Hey folks! Hopefully Guns and Roses won't sue me for using the above title. But it's so appropriate. It's a grey and dreary November day here in good ol' Durham and all I want to do is curl up on the couch and sip hot cocoa and read books. Possibly pet a dog. Maybe take a nap. Eat some chili. Sip more hot cocoa.... You get the picture.
But I shall not be a lazy good-for-nothing! I refuse. I've got a lot to do in order to get all of the new items posted up in the Etsy shop and ready to go for the holiday season. So I thought I'd procrastinate and write a blog post first :) I'm justifying this by telling myself that it's been a really long time since my last blog post (which it has) and that my readership is just dying to know what's been going on in my little world (which I am oh-so-sure you do....right?....RIGHT???).
So here's the scoop. Before this week, I've been sorta kinda neglecting the Etsy shop to try and get items made for 3 craft fairs at the end of October and beginning of November. The first two were great experiences and I met some awesome peeps. But I didn't have a lot of success with them. I'm learning that there's a trial and error process with craft fairs and I have to pick ones where I can succeed in selling a good amount of items to justify the booth rental fees. And I'm not saying that those 2 events were total failures. They were both a lot of fun and they definitely helped me ease into the craft fair world. The third fair was much more of a success for the business and it felt really good to make money off of my items. That sounds like it's motivated by greed, and for me it really isn't. It's more about the validation and confidence you feel when perfect strangers come up to your booth and look through everything you have for sale and decide to spend their hard-earned money on an item that you designed and picked colors for and stressed over and burned your fingers on the hot glue gun while making it. I'll admit that I was feeling low and kind of like a failure after those first two fairs. It's hard to constantly keep your own spirits up for weeks on end and it's a struggle some days to get past it and keep plugging away. But that's what you have to do. So that's what I did. With the boost from the 3rd craft fair, I'm feeling way better about everything and I'm excited to devote some time getting the Etsy store stocked for the holidays.
I'm also thinking about doing a booth at the Raleigh flea market at the fair grounds one Saturday in December. Maybe the 2nd Saturday? Hmm. We were there a couple of weekends ago and it was crazy busy. Not sure how many folks are out in December, though. I guess it would depend on the weather. The good thing about the flea market is that you can book it just 2 days before, so I'd have a good idea of what the weather would be like. I think I'll keep it in my back pocket for now and concentrate on Etsy for the next couple of weeks.
Sorry for the rambling on - welcome to my stream of consciousness, folks. Come on in, the water's fine!
So that's what is going on with Whifferdill! As for just little ol' me, other than crafty stuff, I'm really looking forward to Christmas! I know, I know. We haven't gotten through Thanksgiving yet. And don't get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving too. But that holiday is really my sister Mary's forte. She is cuckoo for cocoa puffs for Thanksgiving. That girl lives and breathes for turkey and dressing and mashed taters and fall-themed table linens and pumpkins and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And I love her for it. But my holiday is Christmas. Baking and wrapping presents and singing carols at the top of my lungs and decorating trees (That's right - plural! We're having TWO trees this year!!!) and watching Christmas movies and drinking hot cocoa by the light of said trees.... Man, it doesn't get better than that! So yeah. Pretty excited. If you couldn't tell :)
Okay. I have to stop procrastinating. Time to Photoshop and crop pictures of brooches and get them posted up! Oh what I wouldn't give for an assistant who did this part for me....especially on dreary November days when the couch beckons with its siren song of comfyness. Alas, alack. Off I go into the wonderful world of editing photos!
Lots of love and hugs,
Ru
P.S. Only 39 days until Christmas!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment