Share Your Exciting Hopes & Goals for 2013
I love New Years Eve and New Years Day. The whole “new beginning” thing is always refreshing and exciting and the day happens to be the anniversary of my first date with my sweet husband, Tim. We went out for fireworks on New Years Eve and the fireworks never stopped! 🙂
From a Creative Business perspective, I love the opportunity of the fresh start, the new day, the clean slate and any other “today is the first day of the rest of your life” sayings you can think of!
I’m kind of wishy-washy on the idea of goals. I used to think they were required ingredients of any successful plan. But I’m not so sure anymore. I think life throws curve balls and sometimes you just go with the flow. Some goals get done, some don’t. That’s ok.
But I still feel compelled to set goals or something along those lines. Call them directional guidance, dreams, big ideas, whatever. Here are a few of mine for 2013.
Handmade & Craft
I’ve fallen head-over-heals in love with the “handmade movement” over the last few years. When I look at the people involved in today’s handmade culture I’m totally inspired to see girls and guys from ages 12 to 72 (and beyond) loving and doing the same types of creative projects.
The DIY can-do attitude amongst the handmade crowd totally inspires me, so I want to do even more to provide inspiration back to you. Therefore, we’re increasing our handmade blogging work this year. In addition to EverythingEtsy.com, we’ll also be blogging at HandmadeandCraft.com
My “goal” is to make it inspiring, beautiful, and wonderful. I hope you like it!
My New Etsy Shop (also Handmade & Craft)
I didn’t sell as much on Etsy as I wanted to in 2012. A big reason for that is probably because I had too many shops and just couldn’t keep up with everything and still be a decent mom/wife/daughter, you know what I mean.
So I recently combined all my Etsy shops into one shop and decided to name it Handmade & Craft too. I’m hoping that the name helps make sense of the varied assortment of items in the shop and helps build a brand. I’m also hoping I can tie the shop in with the new blog a little better.
My “goal” is to increase overall Etsy sales by a good bit this year. My first steps to do this will be to add more items to my shop {you will love my crafty totes!}, invest a little in advertising, and get all my “on Etsy” ducks in a row. By that I mean things like, Item Titles, Item Descriptions, my Shop Announcement, Profile Pages, etc.
Spend More Time Traveling as a Family
When we first started working online, around this time of year back in 2009, we had big plans to travel a lot. Our first blog, ForeverWherever.com, was envisioned as somewhat of a travel blog. Unbeknownst to us at the time, a multitude of circumstances including finances, work, medical issues, and more would prevent us from traveling much at all for the next few years.
We’ve had to change quite a bit about how we travel (car now vs. motorhome then) and our boys have almost grown-up (meaning they have busy schedules of their own now), but we’ve finally been able to get some family travel in.
My hope for 2013 is to get in at least a few of these family travel experiences while we have the chance.
I’d love to hear about your hopes,dreams and goals for the new year!!! Personal or business…share away in the comments!!!!
Happy New Year!
~Kim
We have decided that this is the year to finally commit some of our ideas to paper by writing down some patterns and sharing them via the blog and a soon-to-be-created Etsy shop! Laura. &.Annie
Laura & Annie – Selling patterns on Etsy is a great idea! There are so many crafty people that want to create something pretty but want a little instruction. Yay for you guys! 🙂
~Kim
I started My Make Do and Mend Year, making ,making do, mending, thrifting and buying nothing new in September, so I’m going to carry on with this! I also have a whole load of crazily ambitious projects-you can read about them here! http://mymakedoandmendyear.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/resolving/
Love your site-thankyou so much for all the inspiration 🙂
I just want to make one tiny little sale on Etsy. I’ve sold one necklace in a local store and a few to friends but not a single one on Etsy yet. I’ve been working on improving my store and promotions and my views are slowly starting to grow but it’s hard to sell something when I still get less than 30 views a day 🙁 I’m not giving up yet and I’m gonna keep working at it tho.
I think it’s exciting to have a chance to create a new goal to help guide you throughout the year each New Years! Im hoping to have a new baby this year and just keep crossing my fingers that ill have a little bundle to snuggle before the years over!
This year professionally I hope to expand my selection of crocheted items to include blankets and really hope to perfect my sewing skills to include some of those items to my shop! I really hope to work on a makeover of my basement to setup up a studio space to really get the creative juices flowing and keep the yarn out of my living room. If all goes as planned I’m hoping to get my blog space developed before the end of the year to give info to fellow crafters on some tutorials, projects and fun stuff!
If I can do all of that in 2013 I will be pumped for what my future will bring!!
Good luck to you and all you hope for as well! Happy New Year!! (( :
I really hope to be able to build on my brand presence this year, I opened my shop in October and it has gone better than I had hoped, now the task is getting myself out there more and of course, creating my socks off! x
Hi Kim,
I understand everything you were saying in your new blog post. Getting an Etsy shop together is a lot of work. There’s so much competition out there. I had some help with tweaking tags, descriptions, etc. for our Shopladylike store. Just when you thought you had it right, some new changes happen on Etsy and you have to rethink it again. I wish you all the best for the New Year. I love your bags!!!
