2025 Year in Review: Adapting

Here are a few notable moments from our 16th year in business at Walnut Studiolo.

2025 was a tough year: tough on sales, and tough on the soul. We responded by trying to do what we do best. As one customer put it in their review, that's the rare "combination of old school ethics and tech-savvy commerce." 

• We kept communication human. We actually answered the phone and responded to chats, which shocked and delighted more people than we can say. 
• We wrote helpful articles that share knowledge and research from our perspective. 
• We diversified our marketing, showing up more in the local community and adding more product variety and price diversity to our website. 
• We rolled with the punches, hunkering down and slowing down our spending as the economy slowed. We reduced our material inventory forecasts, necessitating less purchases, and made hard choices on investments. Like choosing to offer the Cribbage Belt without eyelets rather than investing in the purchase of a part whose price had skyrocketed with tariffs and would have made the resulting product too expensive. 

Read on for a wrap-up of our top work this year. 

Product design is our favorite part of this business. This is where the most creativity comes in, and we love working together as a design team. We aim to introduce at least one new product per year. 

This year, we focused on making the most of our existing inventory to offer different pricing options for customers and by recombining existing materials in new ways. 

We also introduced new kinds of value that aren't products: services and special offers (which we published on a dedicated Special Offers page on our website's top bar). 

We're proud of our human-written blog content. We find knowledge-sharing to be one of our highest purposes and one of the most rewarding parts of running a website.

We began running occasional fundraisers during COVID for No Kid Hungry, and later in support of the people of Ukraine. From 2022-2024, we devoted many of our resources and much time to Artisans Cooperative, a co-op alternative to Etsy.

In 2025, we turned our sights closer to home on an issue very close to our hearts: trees on the North Oregon Coast. We're planting them on-site on our Walnut Studiolo homestead land, and supporting local organizations that care for the trees.

We write original articles when time allows on topics that we think are interesting -- and we hope you do, too! We do our best to operate with transparency, represent our point of view of the world managing a small craft business in America, and share our in-depth research.

We can't describe what a privilege it is to work with you, our amazing customers who this year sent us kind and encouraging words all year round.

It's a wonder of the internet that we can all connect from so many places around the world over our shared values and appreciation for fine craftsmanship. 

In the words of our leather supplier's annual letter, a 5th generation tannery in St. Louis Missouri: "There are no borders between you and us." We welcome your calls and messages in 2026.