Nicole Alderman

Here's some really good resources on this subject: Promoting Your Stuff on Permies for FREE! and advertising for free (and not-free) on permies.com. Even if you're not trying to advertise anything, they help explain how to not be spammy. Here's some quotes:

How to avoid looking like a spammer:

Make one thread about your service/product/event. Make this thread look nice and professional using formatting tags, and post replies, updates, new pictures, etc to that thread. Multiple threads saying the same thing look spammy.

Add your one thread to multiple forums by using PIE &/or Thread Boost. This allows your thread to show up in multiple forums.

Make your thread a wiki. This allows you to edit whenever you like to add new pictures or update information. You can make a post a wiki through the "wiki" tab when you compose or edit your post. The "wiki" tab is next to the attachments tab where you add pictures.

Refrain from posting about your product/event/service on other people's threads unless it makes sense. If you make a lot of posts about your service on other people's threads, especially in a row, we will assume you are a spammer and your posts will be deleted. Add your link to your signature, and post only about your service/product/event when it is very relevant and helpful to the conversation.

and:

In order to be useful, your content should be:
Relevant to permaculture or homesteading;
Accurate and complete; and
In English (just like Permies posts).

Notice the "Make one thread about your service/product/event." You're more likely to get clicks on one longer thread with multiple posts, than multiple different threads that have no replies. Every time you reply to your thread, it bumps it up in the "Recent Topics" so more people see it. And, the more people see one thread, the more likely it is that they'll get curious and click on it. If they go to "Recent Topics" and see a ton of threads that are all pretty similar, all made by one person, people will view it and spam. They might also just leave permies because it looks spammy--that hurts permies, so we have to take action.

r ransom wrote:There seem to be two origins of goose feathers for sale on Etsy.  One is from harvesting the goose (aka, leftover from killing for food) and the other is from moulting.  Mine would be from gathering up the feathers as they naturally fall off the goose in the summer.

I feel there's an advantage to this from the customer point of view.  I'm trying to think of words that a customer would search for.
Ethical, moulting, natural, ...?

There's definitely an advantage to them being "cruelty free." When I was teaching my lesson about making feather dusters and mentioned that the feathers came from my ducks and chickens and geese, I watched one of the moms  of my students make the saddest face. Then I continued saying that they were ones that I'd picked up in the yard as my birds shed them. Her face perked up with the biggest smile, and she said something like, "Oh, I love that!"

For selling feathers verbiage, maybe something like "cruelty-free feathers naturally shed by my flock of geese."

I ended up washing a BUNCH of feathers a few weeks ago. I was teaching my history class about cleaning during the Renaissance and thought it'd be fun for them to make their own feather dusters (some used the spare branches to make brooms, too!).

To wash the feathers, decided to go with a diluted solution of apple cider vinegar. I didn't want anything too alkaline, and I didn't want to strip the preening oil off the feathers. I figured if my ducks took baths in apple cider water when sick, then it should be good for their feathers. Here's my process:

Fill a bowl with warm water and a glug of apple cider vinegar. I did this in the sink!

Add a few handfuls of feathers at a time to soak in the solution.

Pick up a feather and gently swipe my fingers down each feather in the vinegar water to get off any grime or poop. always swiping from the base to the tips, and out from the spine of the feathers to the edge. I tried to pretend I was a duck preening.

Rinse the feather in warm water

Lay the feather on a towel. (Once a towel was covered with feathers, I put a new dish towel on top to add another row of feathers. This was only because I ran out of space, though. Thankfully, none of the feathers ended up deformed by the weight of dishtowels.)

This did a great job of removing what little bits of poop were on some of the feathers, and none of the feathers ended up looking dry or clumpy!


(Making feather dusters is quite easy that even 7 year olds were making them on their own! Here's info on how to make your own feather duster. The brooms use the same process, just with sticks or straw instead of feathers--my 10-12 year old students were making those independently. Here's a tutorial on making brooms)

Thank you! I'm usually too terrified to paint things I've drawn, for fear of ruining them. But, I tried to keep a feeling of "This is for fun, it doesn't matter how it looks." I think, when A.I. can be so good at certain styles, it sort of frees us to just create because at least we're human. If it looks too good, it looks like A.I.!

