Progress . . .

I feel like I am making real progress. I have registered in Georgia, I think I even did it all correctly. ~fingers crossed~ I have conquered "tagging" products in facebook and instagram posts. 😁

Which is kind of Awesome since I wasn't sure I would ever get it to work right, LOL. The timing of it is also pretty fabulous, because I have just submitted for goimagine's #MakerChallenge for the first time. I got lucky and the pixel immediately picked up the new listings, which almost never happened previously.

So being able to post and actually link should be helpful in promoting not only my items but the Maker Challenge too. 😉

I've also noticed an uptick in traffic on my google analytics and some of it is quite interesting. Not only have there been more visits, but I have seen more organic traffic and I have seen some "paid" visits coming from goimagine's google ads. 😃

So I really high hopes for this year, plus my adventures back into painting have started to go much better. 😇 I am truly happy with some of the results, especially the most recent one.

New Year. . .new projects

This new year has been off to a bit of a frustrating start. However, I have made some progress on a few things.  First off, I think I have finally conquered facebook's domain verification and I now have the ability to tag products on Instagram, maybe, I'm testing it now. 😁 

Well test failed 😕 some sort of glitch but I tweaked and tried a few more times and I got it to "Schedule" it so now we'll wait an hour and see if the post shows up on instagram and if the product tagging actually took and functions. 😎

I have filed and paid Indiana state sales taxes (for the last time) and closed out my business license since I no longer live there. 😇 

I will be starting fresh with a new license for my new state of Georgia. I will be looking for in-person events in my new locale, which let's face it with this weather can be nearly all year-round. 😉 

I am enjoying my return to painting. I've been trying some new things in acrylic pouring and it has been interesting.  I'm not 100% happy with the results but I'm learning and there have been some interesting outcomes. 😅 I have a new and less likely to leak and ruin the floor set-up for pouring, which I have used once, and I think I'm going to like it. A cheap and simple solution, literally a tote and a dish shelf thing I bought at the local walmart for less than $30.  

The plastic tote has a fully sealed bottom to contain the overflow and the rack sits down inside it enough to be able to blow the paint off, but not so low as to make it hard or awkward to lift the canvas and tilt it around. Also, because I use mostly smaller canvases they fit well enough on the rack to leave room for the paint cups. 

Back to work, I have a lot to do this year. 😎

Happy New. . .frustrations

Why yes, it is a whole New Year with all new frustrations. 😂😅 Since I decided not to close and instead "double down" on RainbowMaille in 2023 I have spent days fighting with "domain verifications" on facebook, instagram, and pinterest. 😕 I find myself annoyed the most with instagram considering it is owned by facebook which I do have a live functional(semi) Pixel in my shop feeding listings to a facebook shop on the business page I thought I had this conquered but apparently not. 😒 

As per usual facebook has made it extra hard with the changes to the "meta business suite" and the old "business manager" pages being virtually nonexistent, the screens in the help videos don't exactly match anymore. I think I did it, but now it's the wait and see if it actually works. 😐 So, a couple hours for godaddy to update, up to 72 hours for facebook to verify, maybe next week it will work right. 😅 in the meantime. . . 

In Pinterest news I have installed the mini-scripts and tags on my Mosiac settings and finally have a green checkmark on the one thing, but I have no idea how to do the other thing. 😏 I have verified the domain on pinterest I have the proper globe with a checkmark icon so I guess it's actually 2 out of 3 (which according to Meatloaf ain't bad). But I am stuck on the add a data source. 

I don't know what it wants, a link URL but not really because it wants specific formats. I can't just export my listings into a file because there is nowhere to upload it on that page and it wants to refresh it every 24 hours so it says "hosted on an external site" but my shop link doesn't work because no .csv/.tsv/.xml/ whatever, in the help is says it cannot be google drive or dropbox so. . . 😕 I'm just confused, lost and a bit frustrated.  

I mean, I may not be a code-monkey, but I didn't think I was stupid either 😏 but boy do I feel dumb at the moment. So, I shall go back to creating listings because in the scheme of things that is easy. 😇

Murphy's Law with paint. . .

Well, it has been more than a year since I painted (or attempted to) so I was nervous and expected some issues, but "Murphy's Law" came to call and everything went wrong. 😒 

Let's start with the reason it's been over a year since I painted; back in Indiana my old shop wasn't heated that well so when it got cold, I stopped trying to pour paint. Then before it got spring-warm my husband changed jobs and I had to packed everything up to move, it was snowing the day we left Indiana but due to circumstances all my stuff landed in storage in Florida for some months which included summer months. 😕 So I understand why some of my paints were ruined with the crazy temperature swings. 

