The Joys of Treasuries!

Okay, I admit it! I'm addicted! Oh, not to drugs or alcohol or gambling. (Yeah, we'll ignore my cigarette addiction for now.) No, I'm addicted to Treasuries on Etsy.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Etsy has this delightful feature called "Treasuries." Etsy members create or "curate" them by gathering items which are listed for sale on Etsy and compiling lists by theme which then show up as photos of 12 related items. (Curators pick up to 16 items -- 12 for the Treasury that everyone can see and 4 alternates that only the curator and administrators see.) Visitors to Etsy can then view them and get a great look at what's available on the site.

Yes, I love to look at Treasuries that other people have curated -- there are some amazingly talented curators over there. But even more than that, I adore curating my own. Nothing makes me happier than coming up with a theme, finding items that match that theme (from among the thousands of items for sale on Etsy), and creating a Treasury. I will obsessively move the items around, making sure that the Treasury is as pretty as I can make it. And I love thinking up my themes. I prefer unusual themes -- I've done Treasuries on Titanic (my personal obsession), Michigan (my home state), a walk in the woods, diners and drive-ins, ice/snow, and several others.

You can only have one Treasury up at any time to give more curators a chance (and Treasuries remain up for between two and three days before they disappear). But there's also a "hidden" Treasury that's only available to those people who have the direct link. That's Treasury West, which was originally intended as a "test" site but which has become popular as the "other" Treasury. If you time it right, you can have both a Treasury and a Treasury West. And right now? I do! It's kind of hard to do that; you have to time it right. (Treasury opens up when the number of treasuries drops below 333, and Treasury West opens up when the number drops below 222. You then have just a few seconds to "snag" a spot.) As of today, I have a "Telephone Treasury" that I curated yesterday; the link is http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=71137. And I also have a "Tea and Violets" Treasury West that I created this afternoon; check it out at http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=61522.

One of the most enjoyable things about curating Treasuries is the friendly competition that exists among the curators. We all want to have the most "popular" Treasuries. That popularity is measured by how quickly and how far your Treasuries move up the "Hot" list. And that's determined by how many visitors view your Treasury, how many comment on it, and how many click on the individual items in the Treasury. After all, Treasuries are intended as a promotional item for the sellers on Etsy.

Sometimes, the "hottest" Treasuries are selected for display on Etsy's front page. That's the Holy Grail -- all curators dream of the day their work shows up on the FP. None of mine have made it yet. But someday . . .