Once Again Sam Turns 14!

My small business turns 14 years old this weekend. 

I was having a hard time wanting to celebrate because last year was a really tough one. I know each year can’t be the “best ever” but 2022 was the first time in 14 years it was noticeably quiet and things seemed to fall short or fall through altogether. My best guess for the cause was recession-related and algorithm changes, but who knows. Then I started thinking about recessions - this business was actually born DURING a recession, when I was was dealing with a pay cut, just like everyone else I worked with, if we were lucky to keep our jobs at all. It was a tough time economically for all of us, but with a $25 a month crafting budget, and a table (not a room, not a studio, just a table!) I started Once Again Sam in January of 2009 as a creative outlet and to see if I could make some extra money to buy shoes & yarn. That’s all I was after. Big dreams, right? 

Within a year, it became a profitable side hobby. In 3-4 years, I earned as much making things as I did working full time, and at year 5, I flip flopped my hobby with my career and went full time with Once Again Sam and part time with interior design and have been doing that ever since. Between the two “jobs” I work a lot of hours each week, but I truly enjoy what I do and feel blessed to be in this situation where I can pursue both dream jobs. 

So 2022 was a tough year, but if I look back at how far this little business has come, I can’t be too down about it. I’m extremely lucky to be able to do this for a living, I enjoy every minute of it (that’s not 100% true - I really hate load-in / load-out for craft shows) and I’m thankful for each and every one of you for being here and for your support over the years, however many years, months, weeks, or days you’ve been following along here. I appreciate you more than you know. THANK YOU! 

Please treat yourself to 20% off anything on my website this weekend with coupon code OAS14.

Year in Review: 2020

My studio is closed, I’m in the middle of moving, but I wanted to share my year in review for Once Again Sam as I’ve done in past years. This was a hard year for all of us, for so many different reasons, and I’m just thankful my small business was able to survive. Just about everything I had lined up and was looking forward to got canceled, and I certainly made far less than I was expecting to since in-person events were canceled and all of the shops that carry my work were closed for awhile, I’m so grateful I was able to lean on my website to keep me going. Having several income streams and ways of working with customers really saved the day/year!

Thank you to all who supported Once Again Sam this year, whether you liked & commented, worked with me on a commission, took one of my virtual workshops, or shopped online. You are greatly appreciated!

Evolution of a Maker: 11 Years of Once Again Sam

You probably know me for my handmade jewelry and fiber art. I’ve been making & selling jewelry on Etsy since January of 2009, and added fiber art to my offerings shortly after that, but I bet you didn’t know I once dabbled in making coasters from marble samples, bowls from old vinyl records, magnets from glass tiles, and some steampunk jewelry from old clock parts? Yes, it’s been a wild ride here at Once Again Sam! 

When I started out, I was working almost exclusively with up-cycled materials for two reasons: 1. I had a very small budget, and 2. I had access to a lot of interesting materials for free thanks to my career in interior design (which is an industry that is constantly clearing out samples from their design libraries). This combination caused me to be resourceful and experiment, which is still to this day the spirit of my handmade business Once Again Sam (and that’s also where the “once again” comes from in my company name). 

My monthly “crafting budget” in 2009 was $25 plus whatever I made selling on Etsy. When I started out, I wasn’t selling much on Etsy - maybe a sale a week for the first few months. However, I was surrounded by cool materials, thanks to my design career. The firm I was with at the time was relocating and downsizing the materials library (this was right when the Architecture industry was hit hard during the recession) and we were discarding samples like crazy, so I started reclaiming things from the trash like stone flooring samples, glass tile mockups, leather upholstery swatches, and wood stain chain sets. These odd bits and random pieces bound for the trash are how this business began!

I did eventually branch out and started buying inexpensive items at Goodwill that I could repurpose. Some of my favorite items to up-cycle at that time were suede clothing, old belts, vinyl records, broken costume jewelry pieces, and clocks. 

After about 2-3 years, I finally hit my stride working with wood, leather and wool. I stuck to these mediums and started selling enough online that I couldn’t get by using only recycled materials - I had to start sourcing from suppliers with future growth in mind. I still use recycled leather when possible.

Before I invested in my first laser cutter in 2012, all the leather earrings, cuffs, and rings were cut by hand, and that limited my design capabilities. The laser cutter really opened things up for my business - not just with leather, but also with wood and acrylic. However, there are still several hand cut leather designs I still make today.

