As of October 5th, I only have five remaining items listed in my jewelry store on Etsy.  I still have a sizable stock of bracelets to sell, tucked away in a ziploc bag in a drawer, but I’m not thrilled by the results I’ve had selling via Etsy and thus not sure I want to bother re-listing my inventory.  Twenty cents to list each item, with each listing lasting for four months before expiring, then a cut of each sale to Etsy, another cut of each sale to Paypal, and the impossible game of trying to charge an accurate amount for shipping costs – I’ve lost more money than I’ve made through my few Etsy sales.  Not to mention that my meager jewelry offerings are lost in the whirl of goods that are listed each day on Etsy.

Though I had dreams of making my fortune through my Etsy store, my realistic goal was to sell enough jewelry to support my expensive new hobby.  I’d still like to achieve that, since jewelry making is a blast and an excellent, creative change of pace for me from my job and our home improvement projects, but I don’t think it’s really going to happen.  Silver, my favorite medium, gets pricier every day, and copper wire just doesn’t cut it…blech.  So I’m trying hard to think of a way to sell enough jewelry to support my habit, especially since the more jewelry I make, the better I’ll get at making it.  Perhaps I’ll establish my own website, which seems like an enormous amount of work, or perhaps I’ll highlight new jewelry pieces here on this blog, or perhaps I’ll work at creating enough stock to rent a booth next year at the farmer’s market down the street from our house.  Meanwhile, though, I think I need to investigate whether I can take a business loss on my taxes for this year…ah, the price of creativity and a broad, interesting inner life.