Well that's odd. . .

First off, I'll start with I've been on etsy for 8 years, so I know a thing or two about how they operate, and I've been regularly annoyed over the years because the "stats" are often incomplete or inaccurate in some way.  This is not a new problem it comes and goes, the inconsistent and inaccurate counts are always worse when I run ads, I think because the ads and the regular stats are on different time zones. I used to really struggle and regularly argue with etsy staff over the stats issues, mainly because I didn't like being charged for ad clicks when the traffic never showed in shop stats, the fact that things didn't match made it seem like etsy was just randomly charging for ad clicks. 

Honestly, I still feel that way, but sales have been non-existent, so I turned etsy ads back on about a week ago. Every day I login and try to reconcile the main stats with ad stats and it makes my head hurt. 😅 Now the bad math is not the only thing that has always bugged me about etsy stats, often there are no "traffic details" like those ads etsy puts on google, it will tell me the click came from google but it never shows what listing they looked at or gives me the search terms. Similarly, the "direct & other traffic" category almost never gives any info on anything, no listings, no search terms and usually no source site. 

And now with all that in mind, this morning I'm look at my etsy stats and find . . .

that for once there is information tied to a click in the "direct & other traffic" and super weirdly it says the source is tiktok? I do not have a tiktok account, I have never posted on tiktok, heck I've literally never even looked at tiktok unless you count them showing clips on the news. 😏  

Work, work, work. . . .

I really need to spend more time working, but I've been a tad distracted.  It's not often we have company and last week I had a plumber in the house for almost an entire day. The good news is my kitchen drain is fixed and I can use my dishwasher again which was great timing considering the dinner party the other night. 😎

Now however, starts the real tick-tock clock on preparing for the craft show which is only a month away. . . 32 days.

The first thing I need is full pages in the "book of trees" but not just full pages for display purposes. . .these little rainbows tend to always sell so having more than 1 seems like a good idea. I'm going for 3 and if they all sell that would be great, but even if I have 1 left that is also great since it's listed online at goimagine. 😇 3" inch rainbow tree  

After the trees for the book, I need to make some rubber stretch bracelets, purple helms chain keeps selling out on me, and medium rainbows. 

All the hours in between that I'm not physically making things I will spend obsessing over tables and racks and display layout and decor. There is still the beach themed booth decorating contest to plan for, I'm thinking some fishing net, a beach ball, all ocean waves and fireworks paintings up front, a few seashells on the tables. I'm also thinking of changing my 6' foot rack from a corner unit to a 2-sided slant A-frame style, the great thing about that racking is I can just move the clips and reconfigure it. 😇 If I do that I get more art hanging space and a slightly smaller footprint in the booth, but I lose shelf space for the chainmaille displays, so. . . still thinking about it.

I'm a little nervous. . .

I am preparing for a craft show next month, but I am more than a little nervous about it. 😕 First off, this will be the first event I've done in nearly 2 years.  Secondly, being the first event since the cross-country move I have to actually find all my tables, racks, set-up stuffs. 😣 Also, it's the first event in a whole new area, state actually, and who knows if they even know what chainmaille is.  I have some fear that I will end up just sitting there all day and no one will buy anything.  😏

Ok, so nervous may be an understatement or my social anxiety is getting the better of me, it is over a month away and I'm nervous and obsessing already.  

I do have quite a lot to do to get ready aside from digging through the garages to find my racks and shelves and tables.  I need to find a box to hold all my displays. I need to make a few things to fill out the displays. I need to wash and press my tablecloths. I need to find my big metal sheet to display the magnets. I need to figure out how I'm going to display the bigger wire trees because this event is indoors, I can't just hang them from the canopy, I won't have a canopy. 😅 

I may need to rethink which tables and racks I take, if I drive my little car I'm limited to the 4' ft. racks, if I borrow my husband's truck I could take the 6' ft. tall racks and have more space to hang art and at shows like this tall things tend to attract attention. I may need to ask the organizer for some more specifics on space and use and if I'll have a wall. 😐 So many questions with a new venue. Since the event is having a beach themed booth decorating contest, I plan to put the ocean waves paintings front and center and lucky for me my tablecloths are already blue. 😉 After that I get a bit stuck with no canopy or uprights "decorating" gets a bit tricky my tabletops and racks are pretty crowded already with so much stuff for sale. It really is a good thing I have so much time to plan. 😅