The Return of the Absent One

Dang! Where does the time go?! I was perfectly aware that I had not posted anything for quite awhile, but TWO AND A HALF MONTHS! Gee whiz.

So now I've returned with an obnoxious vengeance - posting yesterday and working on 2 posts today, without any explanation of my whereabouts the past 10 weeks. But since you are a faithful blog reader, I'm sure you are used to such blogging behavior and perhaps you have even behaved this way yourself. Anyway, on with the post...

I have many things to tell you about but right now, I need to keep it short since I'm procrastinating cleaning the house. I still need to get the house done in about an hour, but I like living on the edge, so I'll cram this post in as quickly as I can (for the added adrenaline rush).

The past couple of nights I've been working on posting new items in my Etsy shop. I painted these wooden necklaces quite awhile ago, but just got around to posting them:

I hadn't planned on selling any jewelry, but these tiny pieces of wood were so fun to paint, I couldn't help but make them into something. If I do some more, I might think of some other purpose for them, like a tiny wall hanging or something.

Last night I worked on these:

I've been a little down/grumpy lately, so working on these have been very calming. I love to make tags and carve rubber stamps. I think I'll have to keep doing this - it's much cheaper than therapy!

I currently have 54 items for sale in my shop. I'm hopping to get up to 100 items in the next few weeks. I've read that more items helps increase shop traffic and I would love to have more traffic.

Ok, well, better go clean so my kids won't be embarrassed when their friends come over! :)

Time to Make a Plan

I think maybe I need to start over.

From the beginning.

From scratch.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I never thought I'd be able to do and sell art. It was something I thought about but always dismissed as being unrealistic. So, when I actually did sell cards and paintings that I had done myself, it was really, really fun. It's still fun to sell things. The problem is that I don't sell much and I want to sell more. But how can I possibly sell more when I wander around aimlessly and have small bursts of productivity, then longer periods of inactivity? It just isn't going to happen unless I am more consistent.

So I'm starting to think about starting my "business" over. I never did get my business license or keep accurate track of inventory, what I make, what I spend or how many hours I work. The logistics aren't really my strength, but that doesn't mean I can't learn does it? I think I can learn.

I'm planning to research small business related websites and blogs, and use that information to come up with my business plan. Maybe I should even use this blog to hold myself accountable for setting some goals. You followers of my blog are a pretty good bunch of people. You don't give me a hard time when I repeat myself (which I'm sure I do a lot. My short term memory is lacking...), you don't harass me about typos, grammatical errors or anything else. I imagine it would probably be safe enough to slap up a few goals on this page and let you read them. We could celebrate together when I reach a goal and you can tell me I'm a whiner when I make excuses for not reaching other goals. Or you could remain silent, which might guilt me into action (I'm someone who is definitely motivated by guilt).

I'm going to leave my Etsy shop open, just in case someone stumbles upon it and likes what they see. In the mean time, I will (here's the goal list)

• work on better photos of products already listed
• list at least 5 tag sets that I already have put together
• finish two birdhouses that need to be painted and list them on etsy
• work on having more consistent shipping prices for items already listed.

I know it's a short list, but it will help improve the shop I have and maybe help me be more motivated. I have to start with a short list too, so I won't look at it, become exhausted by the mere thought of taking any action, and wind up taking a nap instead!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll let you know how things go.

Photo Breakthrough

There are some days when I feel pretty hopeless - which I'm sure I've mentioned here before. I don't like to keep bringing it up because I don't want to be known as a whiney blogger. However, it's just a fact about me...I often let things overwhelm me, beat me down and I fall into the pit of "woe is me".

But today, I crawled out of the pit for a little while, saw the sun, got some things accomplished and thought I'd better blog about it! A few weeks ago, I told you about a workshop being taught at Artlandish Gallery on product photography (by the lovely and talented Nichelle Lawrence). I didn't really participate in the workshop because I was helping build light boxes for it, but I got to hear some of the helpful tips.

Since then, I've built my own light box, (which is quite cool, if I say so myself), and have been on the hunt for daylight light bulbs. Let me just mention that if you are looking for daylight bulbs and you don't really know what you are doing, don't be distracted by the GE reveal reader bulbs. The pictures on the packaging made me think I was buying the right bulb, or at least a bulb that would work, but I was sadly mistaken. The photos I took with reveal were more of a pinkish color than the normal yellow I've taken in the past.

So today, I walked into Westlake Hardware and decided to actually ask someone for the daylight bulb instead of trying to find it myself. Even after the guy pointed to them and said "they are the ones with the blue on the label", I still almost picked the one with the green label (sometimes I really wonder about myself and my goofy little brain). I happened to have a $5 gift card (I'm on the Ace Rewards Plan), so the bulb only cost under $3. Which is nice, since I've spent about $10 or so pursuing bulbs that were of no help at all.

