Well, little did I know that the universe had other plans for us in 2014! Just 6 days after publishing the post I discovered that a mini-person was taking up residency in my body! Very exciting of course, but also completely terrifying.
The last 7 months have been an interesting journey. Luckily I avoided morning sickness, but January and February left me feeling exhausted and during the following months I suffered horrendous muscular pains meaning I was unable to sleep for many nights. It's been hard to get my head around everything I set out to do.
We now have 6 weeks(ish) to go! I'm getting tired again, and quite understandably the plans I made in January seem like a distant dream. I'm hoping to use some of my maternity leave to build MMD up a little bit more, so I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to go through my post again, for my own piece of mind and to evaluate the year we've had so far.
Our 'resolutions' revisited...
Set targets for sales, monitor these and react appropriately
It all began with good intentions... I set targets and recorded sales accurately for January, March and April. It was a useful exercise as over the Christmas period I'd read an article entitled 'How to get a sale a day online' for some tips, only to find we already did average a sale a day! Tiredness and work commitments have stopped me from smashing these targets, but to know I was already further ahead than I thought was a wonderful pick me up. I probably should start this again!
Keep the blog up to date
Erm... we had a little flurry of posts in April, but other than that it's been quiet! Luckily I have been given a new lease of inspiration from the fabulous Mollie Makes Blogging magazine that I took away last week. That little notebook is rammed full of post ideas and schedules for the coming weeks, let's hope it works!
Increase our number of facebook likes
We've reached over 1700 likes, and I'm really happy with that! There are some new ideas coming together to make the facebook page really worthwhile for our likers, so do come and say hi!Create 'collections'
Another promise that's halfway there. We have some beautiful new comb designs that are nearly ready and the bridal and bridesmaid jewellery collections are on their way. With the birth of baby Morgan soon to be upon us, I've had to say no to a few bespoke requests, freeing up some time to work on the collections, at last!
Learn new skills
In March I managed to get to Silver Pebble's fabulous silver clay workshop and you can read about what I got up to here. Next up is pearl knotting! Outside the world of jewellery I've also been trying out some other crafts that I hope to blog about soon.
Read more
I've taken to reading a few monthly craft and jewellery magazines and it's unbelievably rewarding! Each time I flick through the pages I'm filled with inspiration for new pieces, packaging and general business ideas, as well as finding out lots of new suppliers, blogs and craft shops. Will definitely be keeping this up!
Don't let the 'bad guys' get me down!
They're still out there - watching them get grumpy is fun!
So there they are, my six monthly reflections. It has felt good to go through them, discover what I'm yet to do this year and what I've achieved already. Thank you for indulging me!
So there they are, my six monthly reflections. It has felt good to go through them, discover what I'm yet to do this year and what I've achieved already. Thank you for indulging me!
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