2025 - A Year in Review

We’re coming to the end of 2025. It’s been a particularly challenging year for everyone, I think. A significant majority of the people I have talked to shared the same disbelief that it is in fact December, and seem to have been enduring a mutual struggle in their own lives.

If there was any consistent theme to describe the year for us, it would be that none of this year really went to plan. From market cancellations to health complications – there have been a lot of moments that it’s felt like we have been in the ring and getting punched while we’re down.

It’s been an exhausting and rewarding year, with so many lessons to be learned and steps to be taken that I never thought would happen. It’s been inspiring and disheartening, motivating and disappointing, and an utter whirlwind of change all around.

Let’s review!

One of my greatest disappointments of 2025 surrounds my creativity. There are plenty of things from my 2025 To-Do list that have not yet been completed. The most frustrating part sits in the fact that it often wasn’t a struggle in motivation or even the ability to have ideas, but the sheer inability to do the things I love.

Knitting has been my biggest creative outlet for the year, through the means that it is far more accessible to me. I can take it with me anywhere – and put it away with little hassle and clean up. I can sit, stand, walk, lay down and even knit with my eyes closed. And when you are bed bound, it’s far easier than trying to bring out a block of polymer clay.

Coming into 2025 – and even throughout the year – I had so many ideas. Ideas for new products, particularly surrounding Halloween, that haven’t yet seen the light of day because I’ve been too sick. It’s been a huge disappointment to be pulled away from my craft due to physical limitations.

Health-wise: 2025 was a particularly challenging year that I never saw coming. I have talked about it in a handful of blog posts, including Our 2025 Health Hiatus and, more recently, Artistic Ramblings – The Stick.

I have always been in pain or unwell, but I felt I had been managing well for the duration that I had been in business. Unfortunately, 2025 kicked that to the curb, and I’ve had to climb back from a low point that I have never felt before.

It’s felt impossible to be a small business owner when I’m fighting for my life. It’s been unviable to think about posting content when I’m going through a dozen more scans. It’s been exhausting to even think about markets when I’m having severe negative reactions to medications and being dismissed by medical professionals.

2025, in every physical and psychological capacity, has been such an ordeal. And it’s been an ordeal so great that it doesn’t truly feel like it’s December. After being unwell through July and August, my brain seems to be stuck in thinking it’s September or October.

It doesn’t feel like December.

It doesn’t feel like the end of the year.

It doesn’t feel like 2026 is in less than a month’s time.

Naturally, we didn’t attend as many markets as we wanted to this year. When my health wasn’t in the way, it seemed that South Australian weather was. Too hot, too wet, too windy – we just couldn’t win, some days!

Even while making the final edits of this blog post, I am recovering from the last legs of a sinus infection that prevented us from attending the Magill Sunrise MEGA Christmas Market, and we are keeping a close eye on the weather to make sure we will still be able to attend the One Tree Hill Christmas Market on the 20th of December, and the Blakes Crossing Twilight Market on the 21st of December.

When I think about 2025, I find myself listing a lot about what I didn’t do. What I couldn’t achieve. What went unresolved or unticked on my annual To-Do list. And I think that’s something that we, as humans, are naturally drawn to.

There’s a lot I haven’t done, but in space of that, I have done so much more.

This year, we attended 26 markets.

This year, we posted 39 blog posts.

This year, we made things.

We took up new hobbies, and revisited the old.

We tried things, and abandoned what didn’t serve us.

We made products. We made sales. We made connections.

We made friends. We made sacrifices. We made progress.

We made difficult decisions.

We received so much unwavering support.

We survived the year.

So, who cares if the craft room is still in chaos?

That’s not a problem for 2026. That’s an adventure for 2026, and one that we hope you will join us for.

We have ideas. We have inspiration. We have hope.

We are so excited for a new and better year for creating, for small businesses and artists, for everyone.

This is our last blog post for the year. We will be returning to our regular blog schedule on the 15th of January, 2026. As usual, all blog updates will be posted to our Facebook page, Instagram account and our Facebook group!

The team behind Accessories by Antoinette wishes everyone a safe and peaceful holiday season. We hope you have a fantastic time with your friends and family and wish you all the best for 2026!

Thank you for being here!

Kimberley (they/them)

Accessories by Antoinette