter visitors from other parts of the country, I get a lot of requests from people who would like to take a sample home to show friends and then buy on the internet.

I have purchased a domain name, have a PayPal account and so on, but do not know much about the website design aspect. About two years ago I did a website package deal -- hosting, pre-designed page templates -- but didn't like the result and discontinued it after a year.

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This is a hasty scan, not a good photo, of one of my recent jewelry pieces. Most of the stones I use are ones I've found myself out in the desert: I find, cut, polish, and wrap them myself.

Any help will be appreciated.


Tansy Gold

[displacedtexan]

1. Beautiful work!

Why don't you post this in Computer Help and Supportforum and
in the Bloggers Group forum?

Surely, there are web-savvy DUers who can help you set up
your website.

Meanwhile, here
and here are
some site links from DC's City Paper classified ads section.

Good luck with your biz!

[Nite Owl]

2. Have you seen this website?

www.etsy.com

You can set up a 'store' there. It might be a start until you can set up your own site. Some one in another thread here mentioned it. I'll see if I can find it the thread.

Here it is:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=390x320

The jewelry is beautiful.

Sorry to hear about your loss. I lost my husband too about 10yrs ago. I hope you are doing ok, the crafts at least can help ease your thoughts at times, it does for me anyway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. If you can afford it buy a copy of Dream weaver

that is the top of the line program

Now I have taught myself quite a bit of this since I do code my own website and it is not as hard as it looks once you get going

OTOH, you may want to get a package from a pro... they are not cheap, but you also need to keep looking at it and pressing throughout the process. It helps to sketch what you would like it to look like and you must make sure that the package includes an abilty for you to modify the site

By the way my service provider is pretty good, though I did the site myself

The service provider is Cedant.com


Oh and whatever you do... a css, cascading style sheet, is the way to go

[Tansy_Gold]

4. Thanks for the info

I had looked at a couple of hosting packages but didn't really like any of them. I'll check out yours.

Will also look into the possible purchase of software. I think I have a "trial" version of DreamWeaver that came with "Web Design for Dummies." I never took it out of the package, however.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That will be good for 30 days

and I should have a couple places where you can learn the tricks in my book mark

Firs ttings first, plan the website by hand, as in map it