Sales Milestone!

Thanks to a late-January sales blast in my Etsy shop, I've now surpassed 400 sales! I love turning any milestone in my sales numbers. I know 400 sales isn't huge on Etsy, where some people have sold thousands of items, but for me, each one is still a huge accomplishment. It's such a dream come true to be able to make stuff and sell it, and every single sale on Etsy fills me up with joy. Thanks to all of my customers out there, you mean the world to me!

Back to Real Life

I'm back! I've actually been back since Saturday, but it's taken me a while to get back into the groove of things. Our fun-in-the-sun vacation turned out to be more of a fun-in-the-cold-and-gray vacation, thanks to a freak streak of cold weather in Florida, but we still had a good time!

While I was in St. Petersburg, Florida, I had the opportunity to check out a bit of the local clay scene. I started off by visiting the St. Petersburg Clay Company, located in the old Seaboard Train Station, built in 1926. This facility is home to about 60 artists. They're unique in that they offer various levels of membership and studio rentals. They have a massive kiln yard that includes gas and raku kilns, as well as an anagama kiln. Throughout the facility, you can view the work of almost everyone, all the way from the artists-in-residence to the some of the original SPCC founders. If you're in St. Pete and into clay, you definitely want to schedule of a tour of this place!

I also got to visit the lovely Craftsman House Gallery, which is housed in a renovated 1918 Craftsman bungalow. I wandered for what seemed like hours through the sunny gallery space, and was delighted to find that the gallery carried work by such pottery greats as Tom and Elaine Coleman and Natalie Blake. I came away with a stunning Tom Coleman bowl, which looks a bit like the one here. Craftsman House owner Stephanie Schorr gave me a tour of the pottery studio, located in the adjacent renovated carriage house, and her kiln building. Craftsman House also has a wonderful cafe where you can get coffee drinks and a great little meal. I had the olive tapenade platter and the mango iced tea and it was fantastic! I can see why this place does such a huge local lunch rush!

After St. Petersburg, we headed to Orlando for a few days of fun at Disney World. This is my third Disney World trip in five years, I love it there so much! My first trip was for a friend's wedding, and I have to say, I was skeptical as to why two adults would want to get married in a place that's obviously for kids. Then I got there, and saw Donald Duck for the first time, and promptly fell under the Disney World spell. I've never had more fun anywhere in my life! The food, the rides, the beautiful gardens and hotels...I could go on and on. If you've never been, you must go at least once in your life. You won't regret it!

So, now I'm home and trying to switch over from vacation mode. I'm firing a glaze kiln next weekend, so look for some new work in the store soon!

In a sunshine state of mind...

This is my last blog post for a couple of weeks! My dear husband and I are heading to Florida for a fun-in-the-sun vacation, complete with a side trip to Disney World. My mom will be running my Etsy store while I'm gone, but only jewelry items will be available. Pottery, chopstick gift sets, and international shipping options will return on January 26th!

Money Matters

I've been away from my blog for so long! I took a few days off from the computer around Christmas, but this long absence is due to the fact that I threw out my back a little over a week ago. It's getting slowly getting better, but it's been very uncomfortable to sit at the computer for any length of time. Or to do anything else, for that matter! I've never thrown out my back before; I had no idea it was so debilitating.

Since I'm not up to anything in the studio, I spent the morning doing the bookkeeping for my pottery business. I'm proud to say that I made a profit in 2008! I've never actually made a profit in my business before, I've only sort of broke even. I took my profit and divided it by a rough estimate of the number of hours I worked at my business this year. I discovered that I earned $4.00 an hour making and selling pottery and jewelry this year! Hoots toots!

Of course, I would like to make more than $4.00 an hour making pottery. And I'm beginning to understand how to do that, finally. I'm discovering that it takes careful tracking of information of all sorts. I track what I spend on my business, in various spreadsheets for material, marketing, and overhead costs. I also track my sales monthly and annually to see which sales venues are producing the most income. I got my spreadsheets from an excellent art/craft business book called Making a Living in Crafts. I highly recommend checking it out if you're new to running a small craft business or you just never feel like you know what you're doing when it comes to the money side of your business.

I used to worry endlessly about how I would ever make enough money to continue to be able to make pottery. I wondered how in the world anyone ever supported themselves with their art! Now, I just try to do better than last year. I used to think there was some sort of magical plan or system that I just had not discovered that was the Answer. Now, I realize that pretty much everyone does the same thing. They do research, they try things, and then they keep what works and they pitch what doesn't. It's really that simple.

