Growth and adaptation. If I have learned anything so far during this isolation it is that we as makers must learn to embrace these two words.
It took me a few weeks to actually figure out what I was going to do from this point on. I had to decide where I wanted the future of my brand to go. I was faced with many fears, one of them being the uncertainty of not knowing if my readers would enjoy this new change I was toying with. Before I get into this new change, let me explain what led up to this decision in the first place.
An Unstable World
These past few weeks have taught me a lot, but mostly about how quickly the stability of our lives can crumble. So many people are now without jobs, and I might soon be one of them.
If you have followed me for a while, you certainly know by now that I’m in the military and have been for quite a long time. You might even know that I’m pregnant and have chosen to get out of the military. Many people have told me that I could easily get a job doing the job that the army has trained me for (even though it’s not exactly what I want to do), and while I have gotten quite a few interviews and even an offer letter, it isn’t as easy as they made it sound.
COVID-19 has really hit my family at a difficult time. I’ll be getting out of the army on June 2nd, and our third child is due on July 2nd. I was hoping to get a good job lined up before the baby was due to arrive, but now hiring has halted thanks to the pandemic. This means that I most likely won’t be able to start a job until after the baby is born and is old enough to go to daycare.
Shouldn’t I Be Happy?
If you know me at all, you already know that I would LOVE to earn a living by creating. Crafting is in my blood, and it’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was a young girl. Not having to go back to work must be a dream for me! Well, it would be if I were making enough money with my business to pay for all of our bills. This uncertainty has caused me to go into overdrive, trying to figure out how I can continue to do what I love but also making decent money in the process.
Being Realistic
Crochet is by far my number one go-to craft. I am good at it (I think), I can make items quickly, and I tend to do pretty well at craft shows! However I struggle to make sales online, unless someone asks me for a custom item. While I do LOVE to crochet, I like to crochet on my own terms. Custom orders give me stress because that is one more deadline to meet in my already packed schedule. I love to just make something that I feel like making and add it to my inventory to sell.
I was thinking about ways to add to my brand without changing too much. I thought about designing and selling crochet patterns, but I realized that I just do not enjoy that. I have this blog that I love, but it isn’t bringing in any money yet. Because of the pandemic craft shows have stopped, so that basically means that my income has stopped as far as my crafting is concerned.
Changing Things Up
When it comes to crafting, I’m pretty spazzy. I have supplies for all sorts of different crafts sprinkled throughout my home, some of which were pretty large investments. I thought about how I could turn all of these different crafts into crochet-related items that I could add to my shop, but realized that it wouldn’t make sense for my customers.
One of the other crafts that I’m really into is resin. I love to make cute keychains, pins, and jewelry but how exactly could I make that crochet-related? I could make stitch markers and crochet hooks, but my ideal customer likes to buy my crochet dolls because they’re cute, not because they could also make it. My ideal customer probably doesn’t even crochet!
Another item that I received as a birthday gift is my Cricut. While I have played around with it, I haven’t really made anything with it just yet, but oh do I have ideas! Crochet-related items from my Cricut could include cute stickers of yarn, hooks, and other crafty things. I could also use it to make packaging for my items, but that wouldn’t increase my income, it would just make my items look prettier. I guess that’s out of the question too.
Get to the Point! What Did You Decide?
Okay, okay! I know I’ve babbled on long enough and by now you really just want to know how I decided to change up and develop my brand. It’s actually quite simple.
I decided who my ideal customer is; she is a young or young-at-heart girl that loves all things cute, happy, and light-hearted. She really treasures my items because they bring her joy in a world that has so many challenges. She isn’t afraid to express herself outwardly by what she wears, too. She simply likes things because she likes them, not because someone tells her to.
This helped me to realize that while my crochet dolls are SUPER cute and fit nicely into this customer’s life, that doesn’t mean that my other craft passions wouldn’t fit in, too. That’s why I’ve decided to keep the same fun, light-hearted and cute theme, and adapt my other crafts to really compliment my dolls.
For my resin, I’m going to continue what I’m doing! I already was making cute little pieces that coincide with my dolls, so that just gives me a whole other type of item to offer. I’m going to try to stick to the same color schemes as I do for my dolls, too, making it as aesthetic as possible.
The Cricut offers endless possibilities, really, but the one thing I’ve wanted to do the most is make stickers. People who love cute things LOVE stickers. They can be made fairly quickly (after designing them of course), and can be sold inexpensively. This offers a completely new price-range that my customers would truly enjoy. As with the resin, I’m going to try to stay along the same theme as my dolls. The stickers can also be easily sold online, which I hope will draw more people into my online shop and eventually lead to more sales all around.
How My New Brand Will Change Things
So, what does all of this mean for my brand? Not too much, really. I’m still going to be offering the same adorable crochet creations in my shop, and I’m still going to be interviewing crochet designers and testing out their patterns. The only real difference is that now my blog will be about all types of crafts, not just crochet. I am going to interview different makers and artists, and introduce my readers to new styles and crafts.
As far as my online and in-person shop, I will have to re-arrange things so that these new items flow nicely among my dolls. I may even change my logo (more to come?).
The hope is that by adding these other types of items to my inventory I will attract even more customers, and even make more sales online. By expanding my blog outside of just crochet, I will (hopefully) gain more readers and meet new artists that I could potentially collaborate with in the future!
Change can be scary as we all have seen during these past few weeks, and there is no certainty as to when it will go back to “normal”. We as makers must learn how to adapt and grow so that we can make the most out of these times. I know it can be done, and I know that we all can live the lives we truly dream of.
Leave a comment and let me know how you are handling these trying times!
