CREATING TREASURIES MARILYN'S WAY

I know what you are thinking, here we go with another treasury tutorial, like we don’t have enough of them.  Well, I still seem to be getting enough questions about the subject that I felt maybe some of us could use a few guidelines to go by.

If you’ve made many treasuries and you’ve gotten advice from others’ then you’ve found that there is no ONE way to make them. So what I am going to do here is show you my method.  I like how I do them because for me it is organized,  I have a record,  and I’ve got it down to the fewest clicks possible.  If I can cut down one click,  or that is cut down one job, then I feel that I have eased my load.  For ease of following,  I am going to put this in a numbered step by step format.

1.      The first thing I do is think about a theme, color scheme,  focal piece,  etc.

Ø  Often I have to start looking thru shops to come up with this, sometimes I’ve saved something from a previous search

Ø  While doing your normal activities and you come across something you really like you might want to start a file for these and store them there until you are ready to use them

2.      Once I  am ready with my theme and/or color scheme, I begin my search for the rest of my items

Ø  Since I heart or favorite things all the time I have many things in my favorites, so I can go and work from there

Ø  Sometimes I choose to do a treasury using only items from one of my teams

Ø  If I am working with one of my teams all I need to do is work from the Members page of the team

3.      Now to get started, you probably have Word for a word processor if your computer has Windows, so open a new document

4.      You might want to start your list by putting your focal, or theme item in this position

5.      If you are working with just one team, then go to the team and click on the members page, start at the top and click on the first shop listed.

6.      I like to go through a couple of pages of that shop unless the item I want shows up right away. Sometimes I can see immediately upon arriving at the shop that the shop just doesn’t have what I am using in this treasury and I move on.

7.      To go to the next shop, go up to the back arrow, click on it and on the drop down menu, click on” Members So and So” Team, that will take you back to where you left off and you can choose the next team on the list to peruse.

8.       When you find your next item for your treasury copy it and take it back to your list and paste it there. Continue this process until you have all the items that you will need for your treasury.

9.      There are only 16 spots in the treasury, however, I always collect at least 20 items. I know that not all of the items are going to “work” when I enter them into the treasury, so I want to have some extras already picked out.

10.   Once I have my treasury list complete, then I click on the Etsy sign on the top left side of the front page of my Shop. That takes me to Etsy’s front page. There I scan down to the bottom and on the lower left hand side there is a list of options to choose called Ways To Shop,  and one of them is Treasury. Click on that.

11.   When you arrive at the Treasury page you look to the right side where you are given two options,  Create a List, or Your Treasury List.

12.   Left click on Create a List

13.   When this work page opens the first thing I like to do is click on the Privacy Option: You have an option Everyone or Just You. While I am working on it I like for it to be seen only by me so I click on Just You.

14.   If I already have a name for my treasury I type it in, if not I type anything there, because the computer will not let you Save if you don’t have a Title.

15.   Now I am ready to start transferring my saved items from my Word Document into my treasury,  a simple copy and paste process. You will find as I mentioned earlier, there will probably be some items that don’t look right and you will be glad you collected a few extra.

16.   If you need to leave the treasury page for some reason be certain to Save first, and here is a little catch. The computer will not allow you to Save unless you have 4 items entered and have a title, so see to those first, if you leave without saving,  your work will be lost. If you accidentally do that you will be glad you made your list to a document first. Because if you prefer you can always take your items straight to the treasury instead of storing them in a document. But I find the document gives you the ability to walk away from your work and come back later without losing anything.

17.   Once you have the items you like all listed, you can drag and drop where you want the items to be.

18.   You have 18 tags to use, that is enough to use a tag for each item,  I then use my team tags for the other two.

19.   You are all finished but for one thing.  If you haven’t put a theme in yet, this is the time to do it. Also, you need to change the privacy setting to Everyone. Look it over, if you are satisfied, then hit Save and you are almost done.

20.   It is now time to announce to the shops you have used their item, and this is how to do it.

21.   Go up to the address line and copy the link for the treasury.

22.   Left Click on the first item, it will take you to the shop, after arriving, scroll down a little to find the CONTACT button, click on it (left). A convo box will open for you.

23.   The item you used will already be listed there.

Ø  Write a little message, such as I have used your item in my treasury……

Ø  Paste the link for the treasury,  say whatever you might like, before you send it, copy the message, don’t include the item info

Ø  Now that you have the entire message you will have that ready for each memo after

That

Now go to the back arrow and RIGHT CLICK on the name of your treasury. When you get there go to the 2^nd item and repeat the process until you have done all 16.

It is a good idea to get as much exposure for your treasury as you can, so..take it around to all of your teams and post it there, you can take it to Twitter and Facebook and any of the other Social Medias.  You don’t have to stop at once, maybe after a day or two, do it again. Also, be certain to click on the items, that gets them into the activity feed. The treasury is a powerful sales tool so let’s use it to the full