Crafting Burnout - Do you suffer?

Today's blog post stems from a discussion I had with my sister a few weeks back. We were talking about crafting projects and I mentioned how I had loads of sold out items in my etsy shop that I just wasn't feeling motivated to remake right away. She then told me about all her half finished projects she wasn't up for finishing and *poof* the crafting burnout discussion was born! So instead of a typical kate post with tutorials, links, awesome stuff, or videos I thought I'd deviate a bit and attempt a discussion. After all, I do want to know what you think about the topic and I am curious to see how any of my readers deal with lulls in crafting motivation!

So the question is - do you ever suffer from crafting burnout? Do you get halfway through a project and get sick of it? Do you find you get super pumped to make something and then once you start working on it you realize it really isn't as fun as you thought it would be? Have you ever run out an item on etsy and cringe about the idea of remaking it? Does the pressure of making merchandise kill the fun?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above - not to worry - you're not alone (hooray!)! I often struggle from crafting burnout and find that my daily to do list gets so massive that crafting just doesn't fit on the agenda. But what do you do about it? Do you remake and suffer or leave your etsy shelves bare and miss out on potential sales?

Let's take a moment and look at my top 4 crafting burnout items:

1) Famous Scientist Finger Puppets:


When I started making these puppets I had loads of free time on my hands and was fairly new to the world of embroidery. I found they were a fun practice for my stitching skills and a lovely creativity stretcher as I came up with them! Yay! I then realized that I had spend 12+ hours painstakingly crafting these and when it came to pricing I didn't even know where to start. Sure their materials weren't overly expensive, but the labor was massive! I decided they should be a higher ticket item in my etsy shop and was over joyed when each of the five sets I made sold! Then it came to remaking them. I whipped up another five sets (with some magical cutting help from wendy) and yet again - they were snatched up! I realized it would probably be a good idea to make them again...but crafting burnout occurred...

2) Albi Magnets:


Based on the loving tale of Albi the racist dragon, these magnets set depict characters seen on HBO's Flight of the Conchords (season 1, episode 7). I really loved making these when I started out on etsy because (oo! sublist time!):

a) I love FOTC!
b) sculpting is super fun! Go polymer clay!
c) acrylic painting is super fun too! Double win!
d) they are a super unique fun geeky item to have in my shop!

Hurray! So much fun! I made these when I opened up my shop in october of 2008 and ran out fairly quickly. My second round of remake sold out in a matter of hours! Seriously! I'd list one set of magnets and 30 seconds later it was gone! How exciting! On to my third remake! This time I tried to go a little bit bigger on my production and have just now started to run out. In fact, my abli remaking was my second ever blog post (link)! Now it's about the time to start sculpting up some more sets of albis and yet again - crafting burnout! Ack!

3) Love Robot Cell Phone Charm:


These little gems were made after my friend jacqui suggested it (what a convincing girl she is). I had fun whipping these dudes up with very similar crafty motivation as with the albi magnets (hey - polymer clay and small painting projects are the best!). Despite their small size, they are a fairly time consuming craft (especially for perfectionists like myself) - so when it came to my third round of remaking...crafty burnout (sensing a theme?)

and 4) Embroidered items:


This point is actually going to include a wide variety of items (all involving embroidery and sewing) like my coffee sleeves and change purses. Super exciting to start off making but not at all enjoyable when you're unmotivated to remake them. This was actually my third blog post I'd ever written (link) and I think that post discusses my crafting burnout really well!

Whew! What a list of examples! I think in my case my crafting burnout has occurred because (oh my another list):

1) Not enough free time for crafting (ah the joys of life)
2) Too many items to remake (one is approachable but 4+ is a little daunting)
3) Frugal pricing (yup - I make slave labor wages on those puppets)
4) So many other crafting projects I want to do (i.e. every tutorial I've blogged about over the last year)
5) Preparation for xmas craft shows (I'm selling in shops and shows this fall/winter and that is a massive crafting endeavor to focus on!)

So what do I plan on doing about all of this crafting and burnout? Take it one step at a time! I often get overwhelmed with all the things I take on and sometimes taking a step back and approaching each problem separately is the best way to go. It's very true that I don't want to force myself to painstakingly make projects I'm not motivated about but that doesn't mean I can't work on other projects that help me get ahead on my to do list! I don't think it is worthwhile to suffer when crafting - it should be fun! So I'll throw my dreaded craft projects on the back-burner for the time being and keep on going with some crafts I love working on. In fact - just taking the time to revisit some of my items really puts me in a sculpting mood! Hooray!

So after all this - I'll turn the discussion over to you. How do you deal with crafting burnout? Any life changing tips or tricks?