My needle felting projects went from simple to complex within just a few short years. I dabbled in mostly 3D work, focusing on animals and plants as my subject matter. Some of these designs are still around in my shop today - they’re just more refined after years and years of practice!

I always get asked if I’d ever try a menswear jewelry line. I have, and it bombed. In 2015 I did a series of wooden dog tags, wider leather cuffs, and engraved wooden cufflinks and the collection was a total bust. Sometimes ideas just don’t work out - either the product isn’t quite right or there’s no customers who want to buy it. You live, you learn. No more menswear in the future - got it!

In 2016, my fiber art changed dimensions, literally. For the first time ever, I decided to work in 2D. It was completely different and I loved it immediately. I don’t know why I never thought to try that before! My first needle felted landscape was created in May of 2016 and it took my in a whole new direction, one I’m pursuing enthusiastically at the moment. Switching from 3D to 2D helped elevate my fiber art. I discovered as soon as you put something on a wall, it’s thought of more as art instead of craft.

In more recent years I’ve changed my fiber art focus almost entirely to 2D but I still do animal portraits and felted plants from time to time. The jewelry is still primarily laser cut but I’m enjoying hand painting and finding ways to marry the technology of the laser cutter with traditional art methods.

I enjoyed this little trip down memory lane and hope you did too. We’re all evolving, but it’s hard to see that on a day to day basis sometimes. When I look back at where I started, what I made, what I learned, I feel like a whole lot has happened in the last 11 years. There’s things I only made once and never tried again, there were things I made a decade ago that I still create and sell today, and it’s cool to see how it all ties together. My maker story is still being written. Who knows what the next ten years will bring! 

Year in Review: 2019

I’m about to celebrate 11 years in business as Once Again Sam and 2019 was another great year. Although it wasn’t a record-breaker like last year, I felt like I had way more opportunities and more fun in the last 12 months than compared to 2018. I factor so many things into “was it a good year?” so even though my total sales dipped by about 10% compared to 2018, I still count this year as one of the best yet.

The biggest changes I noticed this year was that Etsy Sales were way way down, but craft show sales were up, so thankfully it mostly balanced out. If you had asked me last year, I would have predicted the exact opposite - craft shows seem to be drying up and Etsy seemed to be holding steady. My crystal ball was wrong about 2019! A big win this year is seeing my Wholesale reach continue to rise because it’s by far my biggest financial investment since 2016. So nice to see it paying off longterm!

2019 brought lots of new milestones and opportunities - here’s a look at some of the highlights:

Teaching Opportunities: I taught 12 needle felting workshops this year (through Greenville Center for Creative Arts and SkillPop) and that included a total of 159 students. I had about 10% of those students return for a second, third, and even a fourth class. Either I’m a terrible teacher or they’re having a lot of fun learning this magical medium! I also taught my first hand painted jewelry class (at the Artisphere ArtLab) and I’m thinking about adding that to my workshop offerings next year.

27 Commissions: This is certainly a new record for me! I don’t count any of the custom handmade jewelry because honestly, 75% of the jewelry I make IS custom and/or made to order. I consider a commission to be a needle felted landscapes made from the customer’s photos or needle felted animal portrait. 27 commissions over 12 months is way more than I realized until I went back and looked at my records from this year. This is a tiny sampling below.

5 Magazine Features: Thank you again to Belle Armoire, TOWN, Local Life, Country Living, and The Pioneer Woman for featuring my work this year!

4 Exhibitions: I was honored to have my first large-scale long-term exhibition this summer at Greenville Center for Creative Arts. My 100 Day Project was part of the Fiber Paper Scissors show and it was truly one of the highlights of my year. I also had a fiber art landscape piece in the GCCA Members Exhibition, 2 in the the Friends of Lake Robinson juried exhibition, and a triptych at the Artfields Exhibition in Lake City, SC.

2 Grants: I have Metropolitan Arts Council to thank for not one but TWO grants this year. They helped fund my material costs for the 100 Day Project and Exhibition in the early spring, and then the second grant came in the fall which I used to take a rug hooking course at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

1 Artist in Residence Opportunity: My second consecutive residency with South Carolina State Parks occurred in May at Edisto Beach State Park, and as with the previous year, that time away surrounded by an abundance of natural inspiration was another high point of my year. Read all about my experience in this blog post.

