Kai Agate Design

Cleaning House Last Chance Sale!

Available through June 30, 2024 then they'll be destroyed for-evah!

Handmade, Hand-painted Essential Oil Clay Diffuser Necklaces
$5.00 each plus Shipping

Currently Available:

> 4 Brown Pet Paws
> 1 Black Pet Paw
> 4 Pink Hope Ribbons
> 2 Metallic Blue puzzle pieces
> 1 Ladybug
> 1 Sun
> 1 Linked Hearts (blue and silver)
> 1 Yin Yang

Essential Oil Clay Diffuser Charms (unstrung/charm only)
$1.00 each plus Shipping

Currently Available:

> 2 Black Pet Paws
> 2 Brown Pet Paws
> 5 Pink Hope Ribbons
> 6 Suns
> 3 Metallic Purple puzzle pieces
> 3 Metallic Green puzzle pieces
> 1 Metallic Blue puzzle pieces

Comment below or message me if interested!

Zentangle into a bookmark. Now that I read again... 😁

Rejuvenating my creativity in 2024. I'm taking a year long buncha mixed media classes in Lifebook 2024, hosted by willowing arts. I will share some here and there. Here's my first real foray into watercolors, creating this colorful rock cairn. I will be practicing this one again!

Here is a book, apologies, but I have a lot to say.

I haven’t been creating lately. Over the past few years, I’ve been primarily creating “orders” for other people, and not just because I love to do the thing I’m doing. In 2022, I’m going to get back to creating. Just for me. At least, that’s my hope. I will be shutting down all selling sites that may have had or partially started.

When people say, “you should sell that!” I used to think, “Oh, what a great way to make some extra money on the side.” But here’s what “you should sell that,” really means.

It means I need to create things according to other’s expectations, opinions and specific vision inside their mind, which I cannot see, if I’m open to taking custom orders. At the end of the creation it means hearing, “that’s not what I wanted” and potentially having a product that no one else in the world wants, including myself.

It means hearing, “you charge too much” for an item that I spent literally hours on, including re-doing things if it doesn’t turn out to my expectations, using product I buy most of the time at RETAIL pricing. Trust me, the end price does not reflect the time and supply costs put into it. Or hearing, “I can find something better.” Of course you can, and thank you for contributing to my imposter syndrome. Or hearing, “I can do that.” Sure… I never said you couldn’t… but WILL you? Will you buy all the supplies and make it? If so, have fun. Seriously… have FUN!!

When people say, “you should sell that,” they don’t realize the hours of time that have to go into setting up an account on a selling site (e.g. Etsy), the fees that Etsy charges me to just LIST the item, then the fees taken once the item is sold. Or the fees to RE-LIST after a time period has passed and the item hasn’t sold. Then there’s the credit card fees (that get taken from my bottom line) or the complaints of the “overpriced” shipping costs which don’t include the boxes or labels that I purchased in order to ship that item to you. It literally is what the post office charges me. “Can’t you find cheaper shipping?” Probably, but that means time in research and another account creation that I need to maintain and remember. Oh, and that selling site? It requires a form to be filled out completely before I can list said item. Even if I have a template created on the site, that form can take an hour per item to complete to the “expectations” of the system. And that’s IF there’s no glitch that erases your work when you hit “save” or “publish”. Trust me, I have not been verbally kind to some of those sites. Then, you have to “market” your item, using specific descriptive language to make your item appealing. That does not come natural to everyone. It certainly doesn’t come natural to me.

And photos? Talk about first impressions! Can I just take out my phone and take a photo? No, I need to think of proper lighting, angles and clarity. Is something shiny? How do I get that glare off if it? A close-up makes it look way bigger than it really is. Do I add something for size perspective? Should I have the same background every time? How do I create that so it’s consistent “branding”? I don’t want to adjust the color too much unless the photo really looks like a different color than the object I’m selling and THEN I can’t account for different people’s screen resolutions and color interpretations. “That’s not the color I thought it was.” “That’s smaller than I thought it was.”

Local communities want artisans to join up at their product fairs. That’s more fees, paying and maintaining a vendor’s license, taxes, owning tables and a shelter, signing up to have a mobile pay solution, the time gathering everything, setting up an appealing display and breaking it down later. Storage of all of that. I have gone to these craft fairs and sold one item. Was that worth the 6 hours of the fair itself, listening to people critique your items in front of you, plus the fees, time, and effort putting into preparations?

The time and energy it takes to “sell my stuff” is overwhelming and it has made me creatively shut down. I’m depressed. I dread making a journal. I haven’t made one in years. I honestly don’t know if I will make another journal again outside of the two very old promised journals I have weighing heavily on my heart. I look at my crystal wrapping supplies and think about all the things I want to try (“but what if it sucks?”). I have been focusing on cards because I can make them and send them out and I don’t need to do any of the other stuff. If people receive them and find them “stupid” and throw them away, I don’t know about it and that’s their prerogative. I created and I enjoyed it and felt peace doing so, and I hope beyond hope it brings even a little sunshine to someone’s day.

I love creating. I love that people love what I make. I will sell to you.

But I will no longer be accepting custom orders. I will no longer have a “site” to sell on. I will not maintain separate Instagram pages or pages (they will be deleted by the end of next month). I will not be listing items “for sale”. If I take a picture to share what I am doing, it’s just to share what I’m doing. If you like it and want it, please feel free to make me an offer. If it’s not something I want to keep and you make me a fair offer, more likely than not I will sell it to you. If it’s not something I want to keep, likely it will be stored in a box somewhere, and maybe I will feel it is good enough to gift to someone someday.

I hope I can find the joy in just playing again. I hope this helps people understand that “you should sell your stuff” is just not that easy. It’s work. And once it’s work… it’s no longer fun.

If you got this far, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. 😊