It sounds daft but once your Etsy shop is alive and kicking, it somehow comes as a surprise when buyers actually start to order things from you. After spending so much time and care creating something behind closed doors, it feels like such a compliment that someone likes your products enough to buy them. It's lovely to earn a few pennies but it's so much more than that. Creating for me is about sharing a little bit of myself, it's making something tangible that expresses a part of myself and it's so nice when someone connects with that.

To manage expectations and to allow me to prioritise and schedule my time, I state on my Etsy shop that I send orders out on Fridays and Saturdays. So yesterday, I found myself wrapping up the first ones. Each with a candy stripe paper bag, And So We Begin sticker and a personalised message. I love thinking about someone receiving something lovely in their letterbox rather than a bill and then sending their cards out and sharing that love with someone else. It's so simple but makes me very happy indeed.