Planning to get back to work. . .

Ok, so the simple truth is I never really stopped "working" on my business, as a small business owner you never really stop. 😏  

In the months I've been closed I have R&D'd and tested new ideas, new chain patterns, gotten new marketing materials, worked on my social accounts in preparation for launching bigger and better, built my insta-following, researched and chosen markets and events for when I'm fully vaccinated.  

Speaking of which, only a couple more weeks until my second shot and a couple of weeks after that and I'll be out doing events!!! 😁  Excited but nervous, trying to make sure I have everything ready for the booths, also trying to decide what all to display at each event. I have too much stuff to properly display it all in a 10'x10' booth especially outside, so I am I planning on taking a limited selection of paintings, and focusing the display more on the jewelry and wire trees.  At least that is the current plan, these are recurring markets so if at/after the first time there is interest/demand for art I can change up what I take.  I can also allow studio appointments if people want to come see all the art and shop that way. 😇

Working. . .on a plan

I need a new calendar, my big desk blotter calendar ends with June, which is just not helpful when trying to plan a whole summer of events. 😏  😄  I am planning to stick to fairly local events, except for maybe the Meadows again depending on how the dates line up. 😉

I've had 1 vaccine dose so far, the second shot scheduled so my first event will be in June.  I've picked a local farmer's market

• It's not until mid June   👍
• It's only 1 Sunday a month 👍
• It's June - October good weather 👍
• It's only 20 minutes away  👍
• It's only half a day 👍
• I got permission to use goimagine.com materials 😁  👍 
• I'm nervous/excited already 👌

I plan to do some Saturdays at our local Tipton market too.  😉

Summer hope. . .

My first vaccination appointment is next week (finally) I have been waiting nearly a month.  I don't know if I am more nervous or excited, but for me excited and nervous often go together.  😏  I am nervous because I hate needles and I'm concerned about reactions, but I am excited because the last year of _______ has _____, insert your own words I'm pretty sure we all feel the same no matter what words we use. 😉  It has been boring, depressing, frustrating, in stay at home, lockdown, limited access. . .

So my first shot next week will then schedule the second shot and then a couple weeks after that I should be "protected" and safe-er to be in public. 😎  In anticipation of my liberation I have been spending hours looking for and assessing events.  

First, I am glad to see that there are some events being held but past the initial ~yay~ there is so much to consider.  While ideally larger well attended events offer better odds of sales/profits, I am still concerned about larger events especially indoors without mask requirements. 😕 Right now I am mostly considering smaller local farmers market type events, because even if they are not great sales wise at least they are outside/open air.  😎   

Nice timing. . .

Well, having shut down my online shops for a bit I stopped logging in every day, because there really was no reason to look every single day.  So I guess should have predicted that Etsy would make some kind of major changes while I wasn't looking, really they do it about every year.  ~LOL~  I was a touch annoyed but not at all surprised, when I logged in to find that . . . yeah major changes.  Etsy has re-designed our payment account page, again. 

I think this is the 4th time in 6 years that etsy has changed the payment account page.  😕  The sad thing is no one is ever happy about it and most of the previous changes were not helpful for sellers.  The last version was particularly lame with it's little colored circle graphs for dummies that did not accurately reflect transactions, so this change to remove the lame graphs is not actually bad.  However, the whole page looks weird now with it's different layout and it only shows 1 month statement at a time unless you can find the "see all monthly statements" at the very bottom of the page.  I will get used to the new look, probably just in time for next year's re-do.  😏

Goimagine is also continuing to update and upgrade itself and I am admittedly behind on those changes too.  I have been keeping tabs on the facebook group and they send out emails when they update the site so I know what has changed but I haven't made many changes to my shop, yet.  I was thrilled to hear about the "custom shop categories" and being able to sort our products into our own named sections, I wanted that, but with nothing currently listed I'll have to wait to set that up.  

Hiatus . . . update

 Well it's been a month and sadly RainbowMaille will remain closed for a while longer.  I am hopeful for summer events but currently have no solid plans or anything scheduled.  I do have a plan to get vaccinated, however due to age my first shot is a month away and I will be getting one of the 2 dose versions so maybe by the end of May I'll be fully covered. 😉  

On a more positive note RainbowMaille's instagram account now has the option to "add a shop" so that's new and exciting. 😁  Hopefully when I re-open I'll be able to get that set up so that people can then purchase straight from the instagram as well as goimagine.com and etsy. ~yay~ another expansion 

When trying to grow a small business, I've been told that increasing web-presence and having multiple sales channels is a good thing. 😊 ~LOL~  So I'll keep trying different things and new platforms, maybe one day it will actually work and result in increased sales.  I have been trying to participate and keep up with the #Marchmeetthemaker thing but I am regularly behind and I think I'm quitting early, I'll try again next year. 😉

Temporary business closure. . .

 I know everyone wants everything to just be "normal" again but it's not.  I know things are improving a bit but we are still far from the normal.  I will be temporarily closing my business again this spring/summer because just like last year I have no events scheduled.  The big event I normally vend at in June has been cancelled again.   😞 ~sigh~

As far as my business goes this was the worst "holiday season" in the almost 6 years I've had RainbowMaille.  So I am letting my etsy listings expire, deactivating my goimagine listings and will be suspending business activities so as to not continue to lose money on renewals and advertising. 😔  

This is a sad decision but I know I am not the only small business being forced to take such measures.  

art in process. . .

Creating art is a process, there are many steps, so even when I post photos on facebook, instagram or pinterest the art is often not really "Finished". 😏  

Someone asked the other day about the painting I was posting photos of and if it was available for sale. 😶  While I was thrilled and flattered that they were interested in my art, I told them it will eventually be listed for sale, but it will be several weeks if not a couple of months.  

The new pouring acrylic, fluid art techniques I am experimenting with take several days to "dry" and actually take weeks to "cure" the paint.  The cool "cells" and special effects are created by using silicone oil which needs to be cleaned off after but cannot be cleaned until the paint is cured, then depending on the cleaning method it needs to re-dry for days to a week before it can be sealed. ~sigh~ Then depending on the sealant, be it spray, varnish, resin/epoxy that takes days to weeks to dry and/or cure itself.  😏

These spent a week sitting level on my bench "drying" they are now hanging on my shop wall to finish "curing" so I can have my bench back.  However, they still need cleaned and will need sealed so they are not really finished, if I were to sell them at this point trust me you would be disappointed. 😉  Actually it's likely if I tried to package and ship them in their current state that the bubble wrap and tissue paper would be stuck to the surface and ruin the canvas by the time it arrived. 😕

I have also realized that these cannot be priced by size the same as my previous works, the differences in process and materials is significant even before I consider sealants. The resin/epoxy I want to use is actually quite expensive.  I have looked at several different  kinds/brands and there are some cheaper options but the art specific non-yellowing non-toxic stuff is not cheap.  So while I still have some math to do to figure the pricing exactly my current guess-timates are almost double my other art. 😐