New Year and a New Idea

The holidays are over and it is now 2012. I still don't have a job, but I did come up with something new that I wanted to try this year. Playful Kitten Jewelry was almost a year old and I wanted to start a new line of Cervical Cancer bracelets. I did not want to add them to my PKJ facebook site because I wanted to market them differently. I started a new Facebook page that I called PKJ Cancer and Awareness Jewelry. I planned on donating 10% of the sales to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition. After talking to my friend F who had just gone through Kidney Cancer, she suggested that I also do some Kidney Cancer Awareness bracelets. I did eventually want to expand to do bracelets for other kinds of awareness, but figured I would start with Cervical and Kidney Cancer for now.

 I did some research and found out that Cervical Cancer ribbons were teal and white and Kidney Cancer was orange. I was able to find a supplier that sold the ribbon charms and then I needed to order some teal and orange beads in various shades for variety. I had no trouble finding teal beads but orange was more of a hunt. Once my materials arrived I began to make some bracelets. I wanted to start with an inventory of twenty bracelets for each cancer type. My friend F would promote the Kidney Cancer ones in her Kidney Cancer groups and I would try to promote mine in my Cervical Cancer groups. This sounded so much easier than it really was. You can mention the site and the bracelets but you can't make people come and buy anything. I knew this site was still a good idea and I would just need to find a way to promote my page and get people to come to my site. In the meantime I still had lots of ideas for Playful Kitten Jewelry, and I had to start getting ready for Valentine's Day. 
I know the holidays just ended but when you are selling holiday themed items you have to start selling them at least a month in advance of the holiday. I started with a bracelet and two necklaces with heart charms. I took a fun promotional picture to post on my jewelry page and I posted it on my personal facebook page. I could not believe it when someone wanted to buy all three pieces! Now that is the way to start off the year!

I quickly made some more Valentine's themed items and just as quickly sold a pair of heart earrings. I was hoping that this was indicative of the way the rest of the year was going to go. It was February and I knew my window was closing on Valentine's Day sales, the next holiday was St Patrick's Day. I had green beads and I saw some cute Shamrock charms in the store, so I decided to make some cute items for St Patrick's Day. 
Well March came and no sales on the St Patrick's Day items, but on March 7th, Playful Kitten Jewelry turned one year old! I could not believe that I had been in business for a year already! The sales this year were already looking better than last year, I had hope that the business would continue to grow.
March 14th is my birthday, I am blessed to be able to celebrate another one cancer free. Now that the holidays are over and I had settled back into the normalcy that was my routine I began to notice things that were not quite right. What was wrong with me? Were these long term side effects or something new?