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LIVE from my new Workshop!
5 years ago
So...I did a thing. Lol. I rented my first studio space for the next year!! It's ADORABLE, and perfect for me. a 16x16 room with a private half bath, central air and heat, for honestly super cheap per month. My landlord is really cool and always available to help with anything, and my neighbor (it's a 3 unit building) is really sweet and runs a shop I'd actually buy from! I'm over the moon by how everything came together to make this happen, as it's something I've wanted since I was probably 15-16 years old.
Having a space that's entirely mine, outside of the house is a luxury I thought I'd NEVER get, and honestly it's intended to be short term, as we sell our current house and get our new one built, but STILL. and if I like it and can manage to get my license/a car within the year, I may keep coming here! I'm not sure yet. The plan was to make an even BIGGER studio space in our new house that I could occupy full time, which would be lovely. Our new house is going to be in the mountains and driving those roads in the winter would be frightening to say the least. I also plan on staying home with any future kiddos and homeschooling, so being home would be ideal. But I really don't know what the future holds anymore! I could not have told you in January that I would have my own studio at this point. Heck, I couldn't have told you AFTER COVID that this would be happening! So it's all just blessings from here on out.
Business has been...odd. Etsy changed their algorithm *again* and it's not been favorable. People are also tapped out and potentially the loss of income is impacting sales. But I've had a lot more large orders in between my openings then I typically get, so that's made up for it sort of.
I'm looking forward to boosting productivity and having more time now to look into how to improve traffic and get things back to how they used to be and better. I'm looking at being in the shop around 6:30 am every morning and staying until 4, so plenty of time to feel productive and get stuff done!
Basically...life is great. I feel a little guilty saying that because I know so many people are suffering right now still because of the pandemic, but I am also eternally grateful to all of my customers this year who helped me get here and enabled me to keep going, when so many others had to give up or lost their entire businesses due to the issues in the world right now. I thank my lucky stars every day, and I'm still so humbled by the people who trust me with their characters and truly enjoy my suit work.
Hope everyone is hanging in there ok, and hopefully I get to see some of you eventually at AC 2021!
Having a space that's entirely mine, outside of the house is a luxury I thought I'd NEVER get, and honestly it's intended to be short term, as we sell our current house and get our new one built, but STILL. and if I like it and can manage to get my license/a car within the year, I may keep coming here! I'm not sure yet. The plan was to make an even BIGGER studio space in our new house that I could occupy full time, which would be lovely. Our new house is going to be in the mountains and driving those roads in the winter would be frightening to say the least. I also plan on staying home with any future kiddos and homeschooling, so being home would be ideal. But I really don't know what the future holds anymore! I could not have told you in January that I would have my own studio at this point. Heck, I couldn't have told you AFTER COVID that this would be happening! So it's all just blessings from here on out.
Business has been...odd. Etsy changed their algorithm *again* and it's not been favorable. People are also tapped out and potentially the loss of income is impacting sales. But I've had a lot more large orders in between my openings then I typically get, so that's made up for it sort of.
I'm looking forward to boosting productivity and having more time now to look into how to improve traffic and get things back to how they used to be and better. I'm looking at being in the shop around 6:30 am every morning and staying until 4, so plenty of time to feel productive and get stuff done!
Basically...life is great. I feel a little guilty saying that because I know so many people are suffering right now still because of the pandemic, but I am also eternally grateful to all of my customers this year who helped me get here and enabled me to keep going, when so many others had to give up or lost their entire businesses due to the issues in the world right now. I thank my lucky stars every day, and I'm still so humbled by the people who trust me with their characters and truly enjoy my suit work.
Hope everyone is hanging in there ok, and hopefully I get to see some of you eventually at AC 2021!
