Saturday, January 21, 2012

Inspired by a New Year....

Wow! 5 months since my last blog entry. That is not good. I hope you all have been staying up to date with what has been happening in the world of Inspired by Paper over on my facebook page. If not, I will give you a little summary of what I have been up to since I last posted in August. I had a stall at the November Maribyrnong Makers Market however the weather wasn't kind and rained it out. Then the committee added a Twilight market a few days before Christmas which was a lovely evening. I hope they do that again this year. Besides the two markets, I completed over 30 frame orders. This kept me very busy and a lot of them where custom ones. I also had several friends order Christmas cards off me so they were also made. Amongst all this I worked ridiculous hours in my 'real' job as a events manager in the lead up to Christmas and was absolutely exhausted.

This leads me to now. Approaching the end of January and I am just finishing up a month off work. Yes, a month. You would probably be thinking that I got so much done and believe me, that is what I was hoping for. But I have made three frame orders and that is all. I was lucky enough to go down to Rye for 4 days at the start of January with my husband and enjoyed the lovely weather and great company by the beach. Oh and some great cricket viewing! Since then, there has been a lot of family commitments. Packing up the family home of 30+ years was a lot bigger job than I had anticipated and now focusing on organising my dads 60th is another big job.

So what do I have planned for 2012?? I really hope to have more time for Inspired by Paper but also remembering not to give up any family time in order to do this. The last 6 months of 2011 I didn't like that I was under the pump. Orders would come in and instead of sitting and enjoying making them all, I would be feeling the stress and losing my motivation. I hope to be able to have time to sit and create new things. One goal I do have is to open a Etsy store and close my online store. I believe Etsy will open me up to a larger customer base... now just to get that happening!

Market wise, I will once again take a step back form these. 2010 and the 18 or so markets was great but very stressful. I found only doing the 4 or so in 2011 I still had the same amount of sales due to word of mouth and repeat customers. I have committed to the three Maribyrnong Makers Markets again and will look at doing another Piccadilly Market along with the Yarraville Festival market. I also enjoyed the Mathilda's Market last year and will most likely apply to the big Christmas one they have at the racecourse.

Well that is a lot of words from me. I will be back later with some photos. But for now I will continue to change channels between the Tennis and the Big Bash cricket match!

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