bloowabbit: xmas decorations

Tuesday, 18 December 2018

12 days to Christmas - decorating

decorating...bah humbug

This year, for some reason, I found decorating to be difficult. Normally I can't contain my excitement, have already planned what colours I'm going to use (I have a lot of decorations) and have the house decorated by the beginning of the month. But it was already past the third weekend in December and I hadn't even taken the tree out of the trunk. When I was little we probably didn't put up the tree until the week before Christmas, it wasn't the done thing to have it up for very long. Times change. Perhaps this year I've reverted to times past.

This year it's all teal, pinks, white and silver - I decide the colours I'm going to use whenever I'm packing the decorations away after the previous Christmas. The colours I choose are put away separately in easy reach. I had loads of white and silver, a few pink and teal and thought I'd pick up some more in the January sales. One pack of tiny silver and teal baubles, that was it. But this November I did find two lovely pale pink glass baubles, quite large, in Poundland. I bought them and then smashed one on my stone floor when I unwrapped it. Finding other pink baubles was difficult but I settled for a fish and a jellyfish from Tiger...now floating aimlessly on the the tree between the polar bears and the reindeer.

Baubles on and I stood back to admire my handiwork. Something missing - the picks and the ribbon. There was no way those baubles were coming off before January. I stuffed some ribbon and a few picks between the branches where the tree looked a bit bare. This was not the fabulous tree I'd envisaged after watching Rebecca Robeson on YouTube.

It's up, it's lit, it's decorated (bar the angel). The bannisters which usually have decorated swags might be done later this week. Ho ho ho hum...

12 days to Christmas - decorating my planner

12 days to Christmas - Trollbeads Share-a-Christmas-Card

12 days to Christmas - making bunting

12 days to Christmas - Jacquie Lawson advent calendar

12 days to Christmas - Christmas/Winter quote book

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Sunday, 11 December 2016

ABADID 11...Etsy shop, a no-go this year...

I had great plans to open an Etsy shop in time for Christmas 2016 and had been making all sorts of stuff throughout the year that might have sold. Jewellery, cards, smash books, junk journals, bookmarks, artwork and more.

I'm aware that in 2012 Etsy had over 800k active sellers (https://blog.etsy.com/news/2012/notes-from-chad-7/) and that figure may have fallen or risen since then. So it was quite competitive in 2012 even with 40 million visitors to the site each month. But that's not why I didn't open a shop.

I started to open one, naming it 'Sticky Papers', but that's as far as I got. And I had experimented with shops over the years on Folksy. I sold jewellery on 'The Thieving Magpie' and paper crafts on 'Harry Rascal' and mixed vintage bits and bobs on 'The Mudlark' making enough to refund my expenditure but not make any profit. All about funding a hobby because craftwork and collecting can be expensive.

Why I didn't open a shop was because I wasn't convinced I'd sell enough to make it worth the effort. I didn't have a decent sized following on any of my social media sites and I believe that's an important factor in having a successful online store or website. Otherwise you fall into the trap of having a lovely looking shop and no-one ever sees it.

So, the items I've made are getting used as Christmas gifts - friends and family seem to like receiving handmade things from me so that in itself is enough to make me think I might open that Etsy shop in 2017. And I've a few ideas to give me a slight edge on so much of what's for sale online. What I need to do early in 2017 is to make more of my social media pages, draw followers...and I don't find that easy.

Here's looking forward to Christmas 2017...

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