Happy anniversary, ateliernishasha!

Welcome back to my blog, dolling! It is just wonderful to have you here again despite my apparent neglect and having only a couple of posts for the last year. I appreciate it a lot and I'm very grateful. It’s been quite a year for me and during this period I finally felt what it’s like to have challenges to your own business. Despite all that, there's a lot of reasons to be thankful, still. 

First off, today is my Etsy store’s 13th anniversary - YAY! It is amazing how the shop survived through these years, especially during this recent one of which details will be shared in this post. 

Honestly, I feel bad to have not prepared anything extra for this year’s anniversary. I have always had something special to share with my readers and shop frequent buyers but somehow personal stuffs had to take over. I guess this happens when I don’t prepare many months ahead and not making sure my celebration activities are set despite anything. And when I say anything, even with what happened in October 2023.

Last year in September, I was busy continuing to add pieces to Hagrid’s wardrobe. I was able to finalize his summer shirt prototype. I was also busy receiving the birthday presents I bought for myself haha! I bought lots of miniatures and containers for them because I also planned on doing lots of diorama scenes and photography in the coming months. . 

Come October 2023. I was busy preparing the summer shirt for its launch on Etsy. However, this and my other projects were halted due to a warning email I received from Etsy. I was warned not to use trademarked names and photos of a popular doll brand. They removed one of my listings, too. To my shock and fear of getting the entire shop taken down, I temporarily deactivated 70 out of 100 listings. I was surprised that I had created as many listings for this doll brand. So for the rest of the month, I had been trying to keep myself together despite the things happening around my shop.

The whole month of November 2023 was a mix of reflection, and life-goal restructuring, among other things that were crucial so I can continue being productive. I started refining my listing descriptions, updating my products, and creating new photo assets for my shop. There were days when I would question the business’ sustainability. Will I still be able to continue designing doll clothes? If not, can I abandon it entirely? It was a heartbreaking moment each time I think about it. It’s so hard to imagine not doing the craft I deeply care about. But I still persisted.

December 2023, which was supposed to be the month of making holiday pieces I had planned to work on in November, was spent on reconfiguring and relisting my old listings.

January 2024 is the same case, this time I was working faster as finally I was able to establish a system for the listings. I probably had done almost half of the deactivated listings back. I also spent a lot of time researching and preparing for the family’s Japan trip to happen in March.

February 2024 – still at it redoing the listings while spending the last two weeks finalizing details of our Japan trip. I wasn’t able to finish uploading 70 by the end of month -  the original completion date. But that’s okay.

March 2024’s first two weeks was our Japan trip with the family. It was the most fun trip so far so I don’t mind not working for the shop for a while. When we got back, I slowly got back to redoing listings. By the end of March, I took a small trip to my parents’ home to celebrate my father’s 71st birthday. 

In April, while continuing my pattern re-listings, I also started doing content strategy for the rest of the year. I started with just an update on our Japan trip as I brought a travel doll with us. 

Finally, I was able to list Hagrid’s summer shirt in May 2024. I felt empowered and inspired again. But just a few weeks after that, another Etsy warning arrived at my email inbox again, with three listings removed this time. I was so sad that this time I thought, you know what, who cares? I will really just have to find another place to sell my patterns. So I revived my payhip shop and even my own shopify store, which I never made live. All this Etsy listings being taken down really has become so frustrating. Whatever happens I just had to bounce back somehow, somewhere. And I am ready for the worse.

I thought I would just have to pause making stuff for these kinds of dolls with sticky trademarks on them. I might go back to them when I have figured out how. For now, I will have to continue designing, and the only way to continue doing so is making for other doll brands. 

In June 2024, I started working on a wardrobe for the Poppy Parker doll. And since I haven’t done much for her since forever, it was quite challenging. I have some pieces that took 10 prototypes before I can call it a good design.

July 2024 continued to be a month for prototyping lots of Poppy items and I was enjoying it. I did plan to finish prototyping all 12 patterns but I missed my deadline.

August 2024 and I’m still prototyping during the first week but also already started digitizing my work. In the second and third weeks though, I haven’t done anything for ateliernishasha since my househelp lost her sister and she had to be home to be with their grieving family. For the rest of August, I slowly worked back on digitizing my patterns.

And now it’s September 1, our 13th anniversary.

I apologize for not having prepared anything special. Giving discounts have I think become a lazy alternative and I wanted to give more than that. I can perhaps whip up something nice in the coming days or weeks, so please stay tuned for these in September ♥️

Thank you so much again for everything. For 13 years, designing miniature fashion professionally has been so rewarding. It has changed my life and my perspectives for the better. It may be just toys to some, but the craft taught me to be kinder. And because I chose this path, my family has become healthier, more mindful and our future now is very authentic to how we would want to live our lives. So thank you, friends. Thank you, ateliernishasha. To more fun, exciting and rewarding years and decades to come! 

Much love, 

Shasha