Treasury Treasures

TREAS-UR-Y:

• a collection of artistic or literary treasures

That's the literal definition, besides what a treasury is defined as in government settings.  I looked up this word today and found several definitions.  My favorite, as posted in the Collins English Dictionary is:  "a storage place for treasure".

As an Etsy member, you have the ability to create collections of your favorite "artistic treasures" aptly-named "treasuries".  You create a page with up to 16 pictures of items you like from different artists.  You can make the pictures anything you wish.  The Etsy guidelines on treasuries is that you should not include your own work, and feature each artist once.  Every treasury is unique and can be saved and viewed by others.  Each one has a theme:  a color, a type of item, a "feeling", etc.

For instance, my first treasury was called "Orange You Glad?" and of course featured all different kinds of media, all in the color orange. 

You can view it from here:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTQ2NjE2MzJ8MzAxMTY3Mzk4/orange-you-glad?index=22

Everyone featured in the treasury gets a message on their activity feed that says "You are featured in this treasury".  People look, people comment.  If they tag it as a favorite treasury, all their friends get a link to it too.  The creator/curator's friends get a link to it.  If someone searches treasuries for "orange", it would come up.  The more people look at it, the greater chance it might get featured on Etsy's homepage.  It's basically a way to build a network and get more exposure.  If you are on a particular team and make a collection of that team members' work, it helps to promote your team and yourself as well.

Here's my latest traditional treasury:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTQ2NjE2MzJ8MzE2OTcxNTAx/silvery-lining?index=8

Yesterday I got the idea to make treasuries dedicated to certain "friends" or "circle members".  Some artists are just that fabulous!  Each one features 4 pics of that artist's work.  The rest of the collection is made up of that artist's favorites.  I made a few and they went over pretty well.

Here's one of those:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTQ2NjE2MzJ8Mzc4Mzc4NjY4/very-vivacious-view-from-my-window?index=2

Up next?  BNRs  (and you're saying, "what's a BNR?")