Etsy Featured Seller- Kreativlink

Interview with Kreativlink from Etsy Tell us a bit about yourself name, location, affiliations, personal stuff. My name is Renate Ikinger. I’m female. I just say that because people often think it’s a boys name. It’s not. At least here in Austria where I was born, raised and am still living. It’s nice here in good old Europe. To bad we don’t have a seashore. I’d so love to have a house by the sea … Well, at least I have a wonderful adult son and the cuddliest hubby ever. Both are great guys, supporting me in all my creative adventures. We live in a little house with a little garden, a little dog and a little car. I’m little too, just 1.62 m. Hubby is 1.90 m. Now that I think about it, he really must feel like a giant! I’m born in 1966. The year Star Trek started on TV. Probably a reason why I’m in love with SF and Fantasy. I completed business college but at 20 my son was born and I was mostly mother until I was 30. Then I started as a self employed web designer/programmer. I loved it, but when the big 40 came, I was more or less finished with it. Lately I dropped most of the virtual work and am now trying to see wether I can make it as full time crafter only. Apart from creating things, what do you do? Thinking and dreaming about what to create next. Searching for new supplies. Trying out new things. Chatting with my wonderful friends from our European Street Team. Reading a lot. Taking long bubble baths. Going out for long walks. Watching silly things on TV. Cooking. Eating. Sleeping ... May sound like a boring life, but I love it! What first made you want to become an artist? Honestly? I don’t know … But I remember a moment when I was a young teenager at school. We were sitting in the bus, driving back home from a holiday camp, talking about how our lives would look like in the – oh so exciting and far away – year 2000! I said I want to be an artist because I could not imagine me doing the same work from 8 to 5 for a boss somewhere, trapped in an office or something … The really amazing fact is, I was not drawing or painting or making books or doing anything artsy at all at that time. I was a dreamer, reading for hours. Far from being an artist. No artists in the family. Nothing! Well, funny how it all came … Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc. Each day starts with the crazy little dog barking. I jump out of my bed, do a little workout for 30 minutes, take a nice hot shower, eat a healthy breakfast and sit down at my well organized workspace to start working! Ok. The truth is - after I found my way out of bed, first thing is to turn on the computer and check Etsy. And hours later … My creative process… not sure. My mind works in a crazy way sometimes. Often I know exactly how the finished journal should look and just make it. Other times I check my leathers, fabrics, pendants and feel how an idea is coming together. When painting, it’s the same. Sometimes I take a blank canvas and see what comes out of my brush. Other times I try to create something I already can see in my mind. I often think about times long gone. When life was full of secrets and mysteries and magic. And I imagine the people, what they did and what they thought about life. And then – now I reveal a big secret – I make books for them. Yep. Now it’s said. My ancient books are for the ancient people. But as long as time travels are not possible, I’ll continue to sell them to you, modern people. No problem … What handmade possession do you most cherish? I wish I could tell a lovely story about something a grand-grand-grandmother once made, but I don’t have anything like that. What I do have are some things my son made when he was little. And a lot of things I collected on Etsy. Little treasures, most of them sitting on my desk, always in my sight. Name your top five books, movies, songs/musical groups, and web sites besides Etsy. Books: Some authors I adore: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Stanislaw Lem, Philpp K. Dick, Trudi Canavan Songs: Sorry, I can’t decide, it always depends on my mood. But I love to hear Blues and Smooth Jazz. And classics, yeah. Bach is one of my great loves. Websites: artmind-etcetera.blogspot.com helisengezer.blogspot.com star-of-the-east.blogspot.com karlitashop.blogspot.com pamelaangus.blogspot.com What advice would you give to artists who are new to Etsy? Enjoy being creative and being surrounded by people like you! Jump in and get in contact. Join a street team if possible. If you do it for the money – work hard and don’t expect wonders. Do the best work you can, give the best customer service you can offer and make sure that you still enjoy it! What are your favorite features on Etsy? What new features would you like to see? I love pounce. It gives me a quick fix of new things and shops to look at. Making treasuries is fun too, but I’m still waiting for one of mine to make it to the front page! The feature I’m missing is a currency converter. I’d love to be able to list in EURO and have them converted into USD automatically. Always up to the exchange rate. Even better would be if buyers could choose what currency they like to have shown. And if I may really dream, multi language support would be wonderful too! How do you promote your work? Well, I have a Blog, I’m on Flickr, Trunkt, Indiepublic and such … But to be honest, apart from the Blog, I don’t do much. I’m lucky in that many of my buyers do promote for me. I love my buyers dearly. Many outstanding nice and lovely people among them. And I’d like to thank Etsy for giving me the opportunity to reach people all around the world! I had the goal to sell a journal to each continent of this world and reached it! In ten years I'd like to be... … travelling around the world to shop for supplies, hoarding them in my dream house by the sea and playing with them all day long. That’s after I’ve won the big lottery of course! Taken from interview on Etsy. Featured on 5/12/2008