thoughts and changes in mind...

I'm working on the mallow bunnies for Easter... 

they always begin naked... I use Super Sculpey because it's cheap 

and cheerful and does in fact give a base that is pleasant for faces

or more realistic items. 

Waiting for my bookmark assignment for the LEP swap...

And taking a serious look at the fact that Etsy now actively feels aggressively anti-small shop and handmade. Between policies that favor even our worst most terribly entitled or crooked customers and making a point to let us all know that we are NOT their customers, OUR customers are their customers and so any choices or decisions we make should be in line with with Etsy says we should do, and a cherry on top is the fact that they take 30% of my earnings, including part of the money collected to cover shipping charges so that I lose money on both ends of the transaction... and then we'll just not discuss the star seller and other "balancing for privilege" they're doing on the platform full-stop so that I'm also always going to be outside of  the algorithm by intended design, even if I paid for advertising. So... what will I damned do? 

I'll tell you what I'm going to do... I'm going to stop selling on anyone else's platform over the next few months. So things already made are coming in and NOT being auto-renewed. I'll advertise a clearance sale. Nothing "new for sale" will be created. I'd originally intended to leave myself on Etsy until March of next year - and really, a hundred business cards and a new set of business cards are not the expense that prevents me from deciding it was real, and sometimes it was fun and it's never been real fun on Etsy at all. I've been trying to make it work and it just won't. They resent me on some level that becomes more and more clear as I continue trying to work with them, and so they can have their platform and if they keep anything it will be my patterns and destash stuff that frankly, I'll list with the shipping included in the price of the purchase and not play with them on their taking my shipping charges.

Right now I'm considering Patreon and planning to just let Etsy be the "list it and forget it" location. I love to make and I'm tired of it not selling, so if there's no support for it I wont make it. Easy. I say that now. And... yeah. That's where I am. Put my friends' money where their mouths are in a real and easy way for us all to see and at the same time have the freedom to pursue the things I love and see if anyone else loves them enough to pay for them.