What if you could start your day out with an excited shout instead of a frustrated sigh? Unfortunately, selling handmade goods online is no longer as simple as throwing together a product listing and waiting for sales to roll in. There are now millions of people with handmade products and they are all eager to build a sustainable income. The Handmade Entrepreneur uses precise methods based on proven marketing techniques to set you above the competition. It teaches you how to create a genuine business you can count on rather than a bundle of shop pages and social media accounts built on a foundation of guesswork. What You Can Expect to Learn from This Book: • How to take DIY pictures that get clicks and sales • How to set up a shop that turns visitors into buyers in under two seconds • How to price your items • How to write titles and descriptions • How to brand your business with DIY techniques • How to rank your pages • How to find targeted audiences • How to build up your list of followers • Where to promote your listings • How to sell without selling • How to form relationships with people who can send you extra sales • How to start a "buzz" about your products • Which tools to incorporate into your business The goal of this book is to free you from having to rely on any third-party website for your sales. Yes, you can take advantage of platforms like Etsy, and you should, but websites come and go, and if all your sales come only from that website, you run into trouble every time there are algorithm changes, a saturation of sellers, or cheaper products to compete with. You are trying to generate sales, which means that you are trying to run a business, which in-turn means that you need a real business plan. Brick and motor stores don't just buy a bunch of goods, throw them in a building, and hope people will come. They plan, study their target market, pick a perfect store location, and prepare to market themselves. Just because you sell online does not mean that you can skip all of these steps. You have billions of products to compete with online and a crowd of shoppers who have an overwhelming number of options before them. You must prepare your storefront, get your products ready, know your audience, and then know how to market to them. Optimizing Your Shop for Sales Dani starts out showing you how to prepare your products with photos that attract clicks and sales. It doesn't just tell you how to do it, though. It SHOWS you. Thanks to the help of many carefully selected Etsy sellers, there are many example photos for each point. In addition to this, the author only shows you DIY photos to prove that you can do it all on your own. Next, Dani discusses how to optimize your shop. She goes through every aspect such as banners, profiles, descriptions, tags, and titles. You will learn how to optimize your pages so that people stay there instead of leaving instantly. This can be done by creating an inviting environment with images and content that buyers can skim through in under two seconds. If buyers can determine that your page is worth staying on in less than two seconds, you have won the battle. Finding Targeted Audiences and Marketing The issue with selling online is finding people who would be interested in your products.

    You'll also learn about more than 130 plants that accept reduced light and moisture levels-long-blooming woodland gems like epimediums and hellebores, and even lush foliage plants like evergreen ferns and hardy gingers, shrubs, climbers, perennials, ground covers, bulbs, annuals, and perennials- there is an entire palette to help you transform challenging spaces into rich, rewarding gardens.

    Obama invites you inside the White House Kitchen Garden and shares its inspiring story, from the first planting to the latest harvest.  Hear about her worries as a novice gardener – would the new plants even grow? Learn about her struggles and her joys as lettuce, corn, tomatoes, collards and kale, sweet potatoes and rhubarb flourished in the freshly tilled soil.  Get an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at every season of the garden’s growth, with striking original photographs that bring its story to life.  Try the unique recipes created by White House chefs and made with ingredients just picked from the White House garden.  And learn from the White House Garden team about how you can help plant your own backyard, school or community garden.   Mrs. Obama’s journey continues across the nation as she shares the stories of other gardens that have moved and inspired her: Houston office workers who make the sidewalk bloom; a New York City School that created a scented garden for the visually impaired; a North Carolina garden that devotes its entire harvest to those in need; and other stories of communities that are transforming the lives and health of their citizens.   In American Grown, Mrs. Obama tells the story of the White House Kitchen Garden, celebrates the bounty of gardens across our nation, and reminds us all of what we can grow together.

    These great little trees take up less space, require less care, offer easy harvest, and make a fruitful addition to any home landscape.

    And with only one exception-watering-container gardening is a whole lot easier. Beginning with the down-to-earth basics of soil, sun and water, fertilizer, seeds and propagation, The Bountiful Container is an extraordinarily complete, plant-by-plant guide.Written by two seasoned container gardeners and writers, The Bountiful Container covers Vegetables-not just tomatoes (17 varieties) and peppers (19 varieties), butharicots verts, fava beans, Thumbelina carrots, Chioggia beets, and sugarsnap peas. Herbs, from basil to thyme, and including bay leaves, fennel, and saffron crocus. Edible Flowers, such as begonias, calendula, pansies, violets, and roses. And perhaps most surprising, Fruits, including apples, peaches, Meyer lemons, blueberries, currants, and figs-yes, even in the colder parts of the country. (Another benefit of container gardening: You can bring the less hardy perennials in over the winter.) There are theme gardens (an Italian cook's garden, a Four Seasons garden), lists of sources, and dozens of sidebars on everything from how to be a human honeybee to seeds that are All America Selections.

    This super collection features 366 more well-known songs arranged for ukulele from the 1950s through today, by artists such as Carole King, Elton John, the Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, the Beatles, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson and others, plus favorites from movies, Broadway, Motown and more! Just like the first Daily Ukulele book, all arrangements feature melody, lyrics and ukulele chord grids in uke-friendly keys. A special "Ukulele 101" section, a chord chart, and vintage ukulele-themed photos round out the fun. Tunes include: Ain't No Sunshine * Anticipation * Bubbly * Calendar Girl * Come Monday * Falling Slowly * Hallelujah * I Got You Babe * Lean on Me * Moondance * Route 66 * Sweet Caroline * We Are the World * Y.M.C.A. and scores more! The Daily Ukulele: Leap Year Edition offers ukulele fun all year long even on February 29th!

