So, I stopped making things and keeping my hands busy because the rest of my life got too busy instead. I moved to New York from Scotland, and that was quite a big deal. I moved because of work, which incidentally has gotten a lot harder as I have risen the corporate ladder. I live in Chelsea for the moment with my husband. Yep, that's another change right there. I got married in January in NYC City Hall. I then had another white wedding party in Belfast with my friends and family in June, and a third and final celebration in Jerusalem with my husband's friends and family in September. So I spent 9 months of the last year getting married, and I didn't even dream of a big wedding as a little girl! So that was rather time consuming. I also got the most adorable, adorable puppy in July called, well, Moose. He is a Cavalier King Charles and I am sure I'll feature pictures of him on the blog in due time. As a puppy he made doing anything quietly rather impossible, but he's now 5 months, and has settled down in the lovely dog that sleeps on your feet and looks at you with big big brown eyes all the time. Actually, he's feeling a bit pathetic at the moment as he's lost his baby canine teeth and can't really bite on things, so he's not feeling much of a doggie. They'll grow back, but he thinks that right now they won't. Poor Moose!
So, for nearly a year I haven't really made anything. Well, I started a lot of things for myself, rather than Etsy, as I didn't really feel like having the pressure of production hanging over me. And then I realized that I didn't have to actually have the pressure of making things for others if I didn't want to on Etsy. There is a lot of talk of business vs hobby on Etsy all the time. I very much respect those who want to use online marketplaces as true businesses, thinking about customer, demand, costs, overheads etc. That is great - it is truly wonderful that the internet allows people to do that. However, it's not for me. I realised that I enjoy the process of making stuff a lot, but I do not have the time or the inclination right now to spend hours thinking about SEO campaigns, keywords, and ensuring my stock levels are appropriate. So, I reconciled myself to the fact that Moose and Bear will never really be super successful. And that's okay with me. As long as I can use it to challenge myself to grow creatively and occasionally get rid of an overstock of cute little softie critter then that is probably the best I can hope for.
In the meantime, I have listed a new ACEO that I finished back in, eeeek, December. I really love cross stitch, maybe more than all the other forms of embroidery. There is something so wonderfully uniform about the perfect squares. It is such a clean beautiful stitching type. If I can find a bunch of frames at a flea market over the next couple of weeks then I can see myself doing a line of cross stitch products.
I actually have found quite a lot of things that were finished late last year that I will be tidying up and photographing over the next couple of weeks. I've also been thinking about and developing a new product line of very cute miniature crochet cell phone charms. I adore making these, not least because they are super portable. I've ordered a bunch of cell phone charm straps, and as soon as they arrive then I'll be able to start listing. Exciting times!
