I’ve worked in the retail gift and home decor industry most of my life. I have many years under my belt as a buyer and merchandiser and have a passion for creating beautiful displays. I have also sold my handcrafted “it” for many many years. I followed trends, whims and whatever seemed fun at the time. Jewelry, bath products, furniture, paper products and so much in-between… I could never focus on one thing. The “it” evolved and changed as I did.

With my brick and mortar closed, the economy helping to slam those doors, I took some time to wallow in self-defeat and wonder what went wrong. I have opinions, but I can’t be sure.

We are flooded with things that are made in China and although the prices are excellent, we’re not getting a lot of unique things anymore. What you see at Target is also at Walmart, Home Goods, Big Lots, Macy’s and it’s also in those sweet little retail boutiques that are becoming an endangered species. The lines of “exclusive”, “unique”, “limited edition” and “designer” have been blurred, mass marketed, ripped off and licensed out to death. China can reproduce something in the blink of an eye for a fraction of the cost.

Before I opened my store, I sold in a little portable ten foot by ten foot booth at street fairs… outdoors, under the sun. Dirt, children with sticky fingers… kettle corn and Peruvian flute music abound. I felt like a modern day gypsy. I made the majority of everything under that EZ-up. There was a lot of pride in that, and a whole lot of work, too.

After a year of tortured bliss owning my very own store, I realized… hey… I could BUY more things and sell them for a profit! Handmade is great, but… how am I going to fill this space, all by myself? So… that’s when I got 1000 square feet of “Made in China” merchandise. Most of my customers didn’t seem to notice… or care… why should I? My deep respect for handmade was sort of… squashed. Why pay ten times as much for something that looks almost identical… but it’s made in China? Made by me or made in the USA didn’t matter anymore. At the time, to me, a full store was a happy store. I no longer had to struggle to keep up with my inventory demands or care where it came from. End of story.

All eco-landfill-social-global-economy-buy-american rants aside… why wouldn’t you want to save money? Why wouldn’t you want to have the newer and shinier… and get in some much-needed retail therapy time? As a store owner… why wouldn’t I want to showcase the new gotta-have-its and make my customers happy? It made sense. Everyone was pleased (yet, a wee bit ignorant).

So… now that we’ve maxed out our credit cards and filled our storage bins with SO much stuff… how could we ever go back? Have less things? How do we start respecting the handmade again? Smaller quantities… keep for a lifetime, not a season… supporting our local friends. There is a culture and a movement going on but… I was queen of consumer whore-ism… how do I change my ways? How do I convince my customers to change their ways? How do I not look like a total hippie? I’d like to buy handmade as well as BE that handmade vendor that people want to buy from because I’d rather not be a hypocrite, thank you very much.

So, I’d like to be a better/different consumer. I’d also like to be a better/different supplier/vendor. But I have NO idea where to start. I guess I’ll start with what I sell. I’m liquidating everything I didn’t make myself on ebay and I’m going to start fresh. A new look, a new philosophy. Ugh. I’m completely overwhelmed.

With that all said, I’m on a quest to find a new handmade medium to pursue. Over the course of my life I’ve worked with so many different types of arts, crafts and materials, but I feel like I have not mastered any one thing. So, I’m going to re-visit my crafting history… one medium at a time… and investigate its trends, popularity, appeal, longevity, profit potential and basically educate myself (and you!) and/or convince myself if this is the direction I’d like to go in. I will investigate a new medium every week. Here I go!