I sent this message to my email subscribers this morning. If you'd like to receive weekly emails from me click here.
I've been thinking about my wins and challenges of 2023, and what I want to create in 2024. I have a lot to say!
On New Year's Eve 2022 I chose the word "Balance" for 2023. I was feeling that my work/life balance was skewed too heavily towards work. So I made some changes to give me more balance and had some great wins in 2023.
- I moved my studio from my home to an office that's 5 minutes away. It's made such a huge difference to have that physical and emotional space from work.
- I brought on the most amazing assistant in early 2023. Claudia is experienced, competent, and wonderful to work with. She works two days a week, and it's helped immensely to have someone to assist with the work load.
- My second goal for 2023 was to be more consistent with emailing. For me consistent meant once a week, and I am so proud of myself for (mostly) sticking to that! But more than that, the response I've gotten from many of you has been incredibly heartwarming. At shows this fall, I was surprised how many people told me how much they enjoy getting my emails. One person even said that she feels like she knows me because of reading these emails! I will continue emailing weekly (except when I have a sale and will send more emails), and hope to bring more of "me" to the emails this year.
- Lastly, I won three "best of" awards this year!!! 1) Barb King Jewelry Award at Art on the Square in Belleville, IL. 2) Best in Show, ArtWorth in Fort Worth, TX. 3) Best in Jewelry, Tempe Festival of the Arts in Tempe, AZ. Woohoo! 🎉
Looking forward in 2024, my chosen word is Mastery. I want to work on some new skills, have more control over acceptances to fine art festivals, dig deeper into my business finances, and continue to fine-tune balance. Some specifics things in the near future:
- More mastery over work/life balance is still prominent. As a solopreneur, I wear alllll the hats (designer, maker, bookkeeper, photographer, social media manager, content writer, tech troubleshooter, etc). There's literally never a time that there's not something I could be working on for the business. I hope to pare things down to what's essential so that I can feel like down time is actually relaxing time.
- I have a full spring show schedule and am so excited to be in Arizona in March and Texas in April.
- I'm releasing a limited edition heart pendant with the cactus skeleton pattern for Valentine's Day. If you want very first dibs, click here. I'll be officially releasing it next week.
- More new jewelry is in the works!
Thanks for reading! I look forward to connecting with you more this year! 💕 As always, please reply with your reflections, thoughts, requests, and if you have anything you're looking towards this year.
