What to get the maker? TEST has you covered.

DIY Kits & Supplies 

Ever found yourself stuck for a gift idea for the maker in your life? That person who always has the perfect, handmade gift, just for you? Changes are, she or he is a fan of fellow makers and would love a beautiful, handcrafted kit to try something new. Plus, you cannot go wrong giving them more supplies (there is never too much craft supplies)! Well, the Toronto Etsy Street Team has you covered. Check out our  TEST Gifts for the Crafty! You'll find kits, tools, supplies, patterns and more. Everything from hand-spun yarn, to origami paper, to bookbinding kits, beads, washi tape, stamps and sculpting tools.

Pinning for Etsy Sellers: Tips for gaining Pinterest Followers

T.E.S.T.'s own Michelle of  Kiriki Press has found that Pinterest a useful tool for running and promoting her modern, handcrafted embroidery kit business. She's managed to gain thousands of followers over the last half year, without spending much time daily, and has found Pinterest helps drive traffic to her Etsy shop.

Hi everyone! So I just reached 10,000 Pinterest followers (from 200 last summer). I know 10,000 isn't a ton compared to many other pinners, but I thought I'd share what I did to get to 10,000 because I've noticed that a lot of my Etsy traffic and sales are coming from Pinterest these days:

Barn Owl DIY Embroidery Kit by Kirikipress on Etsy

•  Only pin large, good quality images - (images with a vertical orientation look the best)
•  Link any images of your work directly to your online shop. I have a separate board for my own work.
• I've been extremely selective with which pinners and boards I follow. Don't follow people just because they follow you. This will clutter your feed with pins you don't care about repinning.
• I have one board that I have put the effort into building up, Pattern Inspiration, which has over 2000 pins and makes up about 90% of my followers. Through this board I have had hundreds of repins on my personal work board, which only has a few dozen pins that were pinned months ago and no one would have seen otherwise.
  
• Choose cover photos for all of your boards that spark an interest for what's inside as well as work well together compositionally as a whole.
• Have other boards related to your specific craft. Other popular boards of mine focus on illustration, DIY crafts and needlework.
• I only spend 15-20 minutes all together throughout the day looking at my feed and repinning (I post 10-20 pins a day on average)
• Sometimes an image just isn't greatest quality or doesn't really fit in anywhere, but you still want to keep it as reference... I pin these to a "hidden" board that only I can see.



Tabby Cat DIY Embroidery Kit by Kirikipress on Etsy

• Pinterest is an amazing survey of what the market wants. I chose to focus on building up my pattern board so that I could instantly tell which designs/colours/motifs are currently the most popular based on which pins get repinned the most (final conclusion: yup, it's cats).
• Above all, your Pinterest should be your personal inspiration board. Only pin things that you find interesting or beautiful. I've had tons of new ideas for projects since I started using it.