Welcome to 2013

Happy New Year! I've been impatiently waiting for 2012 to end -- not because I really put much importance into the changing of the year, but because it marks the end of the holiday season. Ugh, that makes me sound really Grinchy, doesn't it? Allow me to clarify: There are things I LOVE about the holidays. Time with family and friends, exchanging gifts, indulging in treats, hanging my zebra-in-a-zeppelin wreath and my glorious scarab stocking. But there are also things that I HATE about the holidays: The barrage of sales-related e-mails, awful renditions of Christmas carols playing everywhere you go, increased traffic on the streets, crowds in the stores, the constant worry of whether the gifts I'm buying are "good enough."

Add to that the fact that I am a creature of habit. I do not like that I haven't had any dance classes or troupe practices for the past couple of weeks, or that our jogging schedule is messed up, or that I have to deal with weird holiday hours at stores and the mail not being delivered on Tuesday two weeks in a row, silly things like that. The New Year marks a return to normal, but still buoyed by the happy feelings from the fun part of the holidays.

The New Year also marks the time to start working on all of the things I've been thinking about during the lull over the holidays. I don't make resolutions, but I do like to use the start of the year as a time to think about what I'd like to do in the coming months. This year, that includes some changes to my business:

1. More elaborate beadwoven and embroidered pieces like the one above. I feel like I have enough basic items in my shop, it's time to let myself create more artistically without worrying about the end price.

2. Explore the idea of Art Nouveau aesthetics in beads. I'm obsessed with Art Nouveau jewelry right now. I spend a lot of time on Pinterest sighing over vintage Lalique pieces, wishing they would magically appear in my jewelry box overnight (oh! fighting stag beetle hair comb! you are my one true love! don't tell Chris!). It turns out that all this time, I've been drawn to things that had a Nouveau style to them without knowing that it was a unifying theme in the things I love (up to and including the jewelry worn by the elves in Lord of the Rings).

3. Add hair accessories to my Etsy shop. I've actually been making hairsticks for over a year but I never added them to my shop. Then I sold almost every single one of them between the Desert Shakedown and my open house party, which showed me that I really needed to further develop that line and put them up in my shop. Look for those starting possibly as soon as tomorrow.

4. Add some tribal bras to my stock. This may or may not happen, but I've had a couple of requests for it. Making bras is a bit of a pain (literally, I usually stab my fingers), but I seem to have as good of an eye for composing a bra as I do for composing jewelry, so I may start to do a very limited run of one of a kind bras.

5. Cut down on custom work. To be honest, I really don't enjoy it, and as I put more time into dance and other pursuits, I don't want to have to carve out time to make a custom item. This doesn't mean that I won't do it at all, but it means that I will be more likely to turn down requests.

I have other ideas floating around in my head, but they're less concrete. The future of Erthe Fae Designs depends a lot on how other things in my life go. I may work to grow my business, or if other ventures take off I may shrink it a little bit, but I'll still be around.