My goal is to get my businesses selling better by promotion or just working on the sites. For some reason my websites’ sales were way down last year. Maybe I need to actually try selling on Etsy–goodness knows I’ve done plenty of buying from there, lol. I know Google has made some changes that affected a lot of small businesses online and how they are searched for, so we just have to be creative and go where we know the sales are, where more people visit, like Etsy or a physical craft show. Or as a good web teacher advises, optimize your site for more specific search terms now that Google has made it harder to find us small people.
I like to think I’m trying to do the old saying of “taking lemons and making lemonade.” Hoping that everyone’s sales pick up for this new year!
Your list is quite a bit longer than mine! However, I also set goals keeping in mind that things may change.
I’m going full time for 2013! I’ve been flirting with the idea of working full time for myself for… well, forever now and I’ve finally taken the plunge!
Good luck with your resolutions! I’ll be following your new blog and shop!
I hope to write more sewing patterns this year, travel more (good idea!), and get out of my “cave” and meet more people. 🙂
” I recently combined all my Etsy shops into one shop and decided to name it Handmade & Craft too. I’m hoping that the name helps make sense of the varied assortment of items in the shop and helps build a brand.” I read these words above, Kim, and had an idea! Maybe you could turn the tables, and make it an advantage that you make many different items in different media. It could be part of your identity as a person (and thus part of your shop identity, and part of your story). Best of luck and Happy New Year!
Hi Kim 😀 Happy New year! I think you have some wodnerful goals for this year. I’m also on Etsy http://www.etsy.com/people/IDelightinyou?ref=si_pr
and I’ve added a few of your items to my favorites. This year I really hope to have better sales too. I will add more things to my products line and promote alot more. The hardest part is just getting people to take a look. Wishing you much sucess and happiness this year!
My shop, http:/www.etsy.com/shop/mycreativesewingshop, is brand new so I’m still testing the waters. I’ve been doing alterations, tailoring and theater costuming for well over 30 years as well as doing various crafts and making slip covers and curtains for 3 rental cottages we own. And now that I’m a Gramma, I’ve been making doll clothes for my grand daughters who love them. Since I love making them and had bought a wonderful bag for their AG dolls on Etsy I thought a shop of my own would be fun. Yet, there are thousand of doll clothes!!! I’m struggling to find my “niche”.
So far I have some doll clothes up and realize my camera is a little below par. And I should really have a real AG doll instead of an Our Generation doll. OY! Then there were all those Attic Window Quilted wall hangings I had in my closet that I couldn’t find a place for in our house or the cottages. Most of them found homes. But again, I’m not happy with the photography. They look uneven and they really aren’t.
Then there’s the toys. Several years ago I had a business going with a boxed toy called Color Me Creations and a line of 40 different animals and toys that I had professionally cut but I stitched, stuffed, and packaged with markers. They did very well in certain shops and craft shows around New England but for a variety of reasons the whole thing folded. Plus we were downsizing to a much smaller house on our property in NH and there was no way I could bring everything with me even to just keep it going as a craft show item. (I had many sleepless nights over that.) So leaving thousands of boxes, cut animals and magic markers behind (contributed most of it) I moved with just 20 something each of the 5 most popular animals and some spare material. I hope I can perk up some interest in Etsy customers through selling them as a kit. I have them stitched up only and am leaving the stuffing to the customer. I’m not sure if this is going to work but stuffing them now kills my shoulders. (I’m almost 70 old after all!!!) I have a feeling I should include the fiberfill and markers too but any washable markers work and many crafters have fiberfill. I’m trying to keep shipping as low and as easy as possible.
Like I said, I’m floundering and would really love any tips anyone can give me!!!
Thank you and have a happy and profitable year to all of you!
You have given me food for thought, thank you for your post! I was considering diversifying into 2 shops, but now I think I will keep it all together after reading your experience. I didn’t consider how much work keeping up 2 shops would be 🙂
Great post! I’m setting some mini goals as I go along – personal and Etsy shop wise. So far – personal mini goals are watching more new movies, updating my wardrobe, and taking a step back more often for the little things in life. As a new Etsy seller (10 months now) I want to be more organized, make new things more often to be able to add new listings more frequent, and get even more involved with the Etsy community. I do what I can and am also a mother and wife so it can get tough to make time! I’ve realized that these things (big or small) are important to me and I need to more aware of them.
Thanks again for this great post!
-tascha.
HI EVERYONE !!! Happy New Year to you all. I have many hopes for this year that it will be different than all our last. My one dream has always been to own my own business. I enjoying working for myself, and take pride in my work. My talent is Hand Creating my own ideas of Throw Quilts for babies to adults, Beaded bracelets/anklets, C.R.A.F.T.Y. scented hot/cold rice pax, Dream catchers, or how about a few scented/unscented designer soaps. Making this business work is my dream. Thank you for letting me share my dream with you.
My goals this year are to develop my skills more, unite my brands & online presences, get a rhythm to my promotions, and develop my site more (more updates, and move a lot of merchandise there from Etsy). And get a regular listing schedule for Etsy. Ambitious? 😀
In 2013 I am hoping to bring more exposure to my store. I have setup a calender to remind me of small tasks I need to do everyday for promoting my store. These include things like photographing new items, listing new items, writing blog posts, tweeting, ect.
I am also working on increasing my Facebook fanpage following as well as my twitter following! I really want to get out there more this year!