001✷: starting new

This feels so weird yet it isn't somehow. I used to blog when I was in secondary school, maybe that's why I knew I wanted to make one now. Hmm so where do I begin... Hi. I'm Nabilah, your average Singaporean starting out a small online art shop in the middle of the pandemic. how original! I tried creating YouTube videos to share my journey but can I just say. it's one of the most stressful things to start out with especially with so much going on with my life. So I'm taking a pause from that and starting my own blog to share with you guys my journey of starting out and my bubbled thought and feelings about things that people don't talk about as amateurs starting up a business. Maybe talking about my life once in awhile but it is quite uneventful as of this moment so let's just stick to shop stuff for now. I recently opened my etsy shop on 10/10/21, i think... (it's been awhile i'm sorry hahaha) though it felt quite sudden for me to open my shop and maybe not the best decision considering the size of my audience, (100+ followers on IG). Most artists I see would have at least a few hundreds, a safe number you know... but, I decided to bite the bullet and just start small. https://www.etsy.com/shop/nabsieart

Here's a pic of the post I uploaded on IG. I'm proud of it though it kind of looks like a clown threw up all over the place🤡 Which leads me back to my shop, I made quite a few sales the first two days, more than half were from friends and family which I'm so so thankful for the love and support from them. But there is so much that goes behind running an etsy shop. who knew sksksk. I thought I had prepared enough but not really. The VAT, taxes, purchase fees, listing fees and the lists goes on. I'll probably discuss more about that in future posts. But yea, starting out can be scary and at times frustrating, looking at your daily sales. Which if you're new, its 0🤡🤡🤡 It does get upsetting, working hard to illustrate, produce and market your products and not seeing any results which I'm at that place right now but thankfully I have not felt any self-doubt or the need to give up. It is still so fresh and I'm at the beginning of my journey. And btw, when I mean ✧results✧ I'm talking about my target audience who would purchase my items long term because they are invested in me and my art. you feel. Not sure if I'm making sense. As of now, I'm very active on IG pushing artworks daily for Inktober. Guys, please pray I don't get burnout because the last thing I need is to jam up before I can produce items for this holiday. cheers friends ✷