Thursday, March 15, 2007

A BOLD MOVE

After thirty years of living in a 9 to 5 world, I finally decided to live the life that I always wanted. I quit my job and started to do my art full time. Now to some that may seem crazy. Others may say it is about time.

Too many people live a life of what is expected of them. They work until they are old enough to retire and then they are too old to enjoy themselves or they die.Some just go day to day waiting for those golden years - and then they get hit by a bus.

I decided to say no. I decided to do it now while I am able to enjoy it.

My wife and I have been making and selling crafts for over twenty one years. We have done this on weekends and worked late into the night after the usual work day. The making was always fun. The selling part was something that my wife enjoyed and I often hated. Craft shows are another world - or perhaps a touch with the general public that only those in retail see. So why would I trade in a regular salary to plunge full time into that world? One of the things that I hated most was not having those weekends to myself - after working full time in an office all week. Now weekends, weekdays - the days are all the same. You can make Monday Saturday or Saturday Friday. Actually, it is something to get used to.

Since my decision things have moved slowly along - but they have moved. We have made some unexpected sales, we have made some wholesale sales, and we found a not so little website called Etsy that enables us to host our work in a venue in which interested buyers will see it.

As the site you are reading now progresses we will be featuring some of the work that we have done and some of the work that is currently for sale. We also will be featuring the work of other crafts people through a "Featured" shop of the week. We will be writing about what it is like to make crafts professionally and what it is like to sell them. We will share with you the experiences that we have had over the past 21 years and tell you what you might do or what you might want to avoid if you would like to try your hand at this too.







1 comment:

groovyinclinations said...

Good luck with this new venture!
Mindy
mwilson.etsy.com