Paradoxes

I find it funny that when I had the time to check my shop stats incessantly, my sales felt like they pretty much plateaued. But now that I am so busy that I don't have the time to really check my shop stats incessantly (which actually might be a good thing), sales have taken off.

I suppose it could also be the convergence of many circumstances that happened at the same time: Valentine's day was coming up so it's a big sales period and I got featured on the Etsy Valentine's day card section. 2 things which external to my own efforts but were key in helping me get better sales.

Haven't had the time to blog much and I really miss having the time to sit down to just doodle and come up with new card ideas. Right now I have my plate full but once my course is over, I am going to go to an art supplies store to just soak up all the goodness of being surrounded by arts and crafts supplies. Just being in a craft store makes me happy. Also miss browsing around Etsy and seeing other people's creations and being inspired by them.

In Singapore,  I always got the sense that original arts and crafts were not valued as much as items that were cheap and decent looking. I don't know if it's got to do with the culture but I hate seeing pirated imitation goods of original works on display. They end up looking half as nice as the original, with poor quality but the worst part is there are consumers for the product which explains why it continues to exist. On the other hand, there are imitation goods that are pretty damn good looking but I don't like that it basically takes away the hard work that the original artist put into it. I don't think cheap is always better. In most cases they are but not when you are taking away the effort that someone put into designing and making that product. It's funny how this is not the case in Japan, they very much value works by original artists. I suppose it's the difference in culture, Japanese also tend to be wary of things that are too cheap while Singaporeans love a good deal.

The gf has been great about managing the store for me. I like that we get to discuss the details of managing the store together, it makes me feel like that emphasizes that we are a team even more. We already are in a relationship but we are also working as a team to manage the store. We are a team in a team, on a team!  That didn't make sense... but you get my drift.