Shaking off the dust

So I kind of disappeared from the blogosphere for months on end...it's not that I haven't been doing things, just that nothing has particularly struck me as blog-worthy.  I promise I am working on things though...exciting things!  Most notably, I am working to get myself established on Etsy, a website where you can set up a personal shop and sell handmade or vintage goods.  Since I have had numerous people ask me about buying my dinosaurs, I figured this would be a good way to get organized about it.  I have a lot of work to do before that happens though.  For example: 

I have set up the shop and made a paypal account, but I am still researching shipping prices.  I also need to sit down and make my shop look pretty, which means making a banner and taking quality photos of the dinosaurs.  I want to be able to list a fair number of them at the beginning so people won't show up at my shop and think "man, she doesn't really have anything here".  Even if all I have there is pocket-sized dinosaurs made of felt...I think it's probably better to have ten of them than two.  I'm also trying to figure out a fair price that balances the end result (a stuffed animal that fits in your pocket or the palm of your hand) with the amount of labor involved (they're entirely hand-sewn, embroidered, and take probably 2 hours to make if I actually sat down and worked straight through).  I don't want to get ripped off, but I also don't want to try to sell things that people won't pay for.  After reading a bunch of the blog entries on Etsy, I am also considering ways of personalizing the packaging and such...like, making little tags with some kind of shop logo, or a tag with the buyer's name on it.

Oh, and if all of that wasn't crazy enough, I actually need to make more dinosaurs before I start listing anything.  I only have two available now that have embroidered spots (my original ones don't) so I should probably have more.  I can always give the option for custom ordering, of course, and I probably will because then I get fresh color combination ideas.

Oh, and I'm still in AmeriCorps...so basically working full time...and getting into our busiest time of year.  Probably not the best time to be starting a side business, but at the rate I'm going, I might have a while before I actually list anything. *sigh*

Anyway, sorry for the rant-type thing, I just needed to get all of this into a form I can look at.  Once I launch my shop I will be sure to post an exuberant stream of excitement (and promote said shop like crazy).  Until then, I'll just keep plugging away...

 

By the way, if anyone is super excited to see my empty Etsy shop, it is called PocketTheSaurus.  I am quite taken with the play on words, although I imagine there are plenty of people nowadays who have no idea what a "pocket thesaurus" is.  Since they probably have iPhones for that.  And now I sound like I'm 85 years old.