Life is a Journey, Happy Travels

Today is the first in a series of features on etsy shops open less than 6 months. I had a great response to this so I have quite a few to feature!

Excess Baggage Solutions http://www.seville83.etsy.com/ is my first feature.

Why do you craft? I craft because I never quite feel right not doing anything. I always have to be using my mind and my hands, so I do a lot of multi tasking, like today I was finishing up season 5 of House while restructuring a bag for a friend. It gives me something productive to do with my time and let’s me enjoy my friend’s reactions when I can show a new piece I’ve created.

What is your shop theme? Right now it’s a bit jumbled. The initial theme of everything was quilted bags and other quilted items. I’ve got some photography in there right now, but I’m thinking about starting another account for the sale of the photography and it’s related items.

Why did you decide to open a shop on etsy? This summer when I decided “yes, I can run my own little business type adventure” I was sitting on my friend’s front porch turning some straps when his sister came home and asked what I was up to and after I explained and mentioned that I was going to try eBay because it was the only thing I knew, she mentioned Etsy. I checked it out the next day and set up my shop right then and there.

What has been the most challenging thing in setting up your shop? I think after realizing that in order to keep everything 100% legit I had to file all these things with the state first and so on it was realizing that I have to work really hard to get myself out there and noticed and have people want to pay attention to me.

What has been the most rewarding experience you’ve had on etsy? My first 2 sales were a trade, my 3rd was a donation for a review. I was sitting in class a few days ago bored out of my mind and decided for giggles that I would check out my store front to see if any views had changed or anything (like I said, I was really bored). Well I was looking and numbers and saw that it said “sales: 5” and I’m sitting there going “I have 3 sales, what’s wrong with this number. Somebody bought something… OMG SOMEBODY BOUGHT SOMETHING!!!!” This was the first sale that I had that somebody just wanted my stuff and bought it and it made all the crap I’ve had to dig through to get to that point totally worth it.