michele maule art: portland artist

2018 calendar

Crow Illustration Clog Illustration

3:16 PM

etsy changes

Online Etsy Sales

11:44 AM

I started a new greeting card design the other day.

This is it, almost done.

I used this bird cage that my friends gave me a few years ago as inspiration. I recently planted some hens and chicks in it. I'm not really sure if I'm happy with the card. I might re-do it.

Missing Old Etsy. This is a screen shot from October 2008. I miss seeing the Front Page. I used to find so many cool new things. And when my item was featured I get hundreds of views and usually a few sales.

I've been doing that a lot recently, second guessing myself and my work. I've been having a lot of feelings of not being good enough, lately. I think it's a normal though process to have when you making a living as an illustrator/artist. Especially when business slows down, and wow, Etsy has slowed down for me significantly.

They recently changed their stats and before I'd receive between 150-200 views a day, or more. Recently I've been receiving an average of 30 view a day. The traffic to my shop has stopped. I don't know if it's because they've weeded out search bots, or if their search has changed. Maybe my search engine optimization is really bad?

Another oldie from 2008 I made this one! :)

I feel like I'm getting buried under thousands of other shops. It's discouraging and disappointing. I've been working on my Etsy shop for 10+ years. All that work. Nothing. I feel like somehow older shops don't get the traffic that newer shops do. I can't prove this, but I do know some other very well established shops that have seen a huge decrease in traffic too.

I'd love to invest more time and money into this site, to make it a commerce site, but I just don't have very much of either right now. And building up traffic to your own site is no easy feat.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I think focusing on doing more craft fairs, farmer's markets and really working on my wholesale business are the best bets right now. I'm going to also try to stay positive, and try not to be so hard on myself.

2018 calendar

Greeting Card Designs and Taking Risks

11:47 AM

card designer

Motivation. Excitement.

5:06 PM

2018 calendar

Hello Hi Allo

4:24 PM

The Crafty Wonderland Spring show is this Saturday so I've been really busy getting ready for it. The spring show isn't as intense as the winter show, so I've been working on a few other things as well.

We had to go to Ikea on Monday for a couple of things for the up coming show and while we were there I talked Nate into this book shelf system. I've been wanting to line that whole wall with book shelves since we moved in 6 years ago. It was really hard to find an affordable solution while also keeping a low profile in mind. Our house it really small and I didn't want to be running into them all the time. We put them up on Monday and I haven't had any run ins!

I'm really happy with this system. It's called the Svalnas. The furthest the widest shelf is just over 9" and this combination cost $250. There are a multitude of combinations that you can buy as well as desks and cupboards you can add.

I can also add a couple of shelves here and there if I need to. So long as Ikea doesn't discontinue it any time soon.

It looks so much nicer than just a large blank wall and now I have a place for my books! Win win.

I've also been working on a calendar! For the past few years people have asked me about making a calendar, but I never really had any great ideas on a theme. I thought of one in December last year, but it was way too late to make it at that point. So I started making it for 2018. It's almost done and I'm really excited to share it soon!

I also broke out some old etching plates and my etching press. I've been missing old Portland quite a bit lately so I thought I'd print some of these plates I made from 2006 - 2007. I'm not going to list them on Etsy but I might have a few on hand at Crafty Wonderland this Saturday.

If you're interested in purchasing one, and can't make it to Crafty, you can e-mail me at michelemaule@gmail.com

On top of all this I've been working on wholesale orders. I've had a really slow couple of months, so I am really, really grateful for those wholesale orders. That's one of the scary parts of working for yourself, the slow month. It's even scarier when it turns to two slow months. Hopefully, it continues to stay a bit steady for awhile.

Okay, back to work!