Tereza Okava wrote:

Nicole Alderman wrote:Do you have a rotary cutter, a fabric mat, and clear rulers?

I have a cutter, but none of the rest of the goodies (like the sharpener???

They make a sharpener for those?! I think I need to put that on my Christmas list. Mine has one spot that is dull, so I usually have to manually snip the uncut bit with scissors.

Tereza Okava wrote:Nice rugs there Christopher!!

Christopher Weeks wrote:I cut them into strips,

Any suggestions on how to do this less painfully? I had a sofa delivered a few months ago and it came in a giant fabric sock, for lack of a better word. It's crap fabric (certainly polyish) but i'll be dagnabbed if I'm going to landfill it. But just thinking about cutting this monster (the size of my car) into strips has me on the floor in a puddle. Of course, it's knit jersey and doesn't tear (that would be too easy). Every so often I put on an audiobook and give it an hour but, damn. And I can use scissors with both hands, so I switch off.

I was going to suggest tearing. I've ripped up a bunch of old t-shirts that way. I just cut little notches at the base of the shirt, however many inches wide as I want the strips, and then *rip* the shirt to the top. It looks like you're saying that it doesn't rip, so that's a huge bummer.

Do you have a rotary cutter, a fabric mat, and clear rulers? That's how my mom would cut all her quilting fabric. Line the clear ruler on top of the fabric at the width you want it, and put the rotary cutter next to it. Then, slide the rotary cutter next to the ruler until you come to the end of the ruler. Then move the ruler the next distance and repeat. It's faster than cutting with scissors, at least!

I'm a bit lost. Could there be a translation for those of us who don't know the tool colors/brands well enough to follow the discussion. I'd like to know the pros and cons of each brand to inform my own purchasing. We always had John Deere (green) tractors growing up, and my dad used Sthil chainsaws (orange), and I see him with both DeWalt (yellow) and Milwaukie (red) tools.  

Blue = Kobalt (at least that makes sense. Cobalt is a blue pigment)
Blue= Bosc (it's a dark blue with red lettering)
Teal-ish Blue = Makita
Green = John Deere, right? They just make tractors and lawn mowers, so maybe this isn't right. Hitachi
Yellow/Green: Ryobi
Yellow = DeWalt?
Orange = Ridgid (Home Depots house brand)
Red = Milwaukie (they have stuff labeled FUEL)

EDIT: I'm going to try to update this when new info comes forward.



From this article:

Folks in the field commonly think their favorite tool brand beats everyone else, and they refer to it by color. For example:

Yellow = DeWalt
Red = Milwaukee
Teal = Makita
Orange = Ridgid
Blue = Bosch
However, things get a bit murkier when it comes to multiple tool manufacturers using similar colors. Take Red for instance. It really depends on what tools Pros use. Instead of Milwaukee, those using framing nailers or staplers might think about SENCO. For rotary hammers or demo hammers, Hilti comes to mind.

Having attended a number of manufacturers’ tool events, the product managers and marketing folks also refer to the competition by color.

I'd like to say Mod Podge is made from PVA/Elmer's glue. But, I'm not sure. Let's look it up!

*Returns from googling Mod Podge* The results I'm seeing say it is basically watered down PVA/Elmer's/plastic glue, maybe with some sort of proprietary resin or something added to it.

A lot of my friend have been having A.I. generate caricatures of themselves. I prefer not to give out my information in that way, and I thought it'd be fun to throw caution to the wind and make my own! It's kind of fun to just not care about how good the perspective is or how perfect the lines are. Just have fun doodling things you like!

The sketch I made took 30 minutes, and I probably spent about an hour painting it. You don't need to be this fancy. Draw a stick figure of yourself and some stuff you like! Color it or don't--it doesn't matter!

I think the key is to just have fun thinking about what's important to you. I tried to make mine a caricature...but I'm not good at caricatures. But, I don't think that matters. What matters is taking some time to reflect on what's important in your life.

I tossed caution to the wind, pulled out my hand-made watercolors, and painted my caricature! I really enjoyed painting my shirt (and other details) with the cochineal lake paint I made. It's so pretty!