All posts tagged ashley

Many of you have been confused by one of my recent videos. I felt it was necessary to give you all an explanation of the decisions I have made within the past couple of months but to give you guys some understanding I need to take you back to a few years back.

When I made my YouTube channel my goal was to help others and make tutorials. While I don’t believe I am an expert at everything I do, I know that I do have a lot to offer. I decided to make a craft channel after being inspired by Sarah. After a while I gave up on making videos. I got rejected for partner several times, my viewers were declining and my heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

I went through a lot of things the following months with my family, I was at a very low point in my life. In March I decided to log on to my YouTube channel. While I had been gone 800 people had subscribed to me. I was shocked, for once in my life people cared what I had to say. I kept posting videos. I remember I would plan out my tutorial and what I would do the whole week, and get excited reading the feedback from my subscribers.

During that time, my family was having a lot of financial difficulties. Our house went into foreclosure and we had to move. Both of my parents lost their jobs. I started selling my charms and was very successful but it was very time consuming. A month later I found squishies. Squishies were just getting popular and I saw a perfect opportunity to resell them. I always had a dream of designing my own characters and have my own brand. I figured this would be my start and eventually I would be able to branch out and do what I really wanted to do. That never happened.

Over the next year, I became a very bitter and angry person. I was very unhappy. I could afford college, I got a better job, everything got better but I was still very sad. I felt stuck. It took me a while to realize that I had lost sight of my goals. What was I doing? I didn’t want to sell squishes for the rest of my life. I wanted to help others. I wanted to teach others. I wanted to finish school and start my own brand. I decided to close it and re-evaluate my life and my future. Not a lot of people will walk away from money for moral reasons, but I wanted to go back to the happy person I was.

I will be closing my store on the 15th of this month. I believe this is one of the best decisions I have made for myself. Yes, my store may reopen in the future, but under my terms. Not under the terms of a very desperate girl. Writing this I have the biggest smile on my face because I finally feel like I have my life back. Sometimes we get carried away with what we do but never forget who you are.

I will also be doing a few things with some other crafters and some changes to my channel:

Community Projects: As more people join YouTube it gets even harder to get noticed. I know that. When I was getting started with my channel I had Sarah (SoCraftastic) as my mentor. I don’t think I would be where I am today without her. I want to be that person for someone else. I have decided to start doing a few community projects with other YouTubers to bring our community together again. You will see announcements for these kinds of projects soon.

Disabling Ratings: After watching one of CarlyCristmans‘  videos, I have decided to disable ratings on my videos. I know many of you will feel as though I am limiting your free speech but I feel like ratings have just turned into a “I Like You/I Don’t Like You” button especially on my channel. I see a problem when no one is posting negative comments and I have 20 dislikes on my video. Ratings used to be a way for me to see what you guys like and what you don’t like. I rather you all leave me a comment about what you like and don’t like.