Running Uphill Barefoot in the Snow, Both Ways

The Story of Running a Handcrafted Business

If you ever thought starting a business was easy, especially a handcrafted business, it's anything but. It's more like what our parents told us growing up:

“I had to walk in the snow, barefoot, uphill, both ways!”

I started hitting crafting much harder after my youngest son was born. I had hours to fill as he slept his little angelic head off during those early months. I was used to working 5–7 days a week, 8–16 hour days, side by side with my husband. I am not one to just sit and watch soap operas and eat bonbons all day. I actually have a hard time sitting down for more than five minutes, even now, and it's been 3+ years.

I have been reselling for six years now, so I understand how important SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is for people searching for products, along with customer service, solid packaging, pricing, and generally putting yourself out there to be seen.

What I wasn't prepared for was creating my own website, coding when absolutely necessary, fighting with the website builder, adding a section only for it to dump another section off my page, and breaking their AI after rebuilding my store four times in six days.

Then came Google Search Console, submitting sitemaps and waiting for it to start indexing my pages and listings so they could show up in searches, along with Google Merchant and Analytics.

Then there's fighting with Amazon Handmade's strict listing requirements, making products, photography, sitting down long enough to actually write the descriptions and enter the listings, and then adding all of the necessary information for those items to show up in my Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest shops, and my own website.

And I'm supposed to make shoppable videos for TikTok, change my photo ratio to 2:3 for Pinterest, write a blog, put up a social media post, add videos to Amazon...

All while having a now very active three-year-old who happens to think I am his personal jungle gym. He swings by, slides down, climbs on, and in every possible way imagines new ways to use me as playground equipment. He gets into everything he possibly can.

And he will. This kid has a high pain tolerance, no fear, and he loves to climb. And help mom by dragging every clean dish back into a sinkful of dirty dishes, or climbing into the freezer for just one more popsicle or frozen chicken patty.

8Other days, he's a little couch potato and content playing with his toys or watching Toy Story for the zillionth time. But, it's usually the first scenario. 

 

Then, oh look, it's time to make dinner.

So, go scramble to put away the craft mess and make more dirty dishes to feed the family before the teenager rolls his eyes at you again when he asks how long before dinner is done.

Then it's back to the three-year-old. Try to wrestle time out of thin air to get him bathed, only to find him fast asleep on the floor. Or somehow it's 11:30 p.m., and he wakes up and thinks it's Par-tay Time until 4 a.m.

Or there's the time I'm trying to test candles and he thinks it's his birthday:

“Lemme smell them first! And then I wanna blow them all out right now!”

Some nights, the only quiet time I get is between 1–4 a.m., and there's a shower in there somewhere most days. Then I go collapse on my bed and sleep for a few hours, just to start all over again.

But I keep going.

Because I love to create.

I believe in my philosophy, my brand, and what I'm building. And I genuinely love making people happy.

I also want more people, especially creators, to remember that we don't have to fit into just one niche or one box.

Life would be so much more interesting if we stopped trying to squeeze ourselves into one little category.

You just have to open the door and find your own World.

Until next time,

JK