Well, my Christmas shop update has happened! As I write this there are just two items (one of which is Agatha the Chicken Lady, pictured below) remaining in my shop.

HUGE and heartfelt thanks to everyone who has looked and liked and browsed and bought. I am amazed that, especially in these times of price increases and tightened belts, people are still willing to buy what I make. And apologies to those who wanted to buy, but missed out for whatever reason. I will endeavour to do better next time.

So despite being a very late starter this year on the “preparing for Christmas” front, I finally stopped procrastinating, got my head down and really worked hard to make the shop update happen.What most people who don’t make and sell physical products online perhaps don’t realise, is all the behind the scenes work that goes into a shop update. It’s not just a case of doing a bit of stitching and then sitting back and watching the money roll in… oh no!

After actually making all the faeries and bears and other creatures I spent the best part of a whole week (or much longer if you count the time I spent trawling both online and in local charity shops for photography props and backdrops) staging, styling and snapping literally hundreds of photographs, battling against the dark gloom of a winter week of rainy days when it felt like the sun barely came up at all – and when it did, it set again at about 2pm.

Photographing tiny bears and dolls isn’t easy, let me tell you. Getting them nicely lit (without using any artificial light because it always makes everything look rubbish) and properly in focus is only part of it.

The aim is to produce beautiful, stylish images that suit the items on show and are also accurate and not misleading. Which is a balancing act, because unlike photos for social media, which don’t have to be entirely true to life, photos for a shop update need to look recognisably like the items that people will actually see when they have purchased them.

Colours need to be true, features sharp and details captured accurately.It is an art that I have spent a lot of time trying to perfect – and I am still learning.

Which leads me on to the next job, which is that when all the photographs have been set up and styled and taken, it’s time to edit them.

It is obviously really important to show my makes at their best and have them look as good as possible, especially when the only way people have of seeing them prior to purchasing is the photos I take of them, being unable to pick up the items in their hands and examine them in person. Photo editing is a big part of that. Just sticking a filter on and hoping for the best does not cut it.

For a start, what I see when I look through the viewfinder of my camera and what I see when I look at the resulting photograph on my screen, or phone, are not the same. So a lot of editing goes on to ensure that shadows obscuring little faces, stray hairs and fluff that I didn’t notice and other imperfections are removed. Blurry bits are sharpened, dark bits are brightened, over-bright bits are dulled a bit, so that the photo works to show things properly.

Also really important is that each photograph for Etsy has to be resized to the optimum size for the platform, otherwise they won’t upload, or they won’t look right if they do. Bear in mind that Etsy likes you to include up to ten photographs of each item. So that takes a while, even if I don’t go the whole hog and use less than ten for each thing.

Resizing once isn’t enough though, because if I want to share the same photographs on Facebook, or Instagram, or Pinterest etc, I’ll probably need different sized versions. And a full-size version too, just in case I ever get asked to submit photos to magazines, etc.

After the editing comes the listing process. I upload my edited photos (praying that the internet connection doesn’t drop out midway through!) and start working out how to describe each thing I have made in such a way that I pre-empt as many customer queries as possible, not because I don’t like talking to potential customers, but just because queries can take ages to deal with.

At the same time, rather than just a bullet point list of attributes, I try to bring out their selling points and the story behind each one. I measure everything accurately and add any provisos about postal delays and details about packaging, etc (which is usually the point at which I realise I don’t have enough boxes / sellotape / labels / tissue paper / string, etc!)

Then I make sure to check postage costs and work out how to deal with orders for more than one item, trying to ensure that I have covered my costs whilst not overcharging customers, and I transfer all that info to Etsy too, and save each listing as a draft.

Finally, with heart pounding, I set my alarm and watch the clock count down, before sending all the listings live at the appointed time, praying it works and that I actually sell something!

Usually I find it hard to sleep properly the night before a big shop update, because I always think that I have forgotten to do something behind the scenes, or that I will oversleep, or that something will go wrong. What can I say, I try to be an optimist, but I’m still working on that…

And after the sale there is the packing and posting and adding tracking details to Etsy and refunding people who paid for postage more than once, because they didn’t want to risk someone else purchasing something whilst it was awaiting payment in their basket when they were looking at another item. Oh, and extending dispatch dates for people who for one reason or another don’t want their orders posting straight away.

Not to mention those anxious few days when always at the back of your mind you are hoping that everything arrives safely, more or less on time and undamaged – and that people aren’t disappointed when they receive what they ordered.

You might think it would be easier to just do a market or fair instead: pop everything on a table and let people have a good look and hand over their money. Job done!Except that there’s a whole different-but-no-less-exhaustive raft of work that goes on behind the scenes for that kind of selling – including planning and constructing displays, ironing tablecloths, arranging payment stuff (cash needs a float, cards need a working and charged up card machine, not to mention a decent internet connection), printing price labels, packing and unpacking it all, humping boxes of stock and props and packaging into the car and out of the car into a venue… those kinds of things.

Not to mention the additional work that isn’t behind the scenes, like being on your feet all day selling your wares, smiling until your face aches.

Anyway, this really wasn’t intended as any kind of a moan, just an explanation of what I’ve been up to and how the selling of handmade things might look very relaxed and cute and lovely, but much of the work involved is hidden work.

And it goes on amongst and in addition to normal family life, with pots and clothes still needing washing and shopping still needing doing and lots more going on around the edges of all of the above.So if, like me, you find yourself trying to look like you have it all together, that you know what you are doing and are professional at what you do, whilst behind the scenes you are running around like a headless chicken, brain fried and feeling like you will never get it all done however many “to do” lists you make, know that you are not alone.

I see you, fellow makers and sellers. I see you, and I feel you, especially at this time of year. Because we keep a lot of this stuff to ourselves, don’t we?

This stuff that fills up our days and makes up a huge chunk of our lives and that, although we do it because we love it, includes lots of bits that aren’t relaxed and cute and lovely, but can be stressful and tiring and sometimes boring.

The bits that we hide behind the scenes. ♥