Yesterday was a day full of advice for me.
First, the wonderful women of Columbus Team Etsy gave me some good feedback and encouragement on my All-in-one Purse Experiment. Lenny made a great point about how difficult the transition between the Conjoined and the Separate forms might be. A couple people mentioned that it might be a good design for mothers. Initially I thought that they were thinking of the Momma bag as a diaper bag, but I now realize that you can be a busy mother long after the diaper phase of childhood. Doh!
Then I stumbled on a Shop Critique lab on the Etsy site. The admin was HeyMichelle, who is an Etsy employee that helps with site and business issues. Over three hours she reviewed about eight shops in great detail. (the technology was very cool.. with streaming video and audio) There were some fine shops and some really simple shops. It was a very interesting lab. HeyMichelle didn't get to ArtsiBitsi until about 11:30 pm, which is about an hour after I usually go to bed at night. I was still awake and alert, so that's a good indicator of how interesting the discussion was.
Anyway, she said a lot of very nice things about my banner, my writing, my products, my photographs... I was beginning to think that there wasn't going to be anything for me to fix! Finally she said that I might want to think about focusing my product line a little more. She suggested that I find a theme and stick with it.
Oh lordy.. talk about the story of my life. I said, 'heymichelle, it would be easier if you would just tell me what my theme is'. Apparently finding my life's purpose was not going to be a part of the lab though.
So, I now have some ideas of things to do. I want to make a completely new All-in-one bag system, with pretty ties instead of clips. With an improved docking system for Baby. With more ways to configure Momma, as a slouch bag and as a portfolio! I want to find my theme too.
But for now, I've got to go pack for Hubby's and my long weekend to the Smoky Mountains. (I'll be field testing the all-in-one.) We're staying in a cute little B&B, without internet access. So all things Etsy must go on a shelf for now. I'll pick up the sewing again on Wednesday, Sept 3rd!
See you then.
:-)
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