The Road Less Traveled

I've come to another crossroad in my life. Yep. Another one. I probably have had more irons in the fire than I care to mention, but that's me. I have to keep busy. I can't just sit and play with kids all day (even though I love them!) and I can't just sit and watch t.v. all night or go fishing all weekend. (Even though I love Tim and Landon! I just can't!) I've always loved old funky junk and I love to create fun stuff out of it. I also love just having it sitting around to look at. It makes me happy. (I was so born in the wrong era.) Last summer, I decided to try my hand at repurposing/upcycling cool old stuff to sell with my purses. I told myself, as long as it was fun and enjoyable, I would keep at it. I had a ton of fun digging through antique shops, thrift stores, flea markets, and people's trash. (I did ask for permission first on the trash digging and washed my hands really good later! ha!) Then I set up a booth at our local farmer's market for the little stuff and took the bigger stuff to craft shows along with my purses. Our town isn't big on the junk thing. So, there wasn't any point in dragging the big heavy stuff to the farmer's market. That's a lot of work!But if you head north a little where there is an antique store on every corner...well, that's worth the extra work! At first, it was a lot of fun to decorate my booth and see the looks on people's faces when they checked out the things I had made. (They weren't all weird looks.) It made me feel good when someone loved their junky treasure as much as I did. But....after awhile it started to feel like "work." While I loved to create cool stuff for my own home, I didn't enjoy "having to" come up with new stuff to fill a booth at a show. It was a lot of pressure. So, I've decided to take a side road here, and see where it leads me. Since I love the hunting/shopping for treasures part so much, I am going to continue to do just that. I am in the process of setting up an Etsy store and I am going to "try" and sell some of the treasures I've found and will continue to find, for someone else to enjoy/make something out of. When I started selling my purses, I didn't have a clue how it was going to go. I remember ordering boxes and boxes of purses and Tim standing in the living room surrounded by 5,466 boxes and telling me that "this had better be good!" My first Open House was at our house. I had over 400 purses set up in every room on the lower level. It was jammed packed! I even had a few cowboy hats back then. (Hmmm...I kinda miss those hats. Might have to do that again...) Anyway, I had put an ad in the paper and I hung fliers around town. The day of the Open House, I kicked Tim and Landon out of the house and waited. The show started at 8:00 A.M. and at 8:10 no one had showed up. I called Tim almost in tears to tell him, it was a big flop. I felt just sick. I had so much money invested and as much as I loved purses, what the heck was I going to do with 400 of them?? BUT, then the cars started to pull up. And up! And up!! People were showing up!! They POURED into my house! It was