5 Essentials | Comfortable Shoes Studio

I’ve been contemplating adding to my website’s roster of goods. I’ve been toying with it in my head for months now, since about the time we moved. So I would say I’ve mulled it over well and the thought has gone from something half baked to something that I think I can pull off well.

So here’s the idea: 5 Essentials by Comfortable Shoes Studio. What it is: I pick 5 items I think are essential to my artistic endeavors; they have to be things I like and use and love. If I don’t like it, it doesn’t go on the site, end of story. I’m open to new items that people suggest, but here again, I actually have to like them and take them on a test run. If after the test run I decide that I don’t like them, I won’t carry them. I’ve come up with 3 products (to expand to 5) and 5 items each in those product lines. So far I’ve got pens, pencils and notebooks/ journals. I won’t go into depth about the different items in each line but I think they are the best, and starting out that is what really matters. I will probably add to these lines coloring items and a 5^th line.

I’ve set myself lofty goals for bookmaking this coming month so that can fund this endeavor. I’m also going to take an html class this spring and really make a decent website, rather than my simplistic site that I have currently. It will still be simple but I’d like to integrate something a little more into the site.

Not to worry this shouldn’t involve too much of my time. I fully expect that I’ll still be able to make all the books I’ve been making up until my move. I simply feel that it’s time that I expend the scope to the studio to more fully support my family and myself. The ultimate goal is that I am able to leave my DayJob and work on this full time. Though I know that in the beginning that I will be asking for help from my significant other in packing and shipping.

You may wonder where the thought came from, why a bookbinder would decide to jump into the online retail world? My DayJob is for a multinational retail corporation. I manage a tiny aspect of that brick and mortar business. I manage and maintain a department that brings in close to half a million dollars in sales every year. Peanuts to the company, but imagine if those were my own dollars, even working on a 30% profit margin that’s more money than the company pays me in a year. Hell, even if I chose to work on a 20% profit margin, that’s more money than the company pays me. The reality of this is that I’m really good at making money in a retail setting, I’m a great sales person and a terrific florist, but I’m making a profit of close to a QUARTER OF A MILLION a year for the company and getting paid very little for my hard work, and I do work hard. I’m not expecting my little section of the online world to pay me that much, but I’m looking to supplement my income not replace it at first. Do I hope that someday it replaces my DayJob, I’d be a liar if I said no, so heck yeah, I want nothing more than for this to work out and be great.

So over the next month look for the 5 Essentials by Comfortable Shoes Studio, here and on my website.