Meandering about

Since I opened my store, it's been a little difficult to keep motivated. No sales - yet - and the realization that I made a massive mistake in the pricing of my products haven't helped. I fixed the pricing problem (I underpriced my bags by a good 40%) and now I'm waiting for a sale. One of the great things about Etsy is the community, and with that community comes some awesome and invaluable resources. The Etsy Seller Handbook has been a lifesaver. I didn't do a lot - or any, really - research before I launched my store and now there's a lot to catch up on, but the handbook has been nothing less than a godsend. I highly recommend it to anyone just starting out with an Etsy store and little-to-no experience in running a business.

I have managed to crank out a dozen or so new pieces. I finally learned how to do a proper lining, "designed" a new card holder (the green argyle/white piece in the bottom of the photo above would be the new "design"... really, it was just something that was going one way, didn't work so I tried something else), and wasted a fair bit of scrap material trying to come up with a brush/pen wrap that just did not want to work. It's been a bit of a frustrating week.

I went into this knowing that bags/wallets were not going to be the only thing I would produce. There's no way I could be content pigeon-holing myself like that; I still hope to do a bit of graphic design, probably artistic prints, for my store and I am working on prepping a bunch of photos to put up for sale. Spreading myself to thin is always a worry, but at this point, things are going fairly well... especially now that I'm caught up on the bookkeeping that was being put off, and off, and off.

A somewhat-aside: for patterns, go to BurdaStyle.  I love the selection and variety of patterns they have, even the free ones that members have come up with... these two have caught my eye and will likely be added to the pile of things I want to try.


Now that I've got a new pile of pieces to finish up - buttons, snaps, velcro, not to mention checking on wonky threads and weird seams - I'm going to step back and try to get working on a cloth book that's been in the bottom of one of my material baskets for a few months.

I read the Peter Rabbit series when I was young; someone in Keith's family gave Maddy Peter Rabbit for Easter last year. She's at that age where she's learning a lot and if I can tie rabbits together with the alphabet, I'll do it. The book is all on one piece of material, which is great, but the instructions don't make a lick of sense. I'm hoping that my mom can help me decipher them tomorrow when I take it out to their place to cut up. Worst case scenario - I can make a bunch of quilt blocks to frame for Maddy's room.

I'm hoping that things pick up soon with the store. It hasn't gotten completely desperate yet, and I don't actually see that ever happening, but it's a bit of a kick to the ego when people don't buy your stuff. But it is March... people still have Christmas bills to pay off and if people are like us, they're starting to come out of their hibernation modes. I can come up with a million excuses and rationalize every single one of them... sometimes, it's the only thing that can keep a person going.