I'm back and things are looking up!

The whole idea of writing a blog was to hold myself accountable;  to making an effort to increase my sales through my etsy shop and to try to increase my shop's traffic from other forms of media. So far I have mainly been useless at it and the blogosphere has not had an amazing impact,  but as for my shop.......

well, I have news! My sales are up - in that I have made some - and my numbers are good - people are still looking at my shop every day but as to how that happened, I have absolutely no idea.

As far as I can tell, one day someone with a great deal of influence came across an item in my shop, 'favourited' it and - blam! - my numbers doubled, tripled, quadrupled overnight!

And then - people started buying stuff! Which is after all, the whole point, right?

My first custom order was for one of these with a minor modification - the curtains were on the inside (and the fabric was a little different due to sourcing difficulties)

Then I sold one of these: a camping themed tablecloth fort that a customer and I designed together for her party planning business.

 



 

 Then I sold the one item I never thought I would sell, the template I made to take pictures of for my first tablecloth fort listing, the pink one above. (The customer has since left a review, albeit a slightly ambiguous one!) The customer bought one of my cushions too - now that was a good day!

Then I had another custom order for a camping fort - this customer loved the design but wanted a slightly different colour scheme - here's how it looked:

It was really difficult to photograph as I don't have a table the same size as the order so I draped it over some chairs. My customer was delighted with it - 5 stars all the way - so cool to et my first rave review!

In summary: the last couple of months have been super busy - along with my orders I made the two tablecloth forts shown below to give to my daughter's preschool as a leaving gift, and I have been making plans for some items to list in the Fall. I am going to try and get my act together and have the items pre-made and ready to list and ship BEFORE the Fall starts. Good idea, huh? I know, that's what everybody who runs their business efficiently does, instead of playing catch-up all the time, but I'm still learning. And I'm determined. And I'm holding myself accountable, right?