Going into 2009, I'm looking carefully at my spreadsheets, trying to determine where I can cut costs in order to be more profitable in the coming year. I see that my shipping costs and shipping supplies categories are where I spend a lot of money. Maybe I can search around for lower costs on bubble mailers and shipping labels and the like. I also see that my advertising section is pretty hefty, probably due to all those Etsy showcase spots and co-op ads I bought into early in 2008. I was just signing up for things willy-nilly, because I had no idea what worked for me. Now I know a little more. Etsy co-op ads, such as those in Bust or Craft magazines, have done nothing for me. Main Showcase spots are usually worth the money, but Category Showcase spots are not. I dropped Constant Contact's e-mail marketing services in favor of Vertical Response, because Constant Contact costs $15 a month whereas Vertical Response is pay-as-you-go and normally costs me about $4 to send an e-newsletter to my entire mailing list. It's amazing how little things like this add up to big money at the end of a year.

I know a lot of people don't like to talk about money, and some think it's crass to do so, but I don't agree. How will anyone learn about money if no one talks about it? I would love to see more money talk in artists' blogs, because I'd love to learn what they've learned without having to go through it myself. Why do we insist on reinventing the wheel? Let's just all share what we've learned so we can all do better.

On that note, I hope 2009 will be a happy and prosperous year for all of you. I know that our economy is feeling pretty shaky right now, so it's more important than ever to learn what we can about money. If your personal finances need help, check out a little gem of a book called All Your Worth. I read this book two years ago and it changed my financial life forever. If you've resolved to get your money act together in 2009, start with this book. You won't regret it! Happy New Year!

Mission Accomplished

I think the Christmas rush has passed. I've been hesitant to say so, but I think it's over. It's funny, I spent so much time this year thinking about and preparing for the Christmas rush, and here it is, over already. I want to say thank you so much to everyone who purchased items from me, either through Etsy, at a craft fair, or direct from my studio. Your support means so much to me. Being an artist is never easy financially, but with the economy so rocky, I didn't know what to expect this year. But thanks to all of you, I've had the best Christmas season since I started my business. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I have to say, I think my Holiday Stress Reduction Plan (or Project Anti-Freakout) worked pretty well. The first week of December was rough because I had two craft fairs in addition to the increased Etsy traffic, but other than that, the season went pretty well. (I would say the season started right after Halloween and lasted through the first nine days of December.) Limiting shipping to three days a week was key, because I could fill all the orders that were in at any given time, and then not think about it again for a day or two. Last year, I was shipping nearly every day and that was a big source of stress.

Having set up the designated shipping space in my closet also helped a ton. Having all of my shipping supplies in one place, close at hand, made packing go much so faster and easier. And it was great to close it all away when I was done for the day. I also did not spend a single second standing in line in the post office, thanks to PayPal Multi-Order Shipping and Endicia for Mac. This contributed greatly to my well-being!

I think it's nice that the hectic holiday season for my business is pretty much over by December 10th. That gives me nearly two weeks to enjoy Christmas for what it is, in the present moment. Now that the rush is past, I can bake Christmas cookies and watch Christmas movies. I can wrap presents and plan for the Christmas Eve party I'm having at my house. I can enjoy my Christmas tree, the real evergreen wreath on my front door, and a blazing fire in the fireplace. It's like the real Christmas season is finally here!

To every thing, there is a season...

It's less than three weeks until Christmas, and I'm sitting here thinking about Valentine's Day. Between the holidays and my regular job, I have just eight days to make new work before I go on vacation in mid-January. I'm thinking about Valentine's Day because if I want to try to make anything Valentine-oriented, I have to do it now.

Being ready for holiday/seasonal sales is something I'm trying to improve on. In late April and early May of this year, I had this huge spike in sales in my Etsy store and I had no idea why. I thought maybe the world had finally discovered my work and couldn't get enough! I thought I had finally "made it." Turns out it was for Mother's Day gifts. That one made me feel a bit dense.

So, I am now trying to capitalize on holidays in terms of both merchandise and marketing. I did that this past Halloween when I produced some limited-edition Halloweeny colored jewelry. I don't think I got it into my shop early enough though, because it didn't sell super well online until I put the remaining stock on sale the last week of October. Or maybe it was because Halloween is not really a gift-giving holiday. However, the items did sell very well in person to a friend of mine who went to OSU and therefore loves the color orange to an almost unhealthy level...

