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: