What to give to the Etsy Artist who has everything and can make anything?

A website!

(Sample pages of website styles, featuring my own work as stand-in)

I have the pleasure of introducing the most awesome program in the world (healthy amounts of justified marital bias here) to the blogging world.

Blogging world, meet Artuit!
Artuit, meet your future fans!

My husband, the architect and web developer behind my own website,
ALittleCharacter.com
has just launched Artuit, the Artist's Website Creation Tool!

http://Artuit.com
http://Artuit.etsy.com


Artuit lets Artists create their own website, easily (can NOT stress that enough)
It automatically imports all your Etsy store information, photos, tags, categories, profile information everything, but allows you to go further than the limitations of an Etsy store.
Five photo Etsy limit?

Ha! DOUBLE HA I say!

Artuit has no limits on how many photos you can add for your items, as some of you who've visited my website have seen. I personally can't show enough photos of a character I've made, if it takes 50 photos to introduce the world to a hippo I made, then Artuit lets me do it!

(This is the edit page of Artuit, showing my own work as example. You can add photos, text, tags, item name, price, special tags, search your categories... ALL KINDS OF STUFF, here!)

Artuit connects your new personalized website to your Etsy store so that customers are redirected back to Etsy to complete a purchase when they click buy. It automatically updates your website to show an item as sold when it sells.

(This is the ORGANIZE page in Artuit. It allows you to decide in what order items are on your site, by double clicking an item you can then further arrange the order of it's photos to your liking! my favvvvorite part of this organize feature, if you have a lot of items, there is a work area to the right. You drag your items or photos there temporarily while you decide where to put them.)

Everything that I, as an artist, wanted and needed in an easy to update website, my husband has created and turned into a tool that EVERYONE can use.

Including a FREE trial version! Artuit is already available now for the public to use, including a generous free trial option that lets the user play around with all the features, but limits their items they can add to their site to just 10.

There are ready made "Styles" that users can personalize with their own photos, text as well as choosing background colors that compliments THEIR work. Switch styles to suit your changing mood and art! I LOVE THIS! I love the flexibility of getting to change my website's colors to suit my mood, of even changing the entire website's look. You could switch "Styles" a zillion times a day if that was your preference, or snuggle up with one you fall in love with and feel it out for a few months, picking the absolute perfect shade of vintage green to accentuate your artwork..... *sigh*

(This is the Setup page in Artuit, the section where you decide on what Style you'd like, where you can pick background colors etc.)

I love freedom, in everything. I love not being stuck with limitations. I can update the text on any of my pages in seconds, I can switch out my profile photo faster than I can take a new picture! Artuit lets me put as many tags on my art as I want. If I think a customer might search for pink polka dotted invisible giraffe hats, then I can tag my pink polka dotted invisible giraffe hats accordingly!

Feeling really creative?
There's a Custom option Alan, my husband aka web site designer, has included for customers who, like me, want a completely unique look just for themselves.
A professional-quality, custom-made portfolio web site can cost thousands of dollars with monthly management costs as high as $50 per month. But now, Artuit makes it possible to offer custom designs for just $250 with monthly costs as low as $23.
It's possible, all because while building this program that was initially for MEEEEEEeeeeeEEEeeeeEEEe (yay), we've refined the process for converting anyone's artwork into a custom style.
We've already developed the software needed for creating and updating your site. All of which means it now costs very little for anyone with an Etsy store to have a custom website, designed by themselves, that they can update on their own, easily.
You can design your website out of paper, glue and sparkles, knit your buttons, sculpt your page, sew your website design and the developer of Artuit can convert it into a working website!!!! You can scan it, photo it or mail your website deisgn to Artuit and before you know it you've got a website that really and truly compliments YOUR artwork!

There are even ways to earn a FREE custom website design through referral credits! http://artuit.com/refer.html SEE! I told you this was awesome!


I could go on and on and on, and probably will in the future but I am just so excited that I had to share the good news.

