IT'S RANT TIME!!

I've talked about this a lot, because it's something I feel very passionate about. I'm going to talk about it more because it just keeps happening. No one seems to learn. Rantiness follows the jump.

NEW LISTINGS

I just put up a bunch of new stuff in my Etsy shop! Go check it out, tell me what you think maybe? Epoxyuponyou.Etsy.com

THE STORY SO FAR

Things have been going pretty well in my new life for this first week. I've been making things every day, feeling very productive. Today was about taking pictures and editing them. I'm gonna do some crocheting after this post too. I even ordered an entire gallon of resin! That should keep me busy for a little while.

I sold another necklace today and that made me feel really good. Sure, my Etsy sales are only up to 5 but that's better than 0 by at least 5 :D Yeah. Five sales without any kind of promoting or community involvement isn't so terrible. The people who do make it big with little to no self promotion are rare animals. I shouldn't feel bad for not being one. In a super saturated market like Etsy it's nearly impossible to be noticed without DOING something to get noticed. So I'm gonna do lots of stuff. Once I have 100 items in my shop I'm gonna start sending out emails to blogs to see if they want to feature me. I've also been playing around with the idea of emailing some semi-celebrity types I admire (Audrey Kitching, Raquel Reed, Twinkiechan, etc...) to see if they might want a free necklace/ring/hairclip whatever. That's probably a stretch. I'm sure those kinds of girls have people sending them all kinds of shit all the time but who knows. It might be worth a try? The worst they can do is say no and tell me to get lost I suppose. Being told no, being rejected, still seems pretty scary. I just have to remember that so many successful people had to hear no a billion times before they heard yes. But that one yes is so much more important that all those no's. That needs to be my mantra or something!

So here's what I've been working on so far:

★ Resin, resin, resin!

★ Cute diagonal color block cowl

★ Taking pictures/editing pictures

★ CUPCAKES!!! (I made awesome orange cupcakes today!!

★ Pan frying different things. First was chicken, I tried pan fried shrimp. Both were AMAZING! Thanks Alton Brown for teaching me how to pan fry!

★ Keeping the house clean so that Jon comes home to a comfortable space that he can relax in after work/class. If any hardcore feminists are reading this I hope you understand that I don't do housework to please my man. I do it because my partner has a lot more on his plate than I do and it makes me feel good to help him relax. I never was very domestic but that's only because I had no idea how good it could feel to make another person happy when they're so busy and stressed out. /digression

★ Watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it's easy to work while watching something I've seen a billion times and it's like comfort food for me. ❤

★ WORRYING!! That's last on the list because I've been TRYING to do it the least. I still worry though. I worry about my boyfriend, I worry about taking this big chance by cutting my hours at work WAAAAY back and putting all my effort/time/money into this fledgeling business that could very well explode in my face. I'm not letting the fear of failure keep me from trying though. Man what happened to me? I never used to be this positive and upbeat! Let's hope it's a good thing and not a sign of a brain tumor or something ☠

NEW BEGINNINGS

Some things are about to change! I'm going to be telling my job that I'm only available to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. They can pick two of those days a week, or one, or none. This is so that I can devote the majority of my time to crafting! I'm not going to sit on my butt and hope that someone "discovers" me. I'm going to make things happen. It was very immature of me to hope that success would just happen to me. Sure, some people are very lucky and succeed instantly but most of us have to work our asses off so that's what I'm going to do! It's time to get involved!

I want crafting to be my business and not just a hobby type thing. I want my life to be about glitter, resin, yarn, crochet hooks, baking, etc.... Making money for a big company that doesn't appreciate my efforts or skills isn't what I went to art school for. I wanted to have the skills to make a modest living off what I love. What I love is making things.

I'm really looking forward to being a business woman, to getting my name and my work out there. I'm setting some goals for myself and I'm going to meet them.

For starters:
1) 100 individual pieces in my inventory
2) After 100 pieces it's time to send out emails to craft/fashion/whatever blogs that I enjoy asking if they would be interested in featuring my work
3) Keeping track of inventory, costs, customers
4) Applying to every craft fair I can find that I feel my work would fit into (probably not the "high class" type craft fairs that only stuffy rich people go to. I don't think they would be interested in glittery jewelry or colorful/cute hats)
5) Get active in the selling community! It's time to let Etsy know who I am and what I'm all about.
6) Eventually (and this will probably take some serious time), once I have a following, open a shop on my own where no percentage of my sales is taken out and there's no cost to list new items. (That's a major long term goal)

This is all going to take some time and some serious effort but after working at a job that I HATE I know it will be worth it. I want to answer to no one but myself. I want my time to be my own and I want a life I can be proud of. Making this work will also mean relocating will be much easier. If I have a successful internet business I can move wherever I want as long as my resin and my yarn go with me. I have a few concerns about going back to school for my MFA in a couple years AND trying to keep an internet business going (hopefully thriving by 2011) while doing masters work but I'll figure that out when I get there.

I got some new molds in the mail today! Three new heart molds because the last set all broke, a tie mold and a mustache mold. I'm excited to get started with them. Unfortunately there's not much I can do today because I have to work in a few hours and pouring resin can be an all day thing, even if most of the time is spent waiting for the resin to set up enough to embed. Tomorrow is a different story though! I'm gonna get busy and stay that way.