I came home, screwed in the light bulb (how many artists does it take to screw in a light bulb? It turns out, only one!) and took some photos. I am very pleased with how the photos turned out. No yellow, no pink or any other funky colors. Just fairly clear, normal light. Because I liked my pictures, and because I've made a couple of sales this week, I was motivated to list three new tag sets today. Woo hoo! Maybe next time Nichelle teaches a workshop (hopefully sometime in May), I can listen in on the parts I missed and come up with some cool lighting techniques. Until then, I'm pretty pleased with what I have.

So the two photos above are ones that I hate and ones that I normally take. And these are the ones I'm feeling very proud of today:

I realize I still am no professional, but I feel much better about these product photos. Hopefully, I will stay motivated enough to continue to work on them and not be so easily discouraged. It's fun to have lots of things up in my Etsy shop, but it's not so much fun to work hard and not have good results.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope wherever you are, Spring is warm and beautiful. It sure is here in Mid Missouri!

Hope of Things to Come

When I was younger, I would spend time every New Year's Eve, reflecting and writing about the year that was ending and my hopes for the year ahead. This tells you two very important things about me: #1 I didn't have many New Year's Eve dates and #2 I have periods of time where I am very hopeful.

Now that I am 46 (and a half), married (so I have a permanent New Year's Eve date) and have two young kids, I don't have much time to reflect on much of anything. I also have lost much of my short term memory, so I can't remember what I had for lunch let alone what I did in January or the rest of the year. But tonight my most wonderful husband, took the kids out for some family fun and (after some whining and complaining on my part) didn't "make me" go with them. So for one glorious and peaceful hour, I wrote down some of my hopes and goals for 2010. I would like to share some of them with you:

• Introduce some new products to my Etsy shop. I've been wanting to add some different things for a long time (bookmarks, handmade journals, more tags, calendars, etc) but haven't taken the time to do it. I want to work on it this year.
• Open another online shop. I have an Artfire account that I haven't put anything in for about a year. Maybe I should give that a try.
• Make my blog more interesting and look more the way I want it to look.
• Average 3 blog posts a week. Maybe add some demonstrations or tutorials.
  
• Set some sales goals for my Etsy shop and work my hiney off to reach them.
• Make more money than I spend (or at least break even).
• Be bold in my belief in God and pursue my relationship with Jesus Christ.
• Quit procrastinating
• Love myself more in action and thought (stop telling myself that I'm destined to fail)
• Be healthy (quit eating so much sugar and start exercising)
• Clean house regularly
• Love my family

I know this is a big and challenging list, but these are my hopes. It would be great to be here next New Year's Eve reporting that I made even a little progress in most areas.

Thanks for following my blog and for your encouragement. It has meant so much to me to have people cheer me on as I pursue one of the things I love most.

Have a safe and wonderful New Year!

Adding to My Etsy Shop

One of my weaknesses is that I allow myself to be overwhelmed by tasks that I haven't even attempted yet. I think of something I want to do and instead of believing I can do it and use my energy to get the job done, I waste time telling myself the many reasons why I can't do it. Almost always, I end up either not doing anything at all or procrastinating until it's too late to do anything.

My business suffers because of my procrastination. I pretty much ignored the fact that I have an Etsy shop for most of the Spring and Summer. I would log in, look at my stuff, roll my eyes, then log out. All the while telling myself how I really needed to get in there and dust the cobwebs off so I could add a few things and make my shop presentable. I really want to have a cool shop. One that is successful. Really, I do. But I get caught up in believing it's an impossible task and I just end up feeling bad.

A couple of weeks ago, I changed my avatar, my banner and worked on some of my photos. I changed my banner for this blog too (which still needs work) and today I actually added 7 new items. That's SEVEN! Not only did I add that many new items, I now have 25 items total which added a second page to my shop! It may not seem like much, but to me, it's huge. The other part is that the 7 (yes, that's SEVEN) things I added are not paper crafts. They are totally different than anything I've ever listed before. These are my babysteps.

I think it helps to look to others when I am feeling defeated or overwhelmed and I don't know what to do. One person (a fellow Etsian) who is an inspiration to me is Jessica Doyle. She is a wonderful artist who works her butt off and is very successful. I follow her blog and follow her on Facebook. I like reading her daily entries because she seems very organized and she's really good about sharing information. When I see her successes as a result of her determination and hard work, it makes me want to get my own rear in gear. I'm thankful for Jessica and people like her, who share their struggles, insight and processes. It helps me learn how to be more focused and more hopeful about seeing my dreams come true.

Do you have a blog you like to turn to for inspiration?

Working to Make it Better

I've been telling myself for quite some time now, that I'm going to work on my Etsy shop and other aspects of my tiny little business. I've been avoiding my Etsy shop like the plague because it seems so overwhelming, the number of things I want to do. But I'm just trying to focus on taking baby steps.

