SnowFox Creations

Have you ever wanted to feature someone’s shop via an Etsy mini, but the frustrating mini creator page would only let you do your own shop or your favorites? I found a way around that. You’ll need a generic text editor such as NotePad or Gedit, but if you’re reading this, chances are you have one already installed.

1.) First, you need to log in to your Etsy.com account. It doesn’t matter if you have anything to sell- you just need to join Etsy.com, which is free.

2.) Head over to the "Etsy :: Your Etsy Mini" Generator Page. It will look something like the screencap below. Notice that there are two types of code that will be generated: Flash and Javascript. They do basically the same thing, but if you’re on LiveJournal, MySpace or most other social sites, you’ll want to use the Flash code, since those sites won’t accept Javascript. (If you have your own domain, Java is better- but for now, we’re working with Flash, which works almost everywhere, thereby being more versatile.)

3.A) Select "My Shop" under "Items to Show." Even if your shop is empty, this will generate the code we need.

3.B) Now select the size of image you want- thumbnails are small but perfectly square; gallery size larger but crops your images into rectangles, which occasionally makes the product look weird (i.e., crops off important features.) I’m going with the gallery size for this tutorial, since it looks better. ^^"

3.C) Choose the layout- make sure that it’s not bigger than the page you’re going to put the mini in! D: (Yes, I’ve made that mistake before…) For a nice widget with Gallery-sized images, 2×2 is good, but feel free to toy around with the layout.

4.) By now, there should be some code sort of like this:
<table style="text-align: center;"><tr><td><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.etsy.com/flash/spots/etsy_mini.swf?user_id=6221158&user_name=LittleSnowFox&item_source=shop&item_size=gallery&rows=2&columns=2" width="354" height="362"><param name="movie" value="http://www.etsy.com/flash/spots/etsy_mini.swf?user_id=6221158&user_name=LittleSnowFox&item_source=shop&item_size=gallery&rows=2&columns=2" /></object></td></tr><tr><td><a style="color:#D35701; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight:bold" href="http://www.etsy.com">Etsy: Your place to buy &amp; sell all things handmade</a><br/><a style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:12px; color:#0192B5; text-decoration: none;" href="http://LittleSnowFox.etsy.com">LittleSnowFox.etsy.com</a></td></tr></table>

Paste this code into a text editor.

5.) Visit the page of the person you want to feature in your art blog/etc. I’ll be using the page of KurokamiKanzashi because I have it open, and I started to do this tutorial since I was going to feature her art in my blog anyway. She has really nifty kanzashi. #_# She also restores antique kimono, which is something I appreciate as an Asian-textiles fanatic.

6.) Go to the text editor you pasted your code into and find your username somewhere- then select it. Make sure to get the whole name- don’t miss any letters!

Then go to edit>replace or press the shortcut to start the replace function on your text editor. On Windows Notepad I believe it is CTRL + R; on Gedit (which I am using) it is CTRL + H. It will bring up a window offering to replace your username throughout the document with whatever you input.

Go back to the feature artist’s page and copy their username from the last part of their url. Input it into your text editor as the text to replace your username with and then have the text editor do the replace function.
YOU AREN’T DONE YET! READ THE NEXT STEP!

7.) There should be a string of random-looking numbers in your code, like this image below. That is the individual number given to every Etsy.com user. The number there now is still yours! YOU MUST CHANGE IT TO THE OTHER ARTIST’S NUMBER.

Select your number just like you did your username and go to Edit>Replace just like before. It will bring up a window kind of like this one:

Now you need to find out the other artist’s Etsy ID Number. Go to their shop and hover over the sidebar link labeled "Profile&quot. You should see a different string of random-looking numbers at the end of the link. It should look something like this:

Those numbers at the end are what you need to input into the text editor to replace your own number. It’s possible to just copy them down, but I’m lazy and I like the right-click + copy link, then paste the link url into something (such as a new browser tab’s address bar or another text editor file) and cut/copy the numbers off of the end. Doing it this way also prevents typos. (NOTE: It won’t work to visit the link and then copy the numbers from the address bar after the link loads- I’ve tried it, and the link in the sidebar redirects to an address based on the username instead of their number, so it won’t help you. Just copy the link url and work from that.)

KurokamiKanzashi’s user number is 5598200, so we will replace the user number already in the text editor with that via the already open "Replace Text" function. Now, you should have code something like this:

<table style="text-align: center;"><tr><td><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.etsy.com/flash/spots/etsy_mini.swf?user_id=5598200&user_name=KurokamiKanzashi&item_source=shop&item_size=gallery&rows=2&columns=2" width="354" height="362"><param name="movie" value="http://www.etsy.com/flash/spots/etsy_mini.swf?user_id=5598200&user_name=KurokamiKanzashi&item_source=shop&item_size=gallery&rows=2&columns=2" /></object></td></tr><tr><td><a style="color:#D35701; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight:bold" href="http://www.etsy.com">Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade</a><br/><a style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:12px; color:#0192B5; text-decoration: none;" href="http://KurokamiKanzashi.etsy.com">KurokamiKanzashi.etsy.com</a></td></tr></table>

(BTW, look at the code- see how it specifies how many columns and what size the images are in your Etsy Mini? You can edit that code manually to avoid having to do all of this over again. Thank God!)

Inputting this into a blog entry or widget will give you

THIS SPARKLING FANCY SUPERB RESULT (Clickable!):

Now, I can finally do an art feature of this store once I have the time. ^^; Although, honestly, she’s probably going to get more hits from this tutorial than from the feature. lol

10 Mar

2