Since my wonderful boyfriend was thoughtful enough to get me a new digital camera for Christmas (I broke my last one falling down in the streets of Montreal), I have been able to start back into my Etsy business.
It's been almost exactly a year since I started on the site, so it's kind of like my second try at doing this. I was very successful the first time, and I think I have two options:
1) Keep doing what I was doing, and do more of it, and thus be even more successful (financially and statistically successful, to be specific)
2) Use past success to "check off the box" (I sold things I made for money - yay), and now spend this "round" being experimental with what I'm selling (less conventional items, less "cutesy" stuff - more "authentic" art).
3) A hybrid of both.
I think I'm going with 3. I can really only make so many stuffed animals before I want to paint a portrait or take provocative photographs. I have never felt, and do not feel now, that they are mutually exclusive. I should be able to, and just plain should, make and try to sell whatever I want to. It all comes from me; there is no need to segregate one from the other. I think... Sometimes I'm not sure provocative photographs and stuffed toys should be sold together in the same store. Sometimes I think, "Fuck it." Who knows.
But now is the time to be experimental. I'm pushing my boundaries in both directions, but still creating some of the old standards that bring in enough income to buy more supplies. You can write off hobby supplies on your taxes - but not if you make more money than you spend. I'd like to fall into the latter category. But I want to maintain my integrity, too.
On that note, I've posted some new items, and plan to spend the rest of the evening on a really cool rabbit doll I started yesterday. Please check them out when you get a chance.
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