Branding, Or: I Love Too Much

The decision to open an Etsy shop has been talked about many, many times.  Normally, I'd see what people are selling and realize I could be selling the same things, make a little money, and then buy more fabric.  Of course, I know it comes down to more than simply slapping up some photos of blankets and sitting back while the cash flows in.  But until I opened my account to sell my goods, I didn't give the details a second thought.

One of the things I never planned out was branding.  As someone who reads a ton of blogs, magazines, and catalogs, I can recognize a brand pretty instantly, even the smaller ones.  I like it that way.  I think, to make your name and to make an impression, you need to define who you are both in your mission statement and in every document you touch.  Think about it: the average business/blog has their website, which may or may not also have a separate blog, business cards, wrapping, shipping labels (if not using USPS or something like that), tags for products, catalogs/photographs of products, a portfolio, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts...and if the business has a storefront, that has window displays, bags, and signage, just to name a few things.  These things need consistency, or everything will feel like a separate entity.

So here's where my issue lies.

I'm not a graphic designer, though I dabble in little InDesign projects at my day job.  I don't know how to design a website or take great photographs.  While I've decided on the branding for my in-the-works fabric store (check back later for more on that...like, in a year), I didn't think about it for Eleanor Sews.  I came up with the name and then thought, Crap, I need a banner!  And then I made 10, none of which are consistently themed.  They were adorable, and that's what matters, I thought.

The one I chose, above, I thought was pretty darn cute.  It features some Heather Ross fabric I adore and some quick font work using a free application on my Mac.  Easy peasy.  But I never thought, now, how will I carry this over to my blog and to my business card?  I also didn't think, I might need to keep this for longer than a few weeks, even though the other ones are just as cute.  (I simply love too much, and want all banners all the time.)

I purchased my business cards from Moo, which offers a great deal to Etsy sellers.  It was tough deciding on a design--again, loving too much over here--but once I did, I found I didn't have a great range of fonts to choose from for the information on the back.

Instagram isn't the clearest, but you can see that the font on the card isn't the font from my banner.  Or, for that matter, the font on this blog.  Really, if you line all three up, they don't even look like the same store.  They look like I couldn't decide so I just went with one of everything.  To be honest with you, that's kind of what I did.

I realize this is an Etsy store, and it will be my weekend/evening job, once there are some products in it.  For the fabric store, these things matter a bit more--I will need to create an identity in the community and people will need to be able to recognize us.  However, Etsy is a community and those who create themselves--who don't feel the need to have all designs at all times--set themselves up for success.  I doubt they started with that plan, but that is the goal.

How do you brand yourself?  What draws you to one company over another?  How much failure am I preparing myself for here?