Creating an Exceptional Etsy Treasury
23. Feb, 2012 
11 Comments
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Creating an Exceptional Treasury
Nicole Joy of Etsy Treasury Hunter and Ginger Gypsy Design
Treasuries are a fantastic tool for expressing your creativity, networking with other designers and building an audience for your shop. By creating a beautiful, thought provoking or striking treasury, you receive almost as much reward as you provide the shops you choose to feature. An exceptional treasury brings attention to both the shops spotlighted and the curator, it develops an outlet of expression and draws attention to both you and your brand.
But how do you create a treasury that will turn heads? There are nine basic guidelines to creating a striking treasury, and this article will examine each to help you develop a treasury that is a functioning work of art.
Choose a theme or color scheme
Before starting your treasury, decide what your focus will be. Are you inspired by an item? Build the treasury around it! Feeling sad, silly, or frisky? Use that to your advantage!
A successful treasury has structure. The viewer of the treasury should be able to discover the theme, mood, or hue at a glance. This creates curiosity. It will be natural for him or her to take a closer look at each item, processing how it complements the motif.
Choosing a color or theme also gives you a focus when deciding what items you wish to include.
Variety is best
Unless your treasury is focusing on a specific type of item, say, felted flowers or bridal hairpieces, choosing a variety of items is paramount to creating a treasury that draws notice.
Showcase an array of items that complement your theme; jewelry, clothing, paper-goods, housewares, vintage, etc. This allows the treasury to appeal to more viewers. One person may enjoy finding vintage items, while another may be drawn to handmade goods.
A treasury that touches on many Etsy categories is also visually stimulating. Each item has its own unique texture and appearance. Finding how each piece fits together is half the fun!
Showcase a diversity of shops
Related to the tip above, exhibiting numerous shops is crucial to creating a successful treasury. Etsy instructions explicitly mention that a shop be featured only once per treasury. If a treasury contains a shop more than once, it may appear that the treasury is favoring one shop over others. Beyond following Etsy guidelines, is assures that your treasury is fresh, appealing and diverse.
Appearance is everything
This is by far the most important element of an exceptional treasury. Treasuries are visually based. Therefore, the items you choose must have visual appeal. Pick photos of objects that are well lit, easy to identify, and accurately show the items shape, color, and size.
You will find there are hundreds of items that would complement the theme of your treasury if only they had better photos! Even if an items title or description is the perfect match to your treasury, the message is lost if the image does not convey the topic.
Utilize your given space
You are given 16 spots to fill, I recommend using them all. A larger treasury allows for a greater assortment of items, increasing the chances of clicks and comments. Any less than the full 16 can seem incomplete, even worse, lacking in effort.
Find a great title
The title of your treasury can make or break it. Potential viewers may pass over a treasury with a basic name, such as “pink” subconsciously believing it to be boring. In contrast, a highly obscure name, like “phalangium Damascus” may alienate a potential audience.
Titles can be based on a song lyric or book title, a holiday, or a simple phrase. The goal of the title is to draw in potential viewers, and correspond to the images within the treasury.
There are several ways to choose a treasury title, but in the end, your focus should be a title of one to five words that clearly convey the curated lists theme, mood, season, color and or inspiration.
Don’t ignore the description box
Even the seasoned treasury curator has made this faux pas. When creating your treasury, take the time to thank the shop owners for being your inspiration. This is also a fantastic place to drum up conversation about your curated list. Ask your viewers a question, such as “what does this treasury say to you,” or “guess the name of the song that inspired me!”. Give your audience something to think about, and include them in the fun.
Think outside the box
When it comes to treasury ideas, the sky is the limit! Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries. Challenge conventional color schemes. Mix textures, make a treasury guessing game. Make a treasury that appeals to you, not just one you think “has the stuff” to make it to the front page. Think of it this way: “all front page treasuries are good, but not all good treasuries make the front page”.
Share your treasury with the world!
An exceptional treasury has an audience. Announce your treasury to potential viewers through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Stumbl, and others. Join teams that devote discussions to treasuries, and invite members to view and comment.
Don’t forget to contact the shop owners you feature. Although they are automatically notified through their activity feed that an item has been featured, many busy shop owners neglect to read their activity feed. Writing a personal note with a link to the treasury and the shop featured gives the seller added incentive to click the link. This also allows them the chance to promote your treasury through their own channels as well!
