Sunday, March 20, 2011

the reason behind it all

I guess it is time to share the reason that I started my etsy shop! Besides the fact that I am really enjoying making so many lovely things and would do it with a shop or not (which means eventually we would run out of room in our apartment for things like me or my husband), I am saving up all of the extra pennies earned here to help pay for a wonderful adventure! My husband and I have been planning and scheming, for quite awhile now, an amazing journey including at least a couple continents and a whole bunch of countries.

Here is what we've got in mind so far...
My husband will graduate from Long Beach State in 2012. At this point we will sell most of our furniture and move back to San Diego. Blake's parents have been lovely enough to allow us to crash with them for the better part of a year while we both work and save and enjoy time with both of our families.
Then we set out! We're gonna start our trip in either New Zealand or Australia in February (when it will be THEIR summer).
From their we may visit Japan... Blake's cousin is currently in Okinawa with her husband who is in the Air Force and it would be amazing to visit them!
Then we will hit Europe and we will hit it hard! We started to make a list of the countries that we'd like to visit and the trouble is that we would like to visit them all. It is a good thing that we still have a couple years of planning left. We need to prioritize!
We are hoping to take advantage of a really neat community called CouchSurfing. Hopefully we can start hosting people from other countries in our home to get established and help others feel more comfortable about letting us into their homes.

We love adventures and were lucky enough to spend New Year's Day visit the Grand Canyon!

In the mean time we are slowly making lists of places to go and things to see and experience. In order to help us save money we aren't really going out much and instead have date nights that include researching countries, cooking dishes from the countries we hope to visit and watching films that come from the same countries. We started awhile back doing a country each month. We would look things up in travel books and online and watch Rick Steves videos when possible. And then at the end of the month, as a sort of celebration, we'd cook a meal from the country, have a bottle of wine or beer from the region and pop in a movie to watch that either came from the country or was starring someone from the country while we enjoyed the tastiness.  We kinda got out of the habit. Life got busy. But I am very motivated to start again. And I may even want to start over and redo the countries we're done in the past. Perhaps I will even share what we do and come up with here!

So this is what the dollars saved and earned through etsy will help to accomplish! I was looking up prices for flights to Australia and for my husband and I to even get over there will cost some where in the neighborhood of $2,000. Yikes! That is A LOT of headbands... After doing some seriously complicated calculations I have determined that  I would have to sell about 90 headbands to get that far. So far I've had 10 sales through etsy. I suppose that isn't a bad start. I've only been open for just over a month! I think that with Etsy and maybe a craft fair or two I can make this happen!! Woo! Well... I better go make more stuff!!

9 comments:

  1. I have two friends who toured southeast Asia through couchhopping.com and had the BEST experiences! You'll love it :) It's a great way to get to know the local side of a foreign country. Also, frequently the hosts turn out to be American/Canadian expats, so that certainly works in your favor heh.

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  2. What an incredible plan!!! This upcoming adventure sounds wonderful Jenna!!! I love that you and your hubby are living life to the fullest, you will have so much to talk about in your future blog postings!!!

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  3. I think that sounds like a great plan! I would love to read about a new country every month, so I think (time allowing) that would be a wonderful thing to start doing again then blog about it... how fun!! Congrats on the 10 sales so far... that's really good for your first month! :)

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  4. how exciting! we're trying to save up for a trip to New Zealand to visit a friend I have in vet school there and also a trip to Korea to visit my husband's parents. International travel is so fun and so expensive!

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  5. How exciting Jenna! I am VERY jealous! :-) You will have to take your laptop with you and blog whilst on the road so we ca see your progress and drool over all the fabulous sites you visit! :-)

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  6. that's great you both have the same passion! )

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  7. That's super exciting, Jenna! I lived in Ecuador for 9 months when I was in college and LOVED it, traveling is so fun! Oh, and here's something encouraging: If you sell everything that's currently in your shop (so stuff you've ALREADY made...and I'm sure you'll sell it!) you'll be $781 closer to your goal! (Math is not my strong suit, but that's still a pretty good number even if I am a little off) Good luck with your sales, and thanks for sharing your adventure with us!

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  8. I hope you have a wonderful trip!! It sounds like quite the itinerary you have planned. :) Best of luck with your Etsy store - you're off to a fantastic start!

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  9. This adventure sounds AMAZING!!! I hope you blog all about it when you go travel! What a great way to start raising some money for it, too. :)

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