There are already 4 Styles available to play with, these are the templates that allow the user to have a website in moments!
(Playing with the styles is addictive, I keep changing the colors of backgrounds...today I feel mellow yellow but then atomic purple...no wait pastel pink...no wait....LIME green! There's no end and there doesn't have to be!)

We are bursting at the seams with a million and a half new ideas for more. Again, combining our two talents and preferences.
But for now the 4 templates available allow new users to quickly get familiar with Artuit and see their art showcased in different styles. And as new styles are added Artuit users are free to play with them!

The easiest way to learn about Artuit is to TRY IT! Check it out!
www.Artuit.com

So, all that said if you're looking for the perfect gift for someone, whether for the holidays or birthday or that Valentines gift you still didn't get...yikes..... how about something really original, something you can order from the comfort of your home... Artuit!

Give the Etsy Artist in your life a gift they really won't be expecting this Christmas.....give them a website!

Artificial Intelligence

Does the middle piece of your 3 part artificial Christmas tree piss you off as much as mine does me? Being all holier than thou, thinking it's the glue that holds my holiday fun together.... I tell you, after the first few years of fake tree bliss the honey moon period wears off and that middle tree piece just becomes annoying.
You start to notice things, like how it's so much more smug than the top and bottom pieces, how it acts superior every Christmas you haul it out and place it on the bottom piece, crowning it with the wee top. It acts like it invented Christmas and that I should give it more ornaments because it's easier to reach than the top and bottom.
Fret no more, your free loading, hate fueled by fake fir, middle tree piece days are OVER.
Say goodbye...to the jam in a tree sandwich, where in the top and bottom pieces are the bread and the middle is the jam and what I'm saying is you don't NEED THE JAM.
Hear that sound?
The sound of boo-hooing from the garage where the middle piece lays abandoned on the cold cement floor? Well ignore those tears, they're as fake as the whole tree.
I give to you, the world at large or at least the percent that uses the internet and wanders into my neck of the virtual woods..... the NEW look for your same artificial tree. If your tree doesn't have 3 pieces....well.......look on the bright side, no smug, superiority complex pieces for you to deal with.
I've been kicking around this idea for a while, sometimes hearing it rattle back to the forefront of my mind, squeezing it's way between clay character ideas, thoughts about coffee and world domination. (Ignore that last one, it's rather un-holiday-esque to admit to things like wanting world domination instead of peace)
This year my idea become a reality!
We left out the aforementioned and verbally bashed middle section of the tree. We did need to do a little creative finagling because the top piece didn't actually connect to the bottom piece all stable and perfect like. (It's as if the artificial tree craftsman don't WANT you to play with your tree like it's a really scratchy set of building blocks)
Not wanting to deal with yelling "Timber" if the top piece fell off, we found a sturdy bit of cardboard tube we'd saved, because of course we save cardboard tubes. It's an unwritten rule of life. Every one saves cardboard tubes and makes fun of each other behind their backs. This is one of those reaaaaaaaalllly sturdy sort, ultra thick. We cut a piece that fit over the bottom section of tree pipe..er...trunk...and also over the trunk of the top piece. It needed a little stuffing of tissue paper to create a perfect tight fit, but Voila! My new tree jam!
Since the cardboard tube wasn't working for me, decoratively speaking, I took a piece of artificial garland and wrapped around it.
Now you can't even tell anything is different! You can applaud if you want, I'd clap too if I weren't busy typing.
Fluff your tree as usual, connect the lights and go on about your holiday making with a brand new look for your same ol' fake tree!
I LOVE this look! We set our tree up on a stand we have in the living room to provide some of the height lost because we left the snooty middle piece out. The NEW tree look is more natural, less perfectly pruned and conical, more like the kind of Christmas tree you find in the wild. I like wild. I like my tree and maybe some year when I'm ready for a taller more traditional shaped tree maybe I'll even like my middle piece again. Maybe.