The hardest part of this process for me is trying to prepare for a season beyond that which we are currently in. I mean, I'm surrounded by Christmas stuff right now, so it's hard to find Valentine's Day inspiration. I had a hell of a time designing my Christmas ornament this year, because I was trying to do it in August. I was still in a long hot days-bright flowers-garden tomatoes-eating breakfast on the patio frame of mind. I was struggling so badly to come up with an idea, I nearly had to take myself on an inspiration trip to the local year-round Christmas shop.

Christmas is, of course, the big selling highlight of the year for artists and crafters. Last year, I made half of my entire annual sales amount in November and December. But beyond Christmas, what can we do to take advantage of gift-buying holidays? Valentine's Day is the first gift-giving holiday after Christmas, so I would tend to think that people are shopped out. My husband and I still exchange Valentine's gifts, but they're usually of the cheap and quirky handmade variety. One year, he actually made me a heart-shaped pendant out of dried macaroni and glittery ribbon. It's still the best gift I've ever received.

But back to the subject at hand, do very many people buy each other Valentine's Day gifts, especially of the pottery variety? I don't know. I figure I'll try a few ideas and see how things go. I've learned that there's really no other way of doing things in this line of work!

Craft Fair Tales

Today is a cold and snowy day here in Denver, and although I don't like being house-bound by the snow, I'm relishing a little bit of quiet time in a crazy, hectic week.

The week started with a craft fair in downtown Denver, in the lobby of the Denver Newspaper Agency. I was contacted through Etsy about this show months ago, and I decided to go for it because the table fee was only $20. I don't do a lot of shows, but this one seemed easy enough.

I would only have two hours to set up on the day of the sale, so I thought I'd better take a couple of hours ahead of time to figure out how I was going to display everything. I borrowed a table from my friend Pirate Monkey, a bunch of tablecloths from my mom, and a whole jewelry display set up from a friend who used to sell Cookie Lee jewelry. First, I set up the table like this:

I thought my jewelry pieces looked really nice on the velvet-lined jewelry trays, but having all that black off to one side made the table look lopsided, and the pottery almost invisible. So I rearranged everything, and came up with this:

I thought this was better, but all that black in the middle just dominated the table, and the pottery still seemed hardly visible. So I decided to split up the trays, and move everything again:

Ah, third time's a charm! Splitting up the trays did the trick, and put the emphasis back on the pots in the middle.

Having figured out how to set up the table made me feel pretty prepared, so I was very surprised to find I couldn't sleep the night before the show! I wanted to sleep, I was very tired, but I just couldn't. My mind wasn't even racing with things I needed to do or remember, I was just wide awake. So I stayed like that most of the night, finally falling asleep sometime after 3 am and then waking up to my alarm at 5 am.

Despite feeling like a zombie all day, the show went pretty well. It was slow in the morning, which made me think no one would buy anything, but then sales picked up later in the day. My mom worked the table with me, which is so nice. If you've ever done a craft show, you know how nice it is to have a little help and company!

I think the best part of the day was getting to meet some other Etsy folks. My closest tablemates turned out to be two of the loveliest Etsyians you could ever meet. As soon as she had her table set up, Angie (spacemonkey on Etsy) walked up to my table and said, "Are you MSpottery?" My first real-life Etsy encounter! Angie turned out to be wonderfully funny and friendly, with an utterly fabulous collection of all-natural handmade bath and body products. I couldn't resist the gorgeous smells, and had to buy myself a Chai Tea lip balm and a White Jasmine bath bomb. I was going to use the bath bomb last night, but I couldn't bring myself to dissolve all that lovely scent just yet! It will have to wait a few more days...

Two tables down from me was the very sweet and adorable Susan (susanporteous on Etsy), with her beautiful handmade books and sock animals. I have to tell you, this woman has incredible craftsmanship. Her books and animals were so beautifully made, I wanted to buy everything. I had to restrain myself and walked away with only a little, colorful book and something else that I can't tell you about, because it's a Christmas gift for someone who's probably reading this right now!

All in all, the show went really well and I had a good time. Now, I'm going to take advantage of my quiet, snowy day and relax a little!