A lot can change in the span of one year. The world continues to be upside down so I tend to focus on just what I can do in my own life to maintain any sense of sanity. A year ago, I was fed up with a part time job that wasn't ever going to go anywhere for me. I started looking and planning to start or purchase an existing business that I could pour myself into instead of the parttime gig I was working. It turns out, that parttime gig was just the thing I needed to keep some money (not much) coming into our bank account as I reset our side hobby business this past year. Learning to write a business plan last year was a skill that I used to think was difficult. It can be yet it is also very helpful to focus what I want to do with my life. My husband is very supportive and a great help as I learned to tackle writing a business plan. The original one I wrote with the intention of purchasing an established business did not pan out for us. Someone with cash down swooped in and got that little place. I hope they do well. This allowed me time and space to reconsider how I prefer to spend my time and what I enjoy making.
First step was to write another business plan. I was a tad lazy in this since I was not going to send it to any bank as the plan was for my own knowledge and direction. I created a website for this hobby business. That is a topic that could take up a whole series of posts to describe. It was a ton of work and research and I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. As I get closer to the one year anniversary of starting it at the beginning of 2026, I am considering switching to a Shopify account to better help with sales and inventory. More on that later.
Once I got the website up and running, I opened some social media accounts to reach out to people about the website and what me and my husband were making. Then I started signing up for in-person markets and craft sales. We signed up for the entire summer season in a nearby local small town with monthly markets and then several one or two day events. Now we are looking at the holiday markets coming up and working hard to prep inventory for those.
The biggest surprise for me this year was the local small business owners approaching me about either buying from me wholesale or me paying them to set up a booth or shelves in their shops for them to sell at a commission. I am currently at three local shops with two more in the works at the time of me writing this. Each place is very different with how they run their shops yet I am digging the idea of stocking these couple of places and then getting very picky with the in-person markets. I do love the social aspect of selling in-person but the set up and tear down gets exhausting especially when the weather turns bad.
A year ago, I was sitting at my parttime job knitting away and dreaming of a better life making what I like and selling to like minded people. Now, I have inventory in three local shops and can make what I want, when I want without too many time constraints. This helps the creative side of my brain. A year ago I was praying for a very different life for 2025. Then, I let go and allowed God to move me and others into the right spots to get me to where we are now. I like where we are at this time. Here's to finishing this year out strong with our holiday shows and local shops. Now, I need to work on getting social media to pay me.