Chipping Away

First off, I have to preface this post by saying that I was so pissed that I missed a blogging day yesterday! Seriously, I thought I had it in me to stick to something for more than FOUR whole days!? And no fun prizes for me, boo hoo. Damn Buffy the Vampire Slayer! (Yes, this is why I missed posting, because I was having a gigantic nerd-fest with my husband).

Anyways, I'm not going to cry about it more than that. I'll still keep posting away for this month, and I've decided that today I want to talk about Etsy. Regular readers might be sensing my recent discontent with my job situation. I've been doing a lot of serious thinking/soul searching about this, and I've come to some decisions. I am unfortunately not in a position to leave my job, for financial reasons, and for the scarcity of appealing job openings in my area. I have always dreamt of starting my own dance school and restarting my company, and that is something that I have lost sight of lately. This is not something that I can afford, or feel ready to do quite yet, but I can take steps towards that goal. That's where my Etsy shop comes in.

I've never quite taken my shop very seriously, only as a side thing that I've done for fun, but now I'm going to use it as a tool to reach my dance goals. I'm going to be routing my PayPal account to a savings account that is not very easily accessible. Any profit that I make from the shop will only be used to purchase materials for new products, or it will sit there gathering interest. Initially I'll probably use the money to attend dance workshops/seminars to get a little more education under my belt. I've also been considering applying for a summer internship at Jacob's Pillow, which would require some savings to balance out loss of income for next summer. Ultimately I would like this money to become a nest egg to start another creative business - my dream dance studio.

I'm going to write this, in shorter form, on my site, my Etsy site, Flickr profiles, you name it - so as cheesy as it sounds my customers will know that by purchasing a handmade item from me, they are quite literally helping my dreams come true!

I don't know how often, or how large my shop updates will be, but I'm aiming for at least once a month - even if it's one item, so that I'm continually making progress, no matter how small. The scarves above are part of a small update that I am hoping to make within the next week or two - so that I can mail things out in time for the holidays.

So what do you guys think of my new business goals? Crazy? Overly hopeful? We'll see how it goes. For now...I've got some sewing to do.