Open for Business!

What happened to January's blog posts? 

How did I not write a blog post at all during the month of January? I guess it was good to take a break. We had a lot going on during the month of December. My family and I were anticipating celebrating our son's second Christmas with our family and a new cousin. Then, we caught COVID and our household was sick for twenty-five days (that's how long it took to have three negative tests). Obviously, art did not happen during that period of time. Rest and recovery was the priority. This also meant Christmas was small and only with the three of us and four fur babies. It wasn't really what we had planned. We welcomed in the new year in isolation - and with a miscarriage. It was devastating. So, I've been taking a little bit of a break. And that's ok. So, no art and no blogs for January. 

February Goals 

I had decided that I needed to talk to a career coach to figure out what I wanted to do, exactly, with my skillset. And in the week that I was supposed to meet with one I had someone ask for a print to be sent to Virginia, had someone buy a children's book, had someone tell me they regretted not buying an original I had for sale a few years ago, and had a gallery space ask for more art. So, I don't think that my issue is my art - my issue is marketing. The career coach agreed. 

I left Etsy last year because of the fee structure. I don't think that it's a good idea for my art to stay there. A lot of work (time and money, too) went into building my Etsy shop and their fee structure made it very difficult to feel like that was a productive use of my time. In searching for different sales platforms I've finally landed on my shop here - I'd even looked at moving to a different hosting site. 

Art Prints

Shop

I'm excited to share these prints and this section of my shop! There are still some things that I'm figuring out. I'm working on adding original pieces, but it is taking me a little while to organize everything and work through shipping information. 

I'm am also trying to decide what I want to offer and what I don't want to offer. So, for right now my prints are available in my shop. If there is a specific print that you want to see, please let me know. Your feedback is critical for business building and I love hearing what is important to you. 

I asked this question on Twitter and was told people want to see plant prints, the jackalope, and the stargazing jackrabbit - so all of those were added. Your feedback IS important! 

This month I am continuing to focus on changing my marketing strategy. That looks like more art-focused Twitter posts (because I do a lot of shit posting on that site, don't we all?), focused TikTok's, focused Reels, and focused posting on Facebook and Instagram. It's been really hard to shift away from Etsy - I just had to pay money and enter keywords and a lot of the marketing was taken care of for me. So, I'm trying to figure out. marketing over here. Thanks, as always, for coming along on this journey. It's been a lot of change in four years and I can't wait to see where 2024 takes us!