RetroBabs Vintage

Cindy Fahnerstock-Schafer aka' Ira Mency I wanted to give a SHOUT OUT to two of my wonderful, Etsy friends and fellow vintage artists.  The first is, Cindy, from RetroChalet , she is a vintage shop owner and specializes in Melmac (plastic) dishes.  She has an interesting vintage blog and is an established expert on Russell Wright dinnerware.  (Read the story on how she inherited a collection of such.) I myself have a page on Pinterest and her Melmac dishes receives the most hits out of anything on my page!  The beautiful, creamy, pastel colors of that indistructable plasticware which we all used and admired circa 1950's-60's draws folks in and catches the eye.  That's it - EYE CANDY- and a must have for any retro kitchen! I wondered if you folks know that Cindy is also an artist and creates her art by assembling pieces of toys, dolls, eclectic mix of vintage etc. into abstract sculptures . Cindy's art is under the anagram/pen name, Ira Mency. FA...

I wanted to give a shout out to Cindy at RetroChalet , she is what I call my "Wifey" and our two shops are "married" in spirit.  She is my Etsy mentor. Cindy has been so helpful to me, she's always ready to comment and critique the RetroBabs Vintage shop. Recently, we has a discussion about Titles and Tagging of items on Etsy. I had this item titled as a Red Apple Canister but Cindy came up with 20 other ideas for the title and tags.  Red Delicious and Cookie Jar to be the few that were excellent.  Her take on the issue was the fact that the more "HITS" one gets for an item -the greater the chance for a sale.  The Canister and Cookie jar folks might also include an apple collector and a lover of vintage.  The more ground you cover the more people you can reach. I eliminated useless descriptions that did not fall under the Relevancy criteria of Etsy and Google searches. She wrote a great article on the subject for the Handmadeology Blog   ca...

Ira is a guest blogger for this blog and for the Vesties team on Etsy.  She gives marketing tips and suggestions for all things vintage.  She specializes in plastic dishes (Melmac) and is an expert in a the field.  I appreciate her input and help with my blog. I learned from her blog that I could get a widget from Craft Cult and find out how many Treasuries our shop  has been featured in.    35 to date!  I did not know about many of them.  Very cool to find that out and interesting to click on them!! http://vintageetsysociety.blogspot.com/2010/12/marketing-101-series-issue-3-happy-new.html

I would like to take this moment and send my deepest regards for my dear friend Ira Mency upon the death of her mother. Ira is the shop owner of RetroChalet on Etsy. Ira is a wonderful person and I send her my love and prayers. Babs