New Year, New Goals

It's a new year and time to make some new goals for your shop! Just a few things to remember as you plan:

1. Be realistic. Challenge yourself but not so much that you can't accomplish your goal. Take into account your daily life, emergencies, holidays and vacations, capabilities, and resources.
2. Be focused. Instead of having a whole list of goals, narrow it down to three important ones or one long-term goal with a few short-term goals that will help you reach the big one.
3. Be flexible. Understand that things may happen that can change your goals, for better or worse. Adjust accordingly and move forward.
4. Be positive. Take one day at a time. Congratulate yourself for your efforts and improvements. But be honest with yourself too: if you're getting lazy, give yourself a pep talk and get back to work!
5. Be organized. Keep a journal of your successes and failures so you know what worked and what didn't as you achieve your goals. 

Good luck!

Featured Seller: Brittney from Felt for Less

This week's featured seller is Brittney and her family from Felt for Less. Here's her touching story behind the shop:

Felt for Less started because my husband and I wanted to find a way for our five children to help pay for their missions. Good jobs with a positive work environment are hard to find here. So we started to think outside of the box.

My daughter and I love felt. It's colorful, versatile, forgiving, and soft. We've been selling felt hair flowers at local craft fairs for three years, but we decided to think bigger. I've been an Etsy shopper for many years, so I was already an Etsy fan.

We used the money that we had in the college savings fund to order a bunch of felt from China. This felt is made by the kindest, sweetest, most humble people. They live near where my parents are serving their mission right now in Hong Kong. Their felt is super soft, thick, and high quality. I've never seen a polyester felt like this before. It's lovely. Plus, it's made from recycled plastic bottles. We love that.

Now our basement has been converted into a fabric shop. :) My kids help me take and fill orders. My boys do the heavy lifting. My girls make the color charts that go out with each order. It's much busier and much more work than we expected, but it's also much more fun.

Some days I think we're crazy, but then I see the kids get excited about each sale, and I see how proud they are to watch our little savings account grow. I hope it's teaching them to save money, work together, and prepare for the future.

Check out Felt for Less for a variety of beautiful colors of felt!

Spiritual Thought: Look Forward in the New Year

"As a new year begins and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I plead with you not to dwell on days now gone nor to yearn vainly for yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn and have brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives."

- Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Best Is Yet to Be", Ensign, Jan. 2010, 22–27