Listless in July

I feel deflated by June...

I did well on my goals of using up yarn, but sales were downright crummy. The one craft show I had on the schedule was cut short by wind and rain, making that day a total loss.

I'm in the midst of the worst Etsy sales drought since February.

So in July, I'm not going to make lists of stuff to get done... I'm going going to work on cute little items for the Street Fest on July 27th.

I'm going to try to celebrate "non-sale victories", like using up some yarn I've been trying to finish off, finishing a project, using a pattern I've wanted to get to for ages, getting a nice compliment or review, making something for myself.

I'll still post some pictures here... but last month's post only got three views, so sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Sales drought was broken with two Etsy orders in the early days of July.

Took a day off from work to have a beach day with family... with nearly four hours riding shotgun in the car, and time in the shade at the beach, I finished off eight bottle slings! I think I'm well stocked on bottle slings for the 7/27 Street Fest!

In one of my many Facebook crochet groups, someone asked "what are your best sellers at craft shows?" One woman posted a picture of a basket of "chill pills" and said she sells out at virtually every show... So...

I'm plugging away at Clarence the Farmer Cow (a paid pattern I picked up a few years ago because it was just so cute, but I never had a chance to make one) and a red pick-up truck for a crochet-along (didn't win a free pattern for week one... but there are still a few more weeks to win... and sometimes the designer says "everyone who finished wins a free pattern").

I've been trying to celebrate more of the little victories lately... like getting a picture of some cute babies with toys that I made... finishing off some yarn I've had in my stash for years... getting a compliment on how cute my stuff is. Yea for those moments!

Since Clarence and the pickup truck are both patterns from Holly's Hobbies, I posed them together for this week's picture showing that I finished this week's tasks. 

Clarence has overalls and a hat now.

An order for two giraffes like these has kept me busy for the last few days....

I took a break from the giraffes to use up some yarn that I had by my chair... kept thinking "this would make a cute snake..." 

It did.

Finished up the giraffe order...

Then moved on to a fun project... a set of four pastel owls in a pastel nest!
This one is just for fun, to replace one that sold a few months back... it's using up some small balls of scrap yarn, which is an extra bonus!

Then came the much-awaited day... East Aurora Street Fest. This was my second year doing this show, and last year it took knocked a Christmas show out of first place in my spreadsheet of craft shows. Things started slowly, as I didn't get my first sale for an hour and a half, but it knocked last year out of first place, by 8%. Although the cost to set up at this show is higher than most, my net sales were 6 times my average for craft shows! I'm thankful for the guy who stopped at the stand last year and said I should make up water bottle slings in every color... 2/3 of my sales were water bottle slings!

Oops, the rack of bottle slings is out of the picture... you can just see the edge of it in the lower left.

So, for these last few days of July, I'll try to finish up an order and a crochet-along, then focus on remaking sold items and getting my A.C. Moore Marketplace shop stocked during August.