On Sunday at noon PST I'm closing the stamp shop doors.
I cannot believe that my little THIS on an arrow stamp turned into an adventure and such a sizeable chunk of my business. (You can read about how the stamp shop came to be here.)
I started with six stamp designs in April 2012 and I am closing with 36. I was hopeful that the original pop-up shop would result in a few hundred sales and have been humbled by your support and overwhelmed in the best way with what it turned into. As of last night, I had sold 5835 stamps.
The biggest thing that came from the stamps is surprisingly, not the stamps themselves. The stamps were the push I needed to start my own self-hosted shop and streamline my packaging and shipping processes. (You can read more here about how and why I ventured away from etsy and to e.junkie in the process of launching the stamp shop.)
Since my original launch, I have moved even further away from "the shop that looked like a blog" into the "website that is a shop." I love website coding an awkward amount and so it's been a fun challenge (and less expensive!) for me to self-host.
It's time to close because I'm ready for the next thing. It would be easy enough to keep cranking out four or five designs every few months, but the reality is that the sales are not coming in how they used to and ultimately, making stamps is no longer exciting to me. And that's okay. Change is good. Growth is good. Evolve or die, right?
Since day one, I have had the stamps produced in the USA by simonstamp.com and cannot recommend them enough. They are a great company to work with and I'll miss them (and they'll probably miss me and my crazy orders too, ha!).
So what's next? Soon I am launching a new shop concept that over the next year will play host to many different handmade items. It's bold and (perhaps a little too) ambitious but oh, it's been fun to think about and plan for. I will be experimenting with some new and old techniques, learning a lot and working like crazy. I can't wait to share more over the next few weeks. I hope you'll stay tuned.
And as this era closes, I have to say, thank you. Thank you for your stamp shop orders and thank you for supporting my small business. Cheers to the next adventure.
