Serious Craft Blog

A few people told me the Etsy Mini Background Color Converter wasn't working for the new version of the Mini code, when using the third option listed on this page.

So I have since fixed the issues, and it should all be working dandy again. Here is the converter page again, if anyone needs it.

Oh dear. It looks like a dessert wasteland here. Where has hyperart gone? Is she dead?

No worries. All is well!

(She) I have been focusing much of my blogging energies over at my "domestic" blog, ThePoopers.com. Much has happened since 2009.

• My boyfriend became my fiance;
• our apartment became a house (a slight fixer upper);
• we had a crazy DIY wedding (told you I've been busy!);
• and my fiance became my husband.

Pretty exciting stuff, eh? The wedding and house-fixing were/are some good excuses to do some major crafting. Along with that and lots of other work (I'm a programmer by trade after all), there just hasn't been any time to focus on this Serious Craft stuff.

I want to come back here when the dust has settled--the dust from mowing down our kitchen, tearing apart our yard, etc. And hopefully bring in lots of fresh ideas. In the meantime, all my fresh ideas are over at ThePoopers.com. You should go check it out!

We all know that Google is the king of search and tracking of web content, along with a smorgasbord of other tools.

Did you know you can even use Google to keep track of your own business on the web? Let Google tell you what it knows about you and your business, as soon as it finds out!

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic."

You set up alerts based on your desired search keywords, the same way you would search on google.com. As soon as Google finds something new relevant to that keyword, it will email you of its findings. Or, you can choose to have daily or weekly alerts too. You can even choose to receive notices as a feed for your RSS reader, instead of email.

How handy! Now you'll always be the know whenever someone gives you some cred or rats on your back. Use it to keep track of happenings, specific news topics, shopaholism—so many uses. What was the world like without Google?

Just go here to get started: http://www.google.com/alerts

Did you know some vintage typewriters are actually affordable? Say hello to my Sears Tower Quiet Tabulator Manual Typewriter from the 1950s.

I was shocked that I didn't have to break the bank to get my hands on one of these cuties. I happened upon this gem at my local antique store, The Antique Barn. Tucked away at the bottom of a shelf full of knick knacks, this baby screamed my name and yearned to be taken home and loved.

Her real name is the Silent Super by Smith Corona - a popular typewriter manufacturer in the US of A around that time. This is the rebranded version by Sears. It comes with a CHARMING carrying hard case that can be repurposed as a travel case. That's like two deals in one! Oh, and ribbons are not hard to find online at all.

So what's the damage? Just a couple of Hamiltons ($10s). I'm serious! And I'm not even "good" at antique shopping.

Go visit your local antique shoppes! Now leave me alone so I can type my to-do lists, recipe cards, love notes, not-so-mental notes... I'll be bringing her to my wedding. ;)

There is a very handy add-on called "Autofill Forms" for the Firefox browser. It memorizes form fields so that you can autofill them the next time around. You can customize it for basically any webform that you regularly use, such as writing template email and posting duplicate listings on marketplaces like Artifre/Etsy/etc.

...especially for Etsy Batch Feedback. I value all my customers. The nature of my Etsy shop is that I go through a lot of small orders each month. So it is easy to get bogged down by routine sometimes, things like fulfilling buyer feedback get piled up before I know it. Thanks to Autofill Forms, I don't have to bash copy and paste for every feedback to my buyers. I have a great experience with most of my customers, so I have nothing but great feedback to give them.

Let's go through how to fill out and memorize the feedback form. Most operations will work the same way. It's very easy once you see how it works!

Get Firefox and Install Add-On

First things first, have the Firefox browser installed, and then go to the Autofill Forms page and install that plugin. Restart the browser.

Etsy's Batch Feedback Tool

Now go to the Feedback page on Etsy, and go to the Batch Feedback Tool page via the link under the "Items Awaiting Feedback" tab.

Fill out feedback for one customer. Then right click in a form field and choose "Add complete form as profile...."

A window will pop up with the plugin's settings. There may be a number of entries listed. REMOVE ALL of the ones that have blank Values, by highlighting the entries and clicking the "Remove" button on the bottom. You should have only two entries left (the top two entries remain in the example below).

Highlight the top entry that looks something like "Feedback_value[1234567]".

• Change the Name field by removing the numbers, so it looks like:

Feedback_value[xxx].

• Change the Field Rule field to exactly this, you can copy and paste this in (this means to apply the same rule for all field names that look like "Feedback_value[somenumbers0-9]"):

(?:^feedback_value\[[0-9]+\]$)

Now, highlight the bottom entry that looks like "Feedback_message[1234567]".

• Change the Name field by removing the numbers, so it looks like (this is just for your reference):

Feedback_message[xxx].

• Change the Value field to the precise feedback message you want. Avoid special characters aside from periods, commas, exclamations.
• Change the Field Rule field to exactly this (this means to apply the same rule for all field names that look like "Feedback_message[somenumbers0-9]"):

(?:^feedback_message\[[0-9]+\]$)

Lastly,

• Change the Site Rule field at the top to (this makes sure these rules only work for that feedback page):

(?:^http:\/\/www\.etsy\.com\/feedback_awaiting\.php)

• Click OK. You're done with setting it up.

Now here's where the magic happens! When you're at the Batch Feedback page, click ALT + J.

ALT + J!!!! You should see your form all filled in automatically with the feedback you've set. If there is one feedback you want changed or left blank, you can easily just change that one and move on.

It's just that easy. You can set Autofill Forms to work for you in similar ways with many other kinds of forms. Typically the settings will fill out for you automatically and you won't have to mess with it. But for this Etsy one, we have to make sure it'll work for all feedback fields now and for the future. This plugin is also great for things like posting new listings on Artfire or writing generic emails ("Hello, Can I have info for a wedding reception at this venue for 100 people in May?").

I hope this helps! Feel free to comment if you have any questions or issues.

Now I know there's already an #!etsyhack for batch feedback, but Autofill Forms has more uses than just this. Plus, in the #!etsyhack...hack, if you want to skip or customize one feedback, you can't unless you go back to the old way of filling out all the feedback individually. With Autofill, you just have to erase/replace the one feedback input you need after you autofill it.