So it was a great year, as you can see! Taking time to reflect on the last 12 months on an emotional level, artistic satisfaction level, and pure numbers level, is a huge help in planning my next year and beyond. It’s easy to see what’s not working and it’s easy to see what worked way better than I expected. I’m starting to truly understand that one of the big reasons my small business has lasted this long and continues to grow each year is because I’m extremely diversified. I work in multiple mediums that appeal to completely different customers and I sell on multiple sales platforms so if one is suffering, I can wait it out or move on. A dip in Etsy sales this year didn’t actually matter in the grand scheme of things, which is a relief. If I had all my eggs in that basket, it might have hurt way more than it did. Same goes for last year with craft shows - I didn’t do as well in that arena in 2018, but I hung in there, tried again this year, and had fantastic results.

I’m so grateful for every single compliment, opportunity, sale, like, share, email, feature, and student this year and every year. All of these things - small things, big things - they all add up and they all matter. From the bottom of my heart - thank you!

Lastly - if you’re into stats and am curious about the journey of this handmade business, I’ve posted several reviews and recaps from previous years.

They can be found here:

Year in Review: 2018

Year in Review: 2016

Year in Review: 2015

Year in Review 2014

2018 - A Year in Review

2018 has been quite a year. I didn’t realize I’d hit so many milestones all at once, but I suppose that’s fitting because it’s my 10th year in business, which in itself is a milestone.

This year was my best year in some respects, but it was also a hard year at times. Some things fell through that I previously counted on, other opportunities found their way to me that were totally unexpected. It all worked out in the end!

10,000 Etsy Sales:

This major milestone snuck up on me. I remember when I first opened my Etsy shop in 2009 (and started Once Again Sam simultaneously), I obsessed over every sale until I made it to 100 sales, which took about a full year. After that, I stopped worrying about the number and focused more on where I wanted to go with this handmade business. It’s been an incredible journey on Etsy and I hope to see 20,000 sales one day!

100 Craft Shows:

That’s 100 set ups, 100 teardowns, 200 precise packings / re-packings of the car, thousands of miles on the road, good hotels, bad hotels, perfect weather, horrible weather, early mornings, late nights, and who knows how many hours talking to customers & other vendors. It’s a hard life. I admire people who do festivals full time, but I’ve learned over the last few years that I don’t want to be in a different city every weekend. I have drastically cut back on the number of events I do now, but all of those experiences at various craft shows and art festivals have taught me so much about my product, my customers, and myself.

Record Sales:

I had a sales goal for the year, and I made it, but just barely. Every month I checked that we were on track to make that goal, and most of the time we were, but not always. I love a good “stretch goal” - something that pushes you to keep going, keep trying, keep making.

Record Number of Wholesale Orders & Stockists:

2018 was the first year I did multiple wholesale trade shows, and it paid off. With Etsy Wholesale closing up mid year, I had to hustle to make up for that loss, and when I look back at the number of wholesale orders from the year that came in solely from tradeshows and contacts made there, it’s easy to see this is a worthwhile investment for my business.

Largest Commission:

I took on my biggest commission (both in quantity and in size) this year for a local company called Kentwool. I created 75 custom landscapes for them in the spring, then in the fall, I took on my first extra large needle felted landscape commission which was 24” x 36”. That was double the size of my largest piece previously!  I never would have attempted something that big on my own, but now I feel empowered to work at whatever scale I want.

Largest Fiber Art Collection:

In May of 2018, I had the honor of being Artist in Residence at Poinsett State Park, and during my time there I created 40 pieces inspired by my surroundings which were then exhibited at Art & Light Gallery. Never before have I created such a large series around a specific location, and I really enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed it so much I’m doing another residency next year and have an even bigger exhibition opportunity lined up for the summer. That’s all I can share till next year!

10 Years in Business:

It doesn’t feel like a long time to me, but I have come to realize a lot of Makers and small businesses simply don’t last that long. I’m one of the lucky ones! I think one big factor in why I have lasted this long and made every year better than the last is because I do a variety of things. When I’m sick of needle felting, I bounce back to jewelry. I’m not stuck in a single medium. I also never gave up my day job, and continue to work a few days a week as an Interior Designer, which gets me out of the studio and uses a totally different part of my brain. I’ll admit I don’t have much free time anymore, but I’m doing things I want to do with my time, and that matters far more to me.