Unwise

Well let's see, I tatted some yesterday and I got the two orders I received in the mail. Then I got another small order and went ahead and made it up. I have to put that one in small boxes though, so that means a trip to the store this morning with the larger mail slot, they won't fit through the one I have on the street. Then I did a terribly unwise thing, I checked my order stats from this time last year and the year before. I'm not going to go into the actual numbers of course, but let's just say that I've gone from thinking I had a fairly successful little business to thinking that's it's becoming almost not worth the effort.

Don't worry, I'm going to stop tatting or close up shop any time soon, but it is clear that something has really changed. Maybe everyone who was ever going to want my tatted goods has already got them, or maybe it really is that all the changes at etsy have made me irrelevant in search. I'd crawl up in a ball and whine about it, but the holiday is almost here and I've still got things to do. Presents need to be wrapped, rooms need to be cleaned and even though it doesn't seem to matter, I've got a few things left to tat up for the shop too. I'll just keep moving forward and hoping.

Remember To Knock On Wood

It's my own fault really...I should know better. Yesterday when I spoke of the great sales day I had the day before I forgot to knock on wood and luck, she abandoned me...at least for the day. It wasn't a horrible day by any stretch of the imagination, but once you've had such a great one, you unfortunately expect it to continue and anything less is just disappointment. I was however, plenty busy with the task of remaking the pieces that flew out of the shop the day before.

I also have a short tale to tell about patience. Early in the morning I received an order for a custom item with a request attached to rush ship by Friday. Well, the piece not being made yet made that sort of impossible. So I sent a message to that effect asking politely if they would like to then cancel the order. I waited and waited and then I received a message saying it wasn't really a problem and that yes, they would still like it. The moral of the story lies in my initial reaction of, 'read the damn listing' and my own stress over it. What I should have realized was this was more of a, 'doesn't hurt to ask' sort of occasion. Luckily I had already learned the lesson to communicate with patience and kindness no matter my own stress so I didn't make the situation worse. I share this story to remind myself and others to continue to answer these sort of situations honestly and kindly and remember that without jumping into another persons head, we can't know their full intentions. Believe me, if it turns out that they are in fact entitled brats that will come out soon enough, but it's better to assume the best that the worst.

I still have more pieces to remake today so don't expect anything else too interesting for tomorrow. Again I'm hoping sales pick up a bit. The cut off for domestic first class mailing isn't until the 20th so technically there is plenty of time left for people to shop. I just hope they know that. I bet you guys can hardly wait until the season is over and I stop going on about sales and return to creative tatting, huh? Yeah, I know, have patience it's almost over.

You Weren't Suppose To Be A Heart

I can feel the season winding down and the orders getting smaller. I can generally expect to continue getting the 'I'm shopping for myself now' orders all the way through the month, but then January is a dead zone. I'm been pretty good about keeping things remade so when the dead zone hits it will be time to design and work on a few more tutorials and videos that I have intended to do for some time now. My first video as now broken 50,000 views and the redo with me talking in now at 10,000. To say these numbers shock me is a severe understatement, but they also tell me that there is an audience out there for the videos.

I totally did not intend to go off on that tangent, I was going to show you what I made yesterday while I was suppose to be making something else entirely. I was making the base for a fascinator. It's the same motif I use for my corsage bracelets and was born from a vintage edging that I couldn't get to lay straight so I turned it on itself. Anyway, as I turned around the corner this time I decided that it would be a heart today. The one on the top was the first iteration and in the end I think my favorite. I made the second just to see if a cleaner line looked better. While some folk on the twitter preferred the second, most still liked the first better. I agree, it has more character.

I have schooling today and then a dental appointment, but I think I will get around to turning the heart into a pendant at least. I think I'm going to hang it at an angle rather than straight from the center. It was suggested that I might make matching earrings as well, so I might make some of those with smaller thread, since I think this size, almost two inches, in this shape might be too bulky. It was also suggested that it might be a great centerpiece for a choker. This I did try out yesterday and abandoned as I didn't like the way it was shaping up at all. That doesn't mean I won't give it another go of course, but down the line I think. I guess this just foes to show that busy or not, I simply cannot stop creating. I am always afraid that I will run out of new ideas, but aside from short lived cases of creators block, they always come back and boy do I hope that will always be the case.