A Touch of Twilight Controversy

(Above) Kristen, left, wearing the Lucrezia necklace, and Britten Johnson, right, wearing the Jessica necklace. Both wonderful ladies wore my creations to the Twilight Vampire Ball in Georgia this past winter!

A while back (at least 3 months ago or so), I began tagging some items in my shop with the search term "Twilight". Since then, I've met some really wonderful customers, incuding Britten, currently the Featured Customer. You'll see some photos of this lovely lady above and to the right, from when she attended the Twilight Vampire Ball.

Since then, apparently times have a-changed on Etsy.

This evening I received a note from content @ Etsy. Summing it up, I have been asked to remove all tags of "twilight" on my jewelry creations unless they pertain directly to the series, or are directly related to the time of day termed twilight.

I am really disappointed, but I have since removed the tags.
While I don't know who flagged my shop, and will likely never know who or why, I am not willing to risk losing one of the stongest venues for my jewelrycraft over someone else's bad day. Rather, I will continue to include in my item descriptions a simple suggestion that the jewelry would be great to wear to one's next Twilight party or ball.

I really hope to continue seeing fans of Twilight visit my shop. I am still just a noob to the series, and have yet to read the book or see the movie myself, but the thought has crossed my mind to send a gift to Stephanie Meyer or her fan club's president , in appreciation of her work.

In the meantime.... at least Artfire has not treated me this way. My Artfire shop still awaits its first customer, but hopefully that will change in due course.

Thank you, all of you, who appreciate my work - Twilight fans, or just fans of pretty shiny things in general.

If you'd like to continue following my shops, you can find me at:

http://archeress.etsy.com

and

http://archeress.artfire.com


I don't have Twitter, but I do have a FaceBook fan page.
You can find it at the link below.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Colchester-CT/Archeress-Arts/38430232262

Thanks!


UPDATE: 6/13/09, 9:00PM EST
Tim from Etsy's Content Team has given me the go ahead to mention in the description that the necklace would be perfect to wear to Twilight parties.
(I'll still miss out on the advertising angle, but at least the description can point this out to potential customers!)

Home Sweet Home!

We did it! We're finally moved in... now to get unpacked. ;)

All shops are open and ready to go, considering I marked all the boxes with my inventory and have them in easily accessible places. Right now, I am only selling from stock - I have some partially finished pieces from before the move, however, I'd prefer to move existing inventory before I make new stuff, and am on a bit of a time schedule for other projects as we unpack here.

So... with that, I am offering FREE FIRST CLASS SHIPPING on *all* my items once again, until we're settled in. Please help me keep my new house nice and clean, and purchase a little something for your next event.

(And hopefully, when the new place is set up, I'll be able to provide a shot of my new work area, if you're curious).