What's Going on Around Here.

What's going on around here? Well let's see.

• I'm packing for an upcoming trip to Pennsylvania which I'm very much looking forward to. I'm super excited to be working with Minnetonka for the first time on the trip, too. How crazy great are those 5-layer fringe boots hanging out of my weekend bag?

• Remember a few months ago when I talked about the major vintage inventory update? Yea, I still have vintage to list in the shop from that batch. STILL! Every day I try to post as much as I can, but frankly it's overwhelming. Sitting at my desk and looking over at this big pile beside me is daunting and makes me not love selling vintage like I normally do. Hopefully once it's all listed, I will feel better. Back to buying a few pieces at a time, that's for sure.

• Speaking of not loving selling vintage...I posted a mini-rant on Twitter this morning, venting my frustrations with Etsy's new policies regarding handmade sellers and the Etsy marketplace in general. Every time a big change happens at Etsy, I kinda shrug it off and think if I work hard enough, the changes won't effect me. However, since I opened my shop, I have gotten better at photography, pricing, tagging, descriptions, SEO, promoting via soc and my blog. Yet still, my shop sales, favorites, and even views have dropped dramatically over the years, even with more products in the shop. I can't help but wonder if it's due to a decline in interest in vintage, poor effort on my part, or the fact that Etsy seems to care more about the "handmade" marketplace and only seems to promote handmade over vintage and supplies. My handmade print shop, since I opened a separate store months ago, has only gotten two sales and a handful of views per day. Is it time to leave Etsy? Do I need to work even harder to stay relevant? Should I give it all up and get a "real" job? I think I was just in a bad mood because I woke up at 8:00AM to the sound of jackhammers outside of my window. I don't blame Etsy, I don't blame consumers or the economy, and I don't blame myself. I think it's a combination of a bunch of factors. Who knows, maybe it'll turn around soon? I'd love to hear your thoughts.