Autumn Cleaning

I was a little on the sad side for the past few days, though I don't know exactly why, so I took a break. I didn't really make anything, I didn't write anything on my blog, I didn't post anything new to Flickr, or do anything to continue to get my name out there. I was barely on Etsy! I felt like something was blocked, and I was stuck in a place where I didn't want to be. After the weekend, my days off started, and I took a good look at my Etsy store. I wasn't pleased with much of it. In the beginning, my favorite pairs of earrings to make were these little bouquet clusters. In fact, these are the types of earrings I am making for two B&Ms that I am working with. But I haven't sold any in my shop for a while. I realized that it was because I had soooo many other things in my shop that they were getting buried under my own items! I came to a conclusion that there really is such a thing as too much variety. So I started to take out all the jewelry that hasn't been selling~ and those were the pieces that I was least proud of to begin with. I was left with a nice collection of pieces that I was really proud of, from the beginning. Then I started renewing all the bouquet earrings at once, to get them all in a high spot in the searches on Etsy. And you know what? After the past week with no sales, I finally got a couple of sales over the past couple of days after I renewed them. And the sales happened to be the bouquet earrings I loved so much! I have learned for myself the valuable lesson that is repeated in the Etsy forums~ make the things you love, and not what you just think might sell. You have to be able to be proud of each and every item that you have the privledge of packaging and shipping to someone.