July was a big month for me! I somehow pulled up my boot straps and managed to create a mini art popup in a month… and I can honestly say I am so proud of myself for finally pursuing this dream of mine. Oftentimes people feel weird about saying they are proud of themselves. I did, but in these past few months, I’ve realized that you need to be your #1 supporter if you want a strong foundation to pursue your goals.
Here’s the steps I wrote down to accomplish setting up a shop:
Draw for fun for the month, don’t even think about it and don’t set any restrictions. Just have fun and build a habit.
Get all of your table displays and equipment ready.
Spend the next few weeks creating your products.
Share what you’re doing to social media.
For the next few weeks, I drew and drew nearly every day at a cafe and managed to come up with a bunch of drawings that I absolutely loved. I really started to enjoy drawing.
I made videos on Youtube and TikTok, and shared all my doodles. I started to experiment with making products by hand. I bought a Silhouette Cameo 4 to cut all my sticker designs and then discovered shrink plastic, and started making hand drawn keychains which quickly turned into an obsession!
And finally July was coming to an end and I would have my first ever shop popup at a local giftshop where I somehow sold enough product in 5 hours to cover my rent for the month. I was so overwhelmed and excited, it was the best result I could’ve expected!!
Come August, I started to feel a little burnt out. The past month I was working 10-16 hour days. It sounds like a lot but I just couldn’t stop my ball rolling, every day I had so much I wanted to do. And that brings us to today, where I’m finally feeling more energized and ready to set up my online shop. I set a tentative deadline for my shop launch August 31st but due to my small burn out, I might have to push it back.
Here’s a sneak peak of my website design! It might change a lot in the next few weeks but this is a WIP.
And that was a little recap of what I’ve been up to! Please feel free to follow my journey as I build my little art business.
Mo
Congrats! What an accomplishment!