Why I'm Here

It all started with a cracked screen and 32 GB of iPhone storage completely dominated with photos of my baby girl.

I have no idea what to blog about.  I don’t self-promote; bragging is unattractive and so not classy.  Based on the extremely scientific and accurate measurements of the average number of likes on my Facebook posts, I’d say there are about 200 people who care what I’m up to; only 50 of who are actually engaged, and even that is likely only because my child’s massive cheeks are so irresistible, or my dog’s dangling jowls and gnarly limbs are too cute to ignore.   So when I’m suddenly 87 articles deep into how to grow your Etsy shop into a full time job and there’s so much focus on blogging and so many words I’ve never heard of, I guess I have to start somewhere?

I started all this because I didn’t want to spend 25% of the price of new phone on fixing an old phone’s screen, and suddenly 128 GB of storage seems completely necessary; however, I guess there’s more to it than that.

My insanely brilliant husband is a first year resident, (aka- underpaid, overworked), and I stay at home with our 1-year old daughter.  For the previous 4 years, Ryan was in school and I operated a screen printing shop.  Working was awesome.  I loved my job, the people who surrounded me, and coincidentally bringing home a paycheck.  We knew that lifestyle was temporary, and completely re-starting a career in a new city seemed unappealing.  Staying at home with my baby was a wonderful decision, but an extra mouth to feed, a more expensive city, and my insatiable craving of fine wine (just kidding… kind of) meant I should probably try to earn a few extra dollars.

Friends and family have always told me I’m talented and should sell my art, but don’t they have to say that?  I always responded that I wasn’t creative enough, and that the market is already so saturated with people who are far more creative.  With a little extra push from a friend (and a credit card balance that’s uncomfortably high), I decided to give it a shot.  Somewhere along the way of reading “simple tips” to starting an Etsy shop, it became painfully evident that it was going to take something more than posting pretty pictures of my pretty drawings to actually make some money.  As my friend said, "if it was easy, everyone would do it."

Is that enough content? Does that count as an entry? Stay tuned?