Many blogs also devote space to promoting treasuries at no cost to you. Handmadeology, of course, along with Etsy Treasury Hunter and the Etsy Treasury Team blog all offer other outlets for showcasing your list!
Remember these are only suggestions, and not all great treasuries follow these guidelines to the letter. Your individual touch and eye for an amazing item are what makes these treasuries exceptional.
For more information about how to create your first treasury, you can visit the Etsy Help page on treasuries HERE. (Link: http://www.etsy.com/help/article/82)
Nicole Joy:
Hello! My name is Nicole joy and I am the designer, owner of Ginger Gypsy Design, my Etsy shop where I showcase my work as a Steampunk inspired artist, along with other edgy jewelry pieces. Along with my sister-shop, maneplume, where I sell feather hair extensions.
I am also the creator of Etsy Treasury Hunter, a blog devoted to featuring unusual, unique, beautiful and exceptional treasuries! Etsy Treasury Hunter (ETH) is committed to providing a place for Etsy members to share their curated lists with fellow treasury lovers. I also run a team on Etsy, based on ETH. Here members can promote their treasuries, compete in challenges, win prizes, and just have fun!
I am based out of Phoenix, Arizona, where I received degrees in Fashion Design, and Business. My work has been featured on EtsyLush, the Phoenix Comicon Convention, along with an invitation to be featured in August of 2011 at the Arizona Recycling Coalition Conference. You can also find me displaying my wares at each First Friday event in Phoenix at the fabulous Revolver Records.
Before devoting myself to my shops and blog full time I worked as a marketing promotions advisor for a construction product representative company serving the four state region of California, Arizona. In my spare time, I also dabble in modeling and film.
Links:
Etsy Treasury Hunter: www.etsytreasuryhunter.com
Ginger Gypsy Design: www.shopgingergypsy.com
maneplume www.maneplume.com
About The Author
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I’m enjoying being part of the Etsy Treasury Hunter Team and many thanks to you for featuring some of my treasuries on the ETH blog.
I’m one of those people who does take the time to write a personal note to each of the sellers whose items I feature in a treasury.
I almost always invite them to “stop by the treasury and leave a comment there”. Sometimes, people will go look at the treasury and, without leaving a comment there, will come back to me in a convo to thank me and tell me what they think of it.
To me, it shows that a lot of people don’t understand that the more views, comments, and clicks a treasury has, the higher it goes up the Etsy “ladder of hotness” and the more people see it and the seller’s own work.
There’s also a potential marketing opportunity to be had in commenting on a treasury in which you’re featured, especially if you can come up with a witty, poetic or clever comment. It could mean the difference in whether someone clicks through to your shop or not.
Thanks again, Nicole. Happy treasury hunting!
Great post! Thanks!!
Thank you so much for this concise and informative blog. I copied it and will keep
your suggestions handy. ellizabeth
great summery , thanks for great tips
Some great tips here, I like the idea of thanking the artists for their inspiration.
Great tips, this is inspiring me to do another treasury! I just noticed my flower print is in the treasury graphic above!!
Wonderful tips! Beautifully written and I love being a part of the Etsy Treasury Hunter team. Thank you for all your hard work, Nicole! xoxo Melanie
Very useful information. I better understand the benefits of creating and commenting on treasuries. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Great article, Nicole! I love being part of the Etsy Treasury Hunter team. I look forward to the little jolt of happiness when a treasury of mine is chosen for the blog – I’m always in such stunning company:)
Much as I’d love to be featured on the front page (hasn’t happened yet), I’ve stopped trying to tailor treasuries to Etsy’s merchandising themes – it leaves so many sellers out of the loop!! Hopefully, with the growth of blogs like ETH, exposure to treasuries that feature the varied brilliance of Etsy sellers will get more widespread notice on the web.
Thanks again for all your efforts, Nicole, and happy treasury hunting!!
This is great information. I am addicted to making treasuries and they teach us so much about construction and lay out each time, nice read
Nicole chooses the cream of the crop! I’m addicted to ETH! Now that we can save favorites, I am able to recall the most lovely treasuries at any given time. And I am always trolling ETH for the best of the best!
To have your treasury featured on ETH is an incredible thrill and I have learned so much by participating both with the ETH team and site. It has definitely improved my treasury-making skills and inspired my next ones.
I have also learned what a fantastic marketing tool treasuries can be for my own shop. Keep up the great work, Nicole!