    They're planting tomatoes in raised beds, runner beans in small plots, and strawberries in containers. But there is one place that has, until now, been woefully neglected—the front yard. And there's good reason. The typical veggie garden, with its raised beds and plots, is not the most attractive type of garden, and favorite edible plants like tomatoes and cucumbers have a tendency to look a scraggily, even in their prime. But The Edible Front Yard isn't about the typical veggie garden, and author Ivette Soler is passionate about putting edibles up front and creating edible gardens with curb appeal. Soler offers step-by-step instructions for converting all or part of a lawn into an edible paradise; specific guidelines for selecting and planting the most attractive edible plants; and design advice and plans for the best placement and for combining edibles with ornamentals in pleasing ways. Inspiring and accessible, The Edible Front Yard is a one-stop resource for a front-and-center edible garden that is both beautiful and bountiful year-round.

    Now, Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose DeWolf offer clear, practical advice and concrete techniques to help you combat selfdefeating thinking and gain greater control of your life, work, and personal relationships. Arm yourself with this one right away.

    Why Not Grow Your Own?If you’ve ever considered raising your own tea, this comprehensive guide is the place to start. Growing Your Own Tea Garden is packed with inspiration and practical instructions for cultivating and enjoying delicious teas. Author Jodi Helmer helps you plan and plant a productive backyard tea garden, with sample garden designs and cultivation advice. She shows you how to choose the right crops for your soil and climate, starting with the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) and going on through a comprehensive survey of tisanes, or herbal teas. Discover how to grow the full range of herbal infusions that make wonderful teas, from flowering chamomile and lavender to chicory roots, rose hips, lemon verbena, peppermint, aromatic bergamot and more. Jodi shows you how to harvest, dry and store your tea to enjoy all year long, along with brewing tips and creative recipes. Inside Growing Your Own Tea Garden· Everything you need to know to create a healthy, bountiful tea garden and enjoy high quality tea· How to grow dozens of crops that make marvelous teas, herbal infusions and decoctions· Sample tea garden designs, including instructions for growing tea in container gardens and raised beds· Understanding the differences between black tea, green tea, white tea and herbal tea· How to dry and store your leaves for consumption on cool autumn days· Let it steep: how to brew the perfect cup of tea

    It's full of sage advice from a master architect about how to design the perfect house for you.Presented in twelve understandable lessons, this book moves from wonderful concepts to a finished dream home. Beginning with an exploration of the philosophy of design, the grammar of architecture, the creation of space, and discussions of how to make spaces be appropriate and gratifying for the people living in them, the lessons explore issues of scale, daylight, how to make a house feel like a home, unifying a design, flow, and proportions.This book answers questions like: How do I get started? How do I select a building site? What kind of house can I afford with my budget? How do I make my dream house just right for me?Other topics include: site analysis and selection, programming, schematic design, style, room relationships, budget, working with professionals, methods of contracting, and more.Numerous color photos and drawings illustrate the book's major points

    Each book contains profiles of specific herbs, cautions, contraindications, and easy-to-make recipes to relieve common ailments.

    The Backyard Berry Book provided all the information that backyard gardeners need to grow strawberries, rhubarb, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, lingonberries, currants, gooseberries, grapes, and kiwi fruit. Includes details on soil nutrition and testing; disease, pest, weed, and bird control; and trellis design. A trouble-shooting section and seasonal activity calendar will help ensure success.

    There’s nothing more local than an egg freshly laid right in your own yard. But what should you expect when you’re adopting a couple of day-old chicks? In Chick Days, Jenna Woginrich, award-winning author of Made from Scratch, the homesteading memoir for the twenty-something generation, offers a highly entertaining and informative photographic guide for today’s fledgling chick parent. Fun for the complete newbie and for families with young children, Chick Days chronicles the journey of three chickens from newly hatched fluffy butterballs to grown hens laying eggs. Day by day and week by week, readers watch the three starring chickens grow and change, learning about chicken behavior, feeding requirements, housing, hygiene, and health-care essentials, and fun facts on all things poultry. As Jenna herself says, “Chickens are more than 12-piece buckets, country diner kitsch, and egg whites. They’re your backyard ambassadors to healthier eating and basic husbandry. Keeping chickens is a crash course in local eating. When you start collecting eggs you’ll be eating so local you’ll know the amount of cracked corn in the feeder at ground zero of your breakfast . . . ” Jenna’s witty commentary is accompanied by the photography of Mars Vilaubi, who raised the three chickens himself, along with his wife and son. Their accompanying “chick diary” notes particular things this family learned and did along the way to make chicken raising fun. Presenting just the essential information in a highly visual and inviting format, Chick Days makes every stage of chicken life fun, entertaining, and, most of all, doable. It’s sure to give any chicken lover or wannabe owner the confidence and enthusiasm to join the flock!

    Author Ann Larkin Hansen sets the priorities for each area of the farm, including the barn, garden, orchard, field, pasture, and woodlot. For every critical turn of the year (12 in all), Hansen provides an at-a-glance to-do list along with tips and a more in-depth discussion of key topics for the season. Easy-reference charts, checklists, and record-keeping sections help you keep track of it all.

    It’s easy, and it’s fun! Authors Robert Gough and Cheryl Moore-Gough thoroughly explain every step in the seed-saving process. Descriptions of seed biology; tips on how to select plants for the best seeds; and advice on harvesting and cleaning, proper storage and care, and propagating and caring for new seedlings are all presented with clear, easy-to-follow instructions. Chapters dedicated to individual plants contain species-specific directions and detailed information. Gardeners of any experience level will find all the information they need to extend the life of their favorite plants to the next generation and beyond.