On January 1st, I was getting so jealous of everyone's posts about their resolutions and goals for the new year. I was still buried in etsy orders from the holiday season for the entire month of January. As of last week, I am DONE with holiday orders. I am very excited to talk about my super fun plans for 2017. But, before we do that, let's review the highlights of 2016.
2016 Shop Highlights
• Hosted 5 Giveaways
• Ran a 15% off Sale when I hit 400 sale
• Raised my prices
• My CA design was featured in a Magazine
• August: Reached over 500 sales
• April-Oct: Had over 30 sales each month
• Nov-Dec: Reached over 90 sales each month
• September: Made my business an official company - Mrscaiterbug LLC
• Took photos for my shop about page
• Reached over 800 followers on Instagram (+ 300 from last year)
• Participated in a group giveaway via Reddit
• Reached my goal of doubling my digital print inventory (I now have 150 designs)
• Introduced over 5 new embroidered pillow cover designs
• Updated photography on all of my pillow cover listings
• Started offering my digital prints as physical prints, and have had quite a few orders
• Had the most insane, yet successful holiday season ever
• Completed 9.5/18 goals I had for 2016 (at least I tried, right?)
I don't have a huge lists of goals 2017 like I did last year. I do have a few things on my radar that I would like to accomplish, and will probably be adding more things as time goes on.
2017 Projects:
2017 Projects:
New Designs:
• Make animal pillow covers into a new style (like my fox pillow above)
• Create designs out of my scrap fabric. I'm hoping to include something in houndstooth
• Designs featuring different dog breeds
• MORE printable art
• Country Designs
Caitlin's Closet:
This is a new series I will be starting on my here on my blog. This will either sound ridiculous or completely relatable to you. I am challenging myself to wear every item of clothing I own in one year. Whatever I don't wear, I have to donate, throw away, or up-cycle into something I will use. I know what you're thinking, "Wow, you must have a crap-ton of clothes." Yes, this is probably true. Hence, the challenge. My first post on this will be an inventory on all my clothes, and all of the reasons why I want to do this.
Shop To Do:
• Write Shop "About" Page
• Re-write item details
• Re-write / re-design new postcard to include with my shipped orders (specifically to encourage customers to share their story or photos of their purchase with me so I can feature them on my social media account)
• Re-do photography for animal pillows
• Make my USA cover design in multiple colors to feature on my shop page.
Health
I started weight-watchers again, yay! I did weight-watchers for the first time summer 2015, and learned so much about eating healthy (and lost a lot of weight along the way). I like to reactivate the program every now and then to re-establish healthy habits. I don't go to meetings or anything, I just participate through the app on my phone. For me, it takes all the guess work out of weight loss, and really encourages me to eat healthy. As long as I follow my plan, I know I will reach my goal. My goal this time around to reach the ideal weight for my height (which is about 8-10 lbs lighter than my current weight, and also the weight is says on my license lol). This shouldn't be too challenging, but I do love ice cream so that always presents a test.
Yoga! I want to start doing yoga again. I think it would be fun to go to a class, but I want to start doing it at home, and if I'm really loving it then I will commit to a class. I started taking yoga when I was in 9th grade, and really enjoyed the classes. I don't care to much for the meditative qualities, but I love the physical exercise. I was cheerleader for 13+ years, and yoga uses some of the practices I enjoyed so much in cheering. Mainly, improving flexibility and engaging stability muscles. I found a yoga youtube channel that I am going to try out, and I'm really looking forward to it.
Skinnytaste challenge! I decided to challenge myself to make all of the recipes in the new Skinnytaste Fast & Slow cookbook. I love Gina's recipes so much. They are healthy, but not boring. I also find them to be pretty easy to follow. I used to take so much time meal planning, and now I feel like I don't have to think about it too much. The more meals I have planned out, the less we eat out. And, the less we eat out, the easier it is to stick to my weight watchers plan. I have already completed 12 of the recipes. All of them were good, and some of them were a really big hit. I don't really have a strict timeline on this, I just know that I want to complete it. I don't think I'll do regular posts on this, but I plan on updating you guys with how it is going, and what some of my favorites have been.
And guys... I'm almost to 1000 sales! Ahh!
Thanks for stopping by!
Laterbug Caiterbug.
You go boss lady! :)
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