It is hard to believe, but the autumn season is upon us already. The maples are starting to turn colors a bit earlier, partially because of the very dry summer we had. In another month, the peak foliage season will be almost over, and then winter and the holidays are  right around the corner.

The summer of 2012 has been extremely slow in both my ArtFireand etsy shops. I had one sale in July and one sale in August, for a grand total of around $30.00. Summer is usually slow, but nothing like this one was. I have decided to focus my efforts on ArtFire instead of other venues for a number of reasons, including superior listing tools, phone customer support, and a thriving and helpful seller community. Another venue has decided to force sellers into using their in-house payment processor (somewhat like PayPal) and plan to roll out site-wide gift cards only for sellers that have the in-house payment checkout system. The fees on this site are already too high, and I resent the strong-arm tactics which result in more money in their pockets.

I have been using the summer “downtime” to stock up my shop, work on listing descriptions, and image captions for upcoming Google search changes. I have some new products already listed and more on the way. I have made up a few new laptop sleeves and lots of new kindle covers, and couldn’t resist buying some great new 100% organic cotton bird fabrics.

I am also participating in one craft show in December at an assisted-living facility for senior citizens, and plan to offer a few walker bags, since walkers are the preferred method of locomotion, and the bags are handy to carry mail, etc. I was a vendor there last year, and met some interesting older people with fascinating stories of their lives.

Here are just  a few of the new things that were recently listed in my ArtFire shop:

Laurel Burch Hummingbird Kindle Cover

Lantern Blooms Laptop Sleeve

Zipper Cosmetic Pouch in Goldfinch Print