It's o.k. to stay small

Every few months, I read an article about some indie maker who started a small one person business from their kitchen table and now have 25 employees working out of a 5000 square foot studio.  For about thirty minutes, I either: a. feel like a failure because after nine years I'm still a one woman operation working out of her basement or b. (if I'm buzzing on five cups of coffee) start working on a plan to expand my business.

American society has a "Go big or go home" philosophy.  We're an Amazon, Starbucks, Kardashian, Shark Tank kind of people.  The maker movement was a push back to that corporate, take over the world, mentality.  When Etsy was founded in 2005, it was a haven for indie makers, many who had left the corporate world, who were looking to quit their day jobs and sell their handmade, small batch goods from their one person studio.  For many, it was a lifestyle choice- a choice to live a simpler life, be their own boss, set their own hours, pursue their art and craft and connect with their customers.  However, the Etsy culture changed around 2012/2013.  Two companies, Three Birds Nest and Grace and Lace (both selling clothing and accessories)  burst on the scene boasting astronomical sales of 500,000- 1 million annually.  Obviously, one person wasn't single handedly making all these items for sale.  Those kind of sales require a small workforce to take care of customer service, design, manufacture and shipping of all that product.  In response, Etsy changed the rules of the game to accommodate sellers that had outgrown the one maker rules of the platform.  Now, "makers" don't have to actually "make" anything, they only have to be "creators" of an idea and are allowed to have the actual manufacturing done overseas.  So much for being a maker platform.

Now, on Etsy, the top sellers have sales in the tens if not hundreds of thousands a year.  These sellers are definitely not making their wares from their home studios- they're probably not making much of the product themselves at all but, rather, overseeing the production and business side of their shops.  It's easy to look at their sales and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

Fortunately, however, usually after I'm able to meet up with a friend for coffee in the middle of the day or take the dog for a long walk on a particularly nice morning or even drop off customer packages of items I have enjoyed creating and making, I remember that I love what I get to do everyday.  I really do.  I love working by myself- it fits my introverted personality.  I love making a pot of coffee in the morning and putting on my slippers and going to work in my little home studio.  I enjoy discussing ideas with customers and getting a note back about how much they loved what I made for them.  I like flexibility in my schedule and being creative every day.  The truth is, I don't want a large business.  I don't want to manage people.  I don't want to work a set schedule.

Here's the message I want to give other makers and creatives.  It's ok to stay small.  It's ok to only be known in your town and not the world.  It's ok to make a modest living.  It's ok to not want to corner the market and have 150 employees.   It's not about the numbers.  It's about creating a lifestyle where you are your own boss and you wake up looking forward to the work you get to do (well, most days).  It's about creating meaningful work for yourself.  I'll say it once more  for myself and for you, it's ok to stay small.

The Devil Wears Yoga Pants

There's a new bully in the business world and she's not wearing Prada or working out of a fancy office in Manhattan.  Surprisingly, she's a stay-at-home  mom working from her kitchen table with a pot full of coffee and a desk top vinyl cutting machine.

In October 2011, an arts and crafts company called Silhouette released a home desktop cutting machine that allows crafters to design and cut a variety of substrates from paper to heat transfer vinyl for fabrics.  Prior to this, vinyl decorating on apparel and occasionally mugs and glassware resided almost exclusively with professional printers as the cutting machines were rather large and quite a bit more pricey than the new desktop versions.

I have been selling on the popular maker site, Etsy, since 2012.  When I started, there were only a handful of other sellers making what I sell- printed throw pillows and tote bags.  There were quite a few more sellers making t-shirts, most of them screen printed.  The market was competitive but for the most part civil.

Then, somewhere around 2013, an entrepreneurial minded mom made her baby an adorable Onsie from vinyl she had cut with her desktop cutter and posted a photo of it on her Facebook account.  She started getting requests from friends to make them for their babies too and setup an Etsy shop to sell her creations.

Fast forward to 2015.  A quick search of Etsy for Onesies yields over 230,000 listings.  Mugs with sayings yields a whopping 635,000 listings.  While some of these are made with more traditional screen printing methods, the vast majority are now made with vinyl.  What began as a wonderful way for stay- at-home moms to work from home has now become a fiercely competitive, maker eat maker business.

Don't get me wrong, Etsy has always had it's share of power hungry, greedy crafters intent on crushing their competitors and cornering their little corner of the crafting world.  But for the most part, Etsy crafters were of the hipster,  live authentically and make the world a better place kind of crafter.

Not any more.  This new variety of vinyl cutting crazies are mean and ruthless.  Everyday on Etsy Facebook forums people post about some scheming crafter seeking to trademark every popular phrase for the sole purpose of not allowing other sellers to sell products with that phrase.  When they're not busy applying for Trademarks, they're convincing their friends to buy competitors' products and leave bad reviews or  blow-up their Facebook feeds with nasty comments.

Etsy used to be a wonderful community of makers, supporting one another with their passion for handcrafted wares made by independent crafters.  Thanks in large part to the new generation of cut and press crafters it has become much like any other large corporation with a Miranda Priestly around every corner, sporting a messy bun and yoga pants, scheming at her kitchen table to corner the market and take you down.

FREE THE TATAS Part 2

Just five days after the Braden River High School bra scandal where a seventeen year old student was required to stick band-aids over her nipples after neglecting to wear a bra to school,  Braden River High School has released new guidelines governing student underwear.

"It has come to our attention, thanks to the astute observations of several sixteen year old male students who still giggle every time they hear the words melons or balls, that many girls continue to wear undergarments without the appropriate amount of support as to prevent excessive jiggling or padding to prevent nipple concealment- leading  the boys to excess distraction and inability to learn.  Therefore we are implementing the following procedures:

1. Any girl reported for ineffective breast support or nipple concealment will be required to pass a series of three tests: jumping jacks, running in place and standing in front of an air conditioner.

2. Failure to pass any of the above tests will result in the girl being sent home and not allowed to return until her breasts are properly supported and her nipples are fully concealed.

3. Continued failure to comply with proper breast support and nipple concealment will result in the student being required to wear a choir robe on school property."

#satire  #fakenews

FREE THE TATAS

I have a secret. Well, airport security knows about it but they know all my secrets.

90% of the time, I don't wear a bra. Shocking, right?

My reasons are simple. I am fairly small breasted and don't need the support. I think bras are hot, restrictive and uncomfortable. I like being comfortable. I don't wear high heels or spanx either, so sue me.

Fortunately for me, I don't go to school at Braden River High School. A seventeen year old girl decided to not wear a bra under her loose fitting, opaque, crew neck, long sleeve tshirt because she had a sunburn. We've all been there, right? Straps rubbing on sunburn is torture. Try learning something when every time you move, you're pierced with a red hot poker. Not wearing a bra seems like a perfectly reasonable solution. Oh, wait, I forgot. We live in a society where reason and logic don't matter. If something makes you just the teeniest bit uncomfortable, then it should be against the rules, right?

According to news reports and the girl's social media a teacher at the school heard a boy talking about the girl not wearing a bra. So, she did the only reasonable thing- she ignored it because teenage boys are obsessed with breasts.  I mean, this was probably the same kid who snapped the bra of the first girl in his class to get breasts in fifth grade. Just kidding- that would have been way too logical of a response! We live in America!  Logic doesn't matter.   Instead, the teacher turned her into the school principal who made the girl put on an extra shirt and jump up and down to make sure that helped contain the wicked jiggling of unbound breasts. Then she had her go to the school nurse to put band-aids on her nipples. Forget that every single person in the world has nipples (some even have a third nipple!); you could almost if you squint and turn your head just so, see the very faint outline of what was probably a nipple and that is just not o.k.  I mean, what would happen if teenaged boys find out that girls have nipples too! There's just no possible way a boy could learn in that kind of environment.

I've decided my problem is I expect way too much of other people. I expect them to be kind and reasonable and understand that God made breasts to feed offspring, not to entertain the male species. Boy, was I wrong. From the comments made to the girl and her mother on twitter and facebook, you would have thought she walked into class wearing pasties and a g- string.

I know, I know, I should've known better, after all we live in a breast obsessed society. People get all hot and bothered over a woman feeding her baby in public, so of course they're going to feel uncomfortable when a woman doesn't wear a bra. The crazy thing is, I didn't realize women wore bras to conceal their breasts. I have been operating under the delusion that women wear bras to support their breast tissue- particularly big breasted women who feel more comfortable (there's that evil word again) with some support OR to enhance their figures. I guess I missed the memo that underwire, push-up bras are for the purpose of modesty. Oops, my bad.

While we're at it, I think all overweight students, male or female, should be required to wear spanx or girdles. All that jiggling of fat is just so offensive to my delicate sensibilities. I assume everyone understands that breasts are basically fat tissue right? Not so much different than those love handles.

Apparently, a good percentage of Americans, at least those who comment on social media, believe the government (and thus school authorities) should have the right to dictate what people wear under their clothes. It's about time society got on board with those Mormon fundamentalists who wear wrist to ankle undergarments. Or better yet, I think we should adopt the Muslim way of covering women head to toe, that way boys can learn without any distractions.

Anyway, my secret is out.  It feels good to come clean after all these years.  Cue the angry villagers with pitchforks and twitter accounts.