a couple of months ago i felt like i was having a bit of an indentity crisis in the pop.up / etsy shop realm of my life. after many late night discussions with randy there are some ch.ch.cha.changes taking place!
first, high street boutique is now the yellow trunk! named after my beloved yellow suitcases that hold all my goods. a new name also means a new email address, paypal account, & a new facebook page.
second, & most scary, is i am stopping the ob farmers market... i think. eeep. even as i type it i cringe a little. i really really want to do it & feel like i need to do it, but not for any other reason than i feel like i should. does that make any sense? i love the community of vendors, chatting with people, hanging outside in the sunshine for four hours, but the money side of the market is not meeting my goals. the majority of my products are less than $10, so i have to sell quite a bit to make the $40 entry fee then sell enough to cover my costs from the $40 of product i just sold, & then hopefully sell even more so i can make a profit. i keep thinking it will get better, that i just need to be patient, that it will all pay off, but then i think about the opportunities i havent taken advantage of because i have been putting all my time & energy into the market. no matter how much i enjoy doing it, from a business perspective, its not working out the way i hoped. with that being said, i learned so much, met so many great connections, & its because of the market i have the opportunity to branch out a little. so it was definitely not a waste of time, but its just not the right thing for my little business at this moment & im okay with that. im even excited about my new plan...
my poor little etsy shop suffered so much since i started doing the market as all my energy was put into that instead of photographing & listing new items. of course, sales on etsy went down, but i was still doing better sales wise online, so it makes sense to focus on what is being more successful.
im going to continue teaching classes every other thursday at the lazy hummingbird coffee & tea house. you can take a peek at the upcoming classes on my workshop page & please spread the word to all your san diego friends. the classes are super laid back, work at your own pace, have good conversation & connect with other people types of classes. plus, you can byob or wine & snacks or they have delicious drinks & snacks there... my favorite are the cravory cookies. yum.
instead of doing the farmers market every week i am going to do just a couple craft shows per month. one pro of doing this is you have an audience who specifically came for the crafty nature of the event, as opposed to the farmers market where the main draw, generally speaking, is all the delicious farm fresh produce & then the art is just cool browse around. another pro is longer selling hours... a couple of shows per month equals the same amount or more hours than doing the market 4 times in a month.
in addition to etsy, classes, & selected shows i opened up my first wholesale account in march & really would like to expand on that & i have also been given some great consignment opportunities. im pretty excited for this upcoming season... expanding my connection of indie business friends, experiencing new avenues of selling, & just creating pretty things!
p.s. you can like my new facebook page here.
![](<a title="living a creative life on Bloglovin" href="http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/2260268/living-a-creative-life/follow"><img alt="bloglovin" border="0" src="http://www.bloglovin.com/widget/bilder/widget_fashion.gif" /></a>){kind=link}