After slightly more than a year of really being in business, I’m ready to pick a direction and stick with it.

Should it have taken that long? Nope! But here’s how it went down…

I started out wanting to make greeting cards after learning modern calligraphy and finding pretty handmade watercolors, but quickly realized people weren’t interested in them. So I dug my heels in and tried making cards digitally, but the over head costs of printing cards was too much (and the ones I did get didn’t sell so now I’m stuck with them) and I didn’t like the quality of POD. I once again dug my heels in and tried making paper craft cards. And guess what?! They didn’t sell.

At the same time I was also making decoupage home decor using vintage postcards and artwork I digitally created. I had some success with these. In a “squirrel” moment I started making decoupage door hangers which cost me a bunch of money and made me next to none.

All the while I had one product that consistently sold. One product that brought in most of my “profit”. One product that I refused to acknowledge as the product I should focus on… BOOKMARKS. Even when I talked to my business adviser and she gave me this advice, “Sometimes our customers tell us what our niche is.”, I didn’t want to accept it.

My final two markets of the year I brought only bookmarks because I was sick of dragging all the other stuff around. And you know what happened? Those were my two best markets ever. I more than doubled the booth fee for them and the most expensive item I had was a $7 bookmark. LESSON LEARNED!

Going forward, I’m going to let all that other crap go and just focus on what people have been trying to tell me they wanted all along… bookmarks.