One last thing before I play a little World of Warcraft and then put on some eyeliner before work: I'm not sure Epoxy Upon You is the right name for me anymore? When the name was chosen I was ONLY making resin things, but now I'm branching out into crochet. I want a name that won't pigeonhole me. I need a name that will give me the freedom to branch out in the future and won't limit me to one medium. I do like Epoxy Upon You though. I still think it's funny. Who knows. I'll keep thinking about it and see what happens!

MORE NEW JEWELRY!

I just updated my Etsy shop with two new pieces! I've got some more waiting in the wings but I don't want to upload all the goodness at once. Gotta spread out the sugar consumption, yanno? check out the listings for more info on each! Here & Here

And now for some news: I've been SICK for the last three days! It BLOWS. It all started innocently enough with feeling a little dizzy and being all full of sneezes. It progressed to a full blown can't-breathe-head-hurts-gonna-die-nose-dripping-constantly viral ATTACK on my body. SUCKS! I'm starting to find my way out of the woods though. The congestion has moved from my head to my chest and I know I'll be coughing up all kinds of gross stuff any day now. I have that tight feeling like my lungs are stuffed full of mucus and it's getting in the way of oxygen. Not fun. But at least my nose has stopped leaking constantly! THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR YOU TO KNOW. Got it?

Thankfully I have an amazing boyfriend who made me tea and rubbed my very sore neck. He's been keeping me company while I've been couch bound. He hasn't even minded me whining and being all pathetic. It's so sweet and it's another of the many, many reasons I love him. Jon is a wonderful guy. So glad I have him! I would have been MISERABLE without him here. I was pretty unhappy and grouchy anyway but it would have been x1000 without my baby.

On a more random note our cat just turned one and he's been celebrating by being a jerk! He's always knocking shit over, chasing his tail as LOUDLY as possible and attacking the dog while she's sleeping. It's cute when he chases his tail but not at 4AM while crashing all around the house! He's also bee knocking things off the dresser/table/sink to bat them around on the floor. Always as loudly and early in the morning as possible. He's an evil little kitty. If he weren't so cute we would have turned him into kitty sausage by now!

Tomorrow we're going to our friend Jack's for football (BLEH! XP) and homemade chili (YUM)! Jack is a professional chef - and a good one - so it's sure to be some excellent chili. I'm going to be making cornbread to go with!

Speaking of baking I'm going to be making chocolate cookies with peanut butter and white chocolate chips. They're gonna be AWESOME! The cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. Once we're done dinner (which is salmon, fried shrimp, and mashed sweet potatoes, FUCK YEAH!!!) I'm gonna bake those bad boys up! :9 We always have such excellent food for two people who aren't trained in cooking or baking other than liking to eat! :9 :9 :9 :9

NEW JOB AND NEW JEWELRY!

I GOT A JOB Y'ALL! Urban Outfitters called today and offered me a job as a sales associate. So I'll be folding clothes, helping people find sizes and styles and probably doing cashier stuff too. WHATEVER I don't care what they have me doing as long as I get paid and don't have to change my hair! I get to dress like myself, my tattoos can be showing all over the place, and my piercings can stay in! I'm so thrilled. And relieved!

Now on to the jewelry stuff! I've been working on some newer ideas and they've been turning out great! Two of my pieces have already sold. How exciting!! I've been feeling pretty inspired lately. It's awesome. I'm going to be experimenting with these basic ideas and hopefully something magical will blossom from the seeds I've planted. I made these three pieces by painting the back of a resin layer with acrylic paint, then adding glitter, then another layer of resin to hold it all together. They turned out better than I had imagined and I'm so pleased with that! I hope I can keep pushing these designs to newer and better places. While Jon is out doing his stuff for grad school I'm gonna be here making things! :D

CROCHET

I'm learning the ancient and awesome art of crochet! I've learned how to chain, how to single crochet, and double crochet. I learned how to start an amigurumi ball and if I just kept going with it I could probably finish and amigurumi ball. I understand the CONCEPT of decreasing but I haven't tried it myself yet. It's the neatest thing I've learned in a long time! I've been experimenting with making circles different ways and sizes with different stitches. I learned that by increasing the circle way more than you need to you end up with ruffles! That's really good to know. I bet I could make a circle with ruffly edges now.

I have this problem though. I want to do EVERYTHING. I want to be able to crochet any shape I want at will, I want to be able to make awesome resin jewelry, I want to design and sew clothes. I've always been the kind of person with a lot of interests and one medium has never been able to satisfy me fully. I always want to know more, do more. That all takes TIME though and I hate being a beginner! I get frustraited and have no patience for myself and the time it takes to actually learn something. The upside is that I know how to do a lot of basic stuff in a lot of different media. The drawback is I don't really know how to do much of the fancy stuff that takes years of practicing that one medium until you know EVERYTHING about it. Of course, if I keep up my dabbling eventually I'll have enough experience in all these skills to do the fancy stuff. But it'll take me twice the time it would take someone who was just focusing on that one craft. I'm ok with that though.

I think crocheting is a great thing for me to learn. My mother and her mother (my grandmother) are both master knitters. I tried learning to knit on several occasions but it never stuck. Maybe because knitting is too structured. I think crocheting will stick with me because it's more free flowing and intuative. Most of my understanding of craft is intuative so that works for me. Now I can cary on a yarn craft and not feel like an ass for not being a knitter. I just wish someone had taught me when I was little. Imagine the strange concotions I could whip up with that kind of experience! I'll get there though. I can just imagine four years from now I'll be able to crochet all kinds of things and I'll be amazed that I was ever an akward beginner! I hope XD