I changed my avatar and banner and added one new item. I will probably have a few more things to add, but need to take some photos first. I've been spending some time in the forum, reading blogs of sellers I admire, participated in Tim Adam's Webinar and have refused to give up after not doing so well in a couple of art/craft fairs.

Two really nice things that have happened lately: someone is in the process of buying one of my mixed media collage pieces and I sold 24 cards to the Unity Center so they could sell them in their bookstore. It's always nice to make a couple of sales.


The piece below is the one that is being purchased. It's called "You Are The Only One". It's one of my favorites, but I'm glad that it will have a new home.

Confessions of a PLB

It has been almost two weeks since my last post. Gee whiz, it sure doesn't take long for a blog to become neglected. Thankfully I take better care of my kids than I do my blog (and that might be one of the reasons my blog is neglected)! :)

I didn't win the Blockhead Radio Artisan Challenge, but it was fun to be included. No doubt I will submit something again. I love to be included in things like the artisan challenge and the Thursday Sweet Treat. I hope to do more of those things in the future. Thanks to those who visited the site and thanks to those who cast their vote for me!

I was thinking tonight that I have entered into a place of pettiness that I don't like. It's one of those things I don't want others to know about me and it's something I don't want to admit to myself.You might know the kind of thing I'm talking about. When things aren't going your way or the way you think they should be going, so you start being critical of others, just to make yourself feel better. I don't know, maybe it's just me....

I'm feeling discouraged about the sales in my Etsy shop. I'm trying not to dwell on it, because I know there are still so many more things I could be doing, (that I'm not), to help get some shop recognition. Also, I hate it when people whine about not having any sales, it makes me not want to buy from them at all. I don't want to be the whiner.

When I'm feeling whiney about the lack of shop sales, I'm highly critical and judgmental of those who are making sales. When I see people on the front page who have sold millions, making things that don't apeal to me, I start making those noises of disgust...similar to a cat coughing up a hairball. And I begin thinking like a 5-year-old: "no fair! she got 100 sales and I haven't gotten any!" "My arts bigger than your art!" "My art could whip your arts butt in a New York minute!" "Yeah, I could have more sales too if my daddy all my work"!

Yuck, Yuck, Yucky! I don't want to be this petty person.

I am sincerely happy for people who are successful at selling their wares. I admire those who are good at marketing, who are business saavy and who have good customer service skills. I want to know them and learn from them. I also want to be supportive of others who have a passion for creating things. I certainly have gotten so much support from my friends and the online community. I wouldn't still be making things if I hadn't been encouraged by people on Etsy.

Does someone else's success take away from me in any way?

Do I have to be critical of others to cover up my own insecurities? No!

I guess I just needed to get this off my chest. Even though I probably didn't say anything that made much sense to anyone else, it helped me to write about it. Maybe now I can be more productive and do the things I need to do like: promote some items in my shop, work on some marketing possibilities and most importantly be an encouragement to others who might need it.

Thanks for listening.

Pretending to Be Positive

I was going to title this post "I Hate the Way My Etsy Shop Looks!" but I thought that didn't sound very positive. I have not had a very good week. It's really no big deal, in the long run and measured next to matters of life and death it's pretty low on the "importance scale". Still, I'm just irritated and cranky and sad and disappointed. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, maybe it will explain a little why I'm going to whine about my Etsy shop.

uh hmm. Here goes:

For some reason, every time I go to my etsy shop, I just feel disappointed. I don't like the way it looks, so I find myself avoiding it (this is how I often deal with things that are unpleasant to me. I think I mentioned this in another, older post). My goal for the earlier part of this year was to revamp my shop. I wanted to get more items in the shop, better photos, better descriptions and just make it look nicer. I want it to look like someone cares about it and hasn't abandoned it for the winter.

I did a couple of good things. I did add a few new items, changed my banner, got a new avatar and re-wrote some descriptions. However, I think it looks weird. I like the banner and avatar, but the shop itself looks kind of odd. Like you've walked into some psychedelic 60's shop with black light posters all around. It's too bright and too much to look at, so you close your eyes and hope it goes away (kind of like sleeping in a dark room and having someone abruptly open the blinds to let the brightest, most annoying sun light in). No wonder I have such a bounce rate according to Google Analytics! Others must feel the same way.

I just have to get better photos. I feel like I've already taken so many pictures of my things, but honestly, a lot of them aren't very good. I'm going to have to try some more, I guess. Spring is coming, so maybe I'll be more motivated and have more energy to make things look pretty. I hope so. You probably hope so too, so you don't have to hear me whine about it again.

Stay tuned for my next Blog Post: "Why I Hate the Way My Blog Looks".