It came out of the tube like a foam and when I tried to thin it down it just made chunks and stayed chunky no matter what I tried. 😏

I though ok, I can live with that, they weren't all that way so I just set that color aside and didn't use it. But my big expensive jug of pouring medium also developed chunks of it's own, which is bad and sad. However, I thought I could get around it because I know a couple of other artists that don't use that stuff, so there are alternate recipes/ways of thinning paint for pouring, but I am horribly out of practice so I had nothing but troubles trying to get all the colors the same/right consistency. 😓

Then there is the fact that I was trying something new to me, so the paints were too thin kind of on purpose. 😐 But I also used way too much paint for the size of the canvas. 

So, when I went to blow the excess off and try the new thing, it over-mixed and went all wrong. 😞 At first, I thought it would still be ok, even though it was not at all as intended it was still pretty colors and looked kind of cool, it developed some "cells" and interesting spots. 

But the paint was still too thick in places so as it dried it started to wrinkle, ripple, and crack. 😔 Then like an idiot I moved it, I didn't want the tack-feet to end up stuck in the overflow mess, so I picked it up and put it on my easel but it wasn't really level so when I came back hours later there was a blob of ooze from the center where it had been left too thick, ruining the pretty swirls and cells just a glob of wrinkled muddy mess. 😟 

I won't post a photo of the mess, LOL but I will admit that I scraped tons of the paint off and will just try again. 😉 I was right to be nervous and I am disappointed on multiple levels, but it's just paint so I declare do-over. 😇

2022 Year in Review . . .

Etsy does this "year in review" thing with shop stats and highlights, I used to like it but this year I cannot access it because the "new app" doesn't work on my phone. 😒 Although, looking at my shop stats and low sales I doubt this year's report would really be all that enjoyable to look at anyway. So, I shall do my own review of this year and all I can say is, I'm glad it's over. 

For me the year 2022 was mostly a bummer from start to finish, covid is still a thing, we moved across the country which meant my business was closed for several months, my best friend of 15+ years died of cancer, so it's not really surprising that I have been depressed, distressed, and demotivated. 😔 

I have spent a week (actually more) contemplating closing my business, but I have ultimately decided against it. There are a few reasons aside from my basic stubbornness that doesn't like giving up, the naive bit of hope that I cling to, the acceptance that this year was extreme and not normal. I also realized that due to circumstances I have not painted in 16 months and considering I do find great joy in painting it's no wonder that I feel so _________. 

So, I will register the business for the new state, I will look for and plan in-person events for 2023, but most importantly I will resume painting. There is nothing quite like a blank canvas, it is simultaneously inspiring and terrifying as I suspect 2023 will be. 

Well, that's depressing. . .

 So, it's mid-December, the time of year I start looking at compiling the business books to do taxes and I gotta admit it's pretty dismal. 😞 This is the worst year since I started RainbowMaille honestly, it's ridiculous between the closing for months and moving and the sad state of sales since reopening, I am wondering why I even bother to call it a business. 😞  

Most years I have in-person events not just online sales, but not this year.  Most years my sales are measured in the Thousands of dollars, but not this year.  Most years I don't contemplate closing up shop and just giving up, but I am this year. 😔 

Seriously, I'm debating on whether to bother registering in my new state or if I should just call it quits and close and save the headaches and paperwork.  I am concerned that when we do our taxes this year and I have to file less than $500 in sales we are going to get audited, it's that far off, it's that bad. I feel like such a failure. 😭 

I keep telling myself that it's not my fault and next year will be better, but that's a pretty hard-sell. 

Final answer. . .

I have been annoyed with etsy before plenty of times but the forced change to my shop policies hit different.  I have accepted increases in fees, being deprioritized in search because I won't put "Free" shipping on everything. I have done my best with the "star" seller ridiculousness, as a matter of fact over the years the number of changes and bad ideas they have implemented (and some retracted) that I have tolerated is pretty big, many of those instances I didn't even really complain because I acknowledge it's their site to run how they want.  However, changing my actual shop policies is a step too far, my business as a whole now has an inconsistency between my shops that I am not comfortable with. 

So, I am letting a lot of my etsy listings expire and shrinking my presence there. I have thought a lot about this and I am not reacting from an emotional place. This is a strategic move and a business decision, I am separating the art from the chainmaille. I will still be keeping my original shop on etsy but it will go back to being just chainmaille the way it was when I started it 7 years ago. Starting in 2023 all of my paintings and wire tree sculptures will be exclusive to goimagine.com

Ironically and completely unintentionally I have come to this decision on the anniversary of my first sale on etsy. I didn't realize that, as I was writing this post I got a fb notification and just happened to check my "memories".  Life can be so weird sometimes. 😇