Designed By Audrey’s 2012 Year End Reflections

Designed-by-Audrey.com

Now, that I am rested and refreshed from the brisk holiday sales season and all of the holiday cheer, I’m taking time to give thanks and to reflect back on 2012 and to take a look ahead to 2013.  Wow, what a great year full of blessings 2012 has been for Designed by Audrey.  Several very important milestones were reached in 2012.  I absolutely love making jewelry, but it is a part time venture because I work full time during the day. So, it’s a delicate balance in the evening between making time for family, my music ministry, my jewelry making and me.  So, I’m busy, busy, busy most of the time.  Currently, I sell my handmade jewelry online via Etsy, Artfire and Zibbet and I am pleased to announce that in December I launched my own personal website Designed-By-Audrey.com.  With my laptop on, my Samsung tablet tuned into YouTube web design how-to videos, one call to the web hosting company, and after six hours, I took the plunge. Now Designed-By-Audrey.com is a work in progress, however, the plan is to have the e-commerce section of my website fully operational to sell my jewelry by the end of February 2013.  For now, I’m letting the world know that I am here and what I do.  At present on Designed-By-Audrey.com, I have a few pieces of jewelry featured with a link to my Etsy shop for purchases.  I am also featuring a Youtube video of my men's line and an all things handmade promotion blog where I showcase various Artfire collections and Etsy treasuries. I’m excited to see what 2013 has in store for my website.  So stop by and share a link or two!

Other 2012 milestones -- In May as shared in a previous post, I reached a 200 sale milestone on Etsy and even more awesome, by the end of December I reached yet another milestone of 300 sales! With almost 400 items listed on Etsy, I am looking forward to continued growth and success.  This is all so wonderful because after my first year of selling, I decided not to do any local vending events though most of my sales for the year came through these types of events.  It was just too much.  I found that I enjoyed just being home on the weekend spending time with my family and relaxing a little in between creating new things.

In my second year out minus all but the Juneteeth vending event Waldorf, MD, my sales were a little less than my first year.  I didn’t lose faith, I just kept plugging away at posting new items, taking better pictures and promotion, promotion, promotion and my third year has been my best season yet.

So, now, I'm looking forward to pushing the bar a little further in 2013 and I give God much thanks and all the glory through Jesus Christ for that is from where all of my blessings flow.