I Finally Made up My Mind

I've decided to close my Etsy shop at the end of the year and it's even in writing now. I changed my shop announcement and now it's official. I'm going to concentrate on Artfire where I don't have to spend $10.00 a week to try and make a $10.00 sale. No more constant listing and renewing at 20c a pop, which adds up really quickly when you have to list 10 times a day just to be seen in the search. The few sales I've been getting on Etsy lately just aren't worth it anymore.

What's funny, though, is that right, and I mean RIGHT after I changed my shop announcement to CLOSING at the end of the year, I got three sales right in a row. Unheard of these days. And maybe I should have put a shop closing announcement up months ago.

I'm still going to have my supply shop on Etsy, selling to other suckers, I mean sellers. Supplies sell really well on Etsy, feeding the dreams of shop owners hoping to make a few dollars selling handmade amongst all the newly allowed 'collectives' selling factory made 'handcrafts' on Etsy. Buyer beware these days, chances are that what you are ordering on Etsy could be found at your local Cost Plus for a whole lot less money.

It's not that my Artfire shop is a huge success or anything, but more that my Artfire shop has already had enough sales to pay my $5.95 a month flat fee for the next 15 months. And the way Artfire's search works, you don't have to constantly renew or list new things to be seen in the search. In fact there is no button to renew an item anywhere to be found on Artfire.

And one of the things I like best about Artfire is that the people who run the place ACTUALLY TELL YOU WHAT'S GOING ON. No searching around the forums trying to figure out what that new button in your shop is and how to use it, no wondering why people aren't able to check out of your shop and why they removed the 'keep shopping' button from the checkout system and only put it back after about 100 threads wondering what's going on. The owners actually spend time in the forums and have easy to find tutorials on how to use the site and how to set up your listings for the best search engine optimization.

But, enough about that. I did leave a safety net up on Etsy, saying that I might re-open my shop later on next year, but we'll see how things go.

Oh, here's some exciting news besides the fact that Bristol Palin's dancing makes people shoot out their TVs. Bakersfield has earned the honor of being the dirtiest city in the nation. We have the worst air pollution in America, folks! We even beat out LA!! Whoot!

And now for what's new on Artfire.

I decided to try soldered glass pendants again since I had some supplies already here in my supply cupboard.

Wildflower pendant.




Deer Nibbling.




Lion Yawning and Giraffe Rolling its Eyes. The lion is on one side of the pendant, giraffe on the other. Wear this to work when you have a boring meeting to go to or lots of annoying coworkers.

Arghh, I updated my blogger to some new system and now I can't figure out what I'm doing here. And I don't feel like messing with it right now.