Well, it finally feels like I am experiencing a bit of "forward movement," here.
After a bit of uncertainty and doubt, and some deliberation, I am moving ahead with some degree of enthusiasm on the redesign of the Etsy Alchemy Stone shop. The next part of the process will now be going slowly through the process of pulling inventory from all the other sales venues and combining everything into just a single location.
After some discussion, we've decided to simply pull some of the oldest stones "out of circulation" and permanently put them in a basket that will only see the light of day during events, most likely as a "show special." The idea there is to only show the best of my work, and not anything that might look a bit dated.
Somehow, it feels right to "put all my eggs in one basket" as opposed to having them scattered in too many baskets. Since the previous model really wasn't yielding any results, it definitely can't get any worse and having a really good selection in one place might actually work out really well, and it simplifies things, from a marketing perspective.
Whereas I always LIKED this style, nobody else did... so into the clearance bin they go.
Hopefully my wife won't regret having offered to take pictures of all the relisted inventory!
As part of this redesign process, I've also reconfigured and fine-tuned the store ”sections” — or categories, if you will — to reflect de-emphasizing or outright discontinuing things that really never were very popular, and using the slots to add new categories I've always wanted to explore.
Etsy only gives shopkeepers 20 categories to organize their work across, so you have to be careful with how you allocate those!
It's interesting how it really hasn't taken a whole lot to make me feel like have a sense of purpose again. We had a couple of sales at the beginning of this month which was nice, and some of the new listings that have been shared to Facebook have received positive feedback.
Meanwhile, I've even started painting a bit again, since we now know about two shows we're going to be doing in December (finally got confirmations) and there are gaping holes in parts of our inventory.
Also, I took a quick swing by the beach today and picked up a few stones that were suitable for those missing holes, even though it was a rather windy and cold afternoon. It felt good to be out there and it helped blow some of the cobwebs out of my brain!
I'm grateful that my "canvases" are not only readily available, but also free!
Thank You!
If you enjoy painted rocks, do check out The Hive Rocks Project and help spread the word about Hive, while also being creative!
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2025.08.08 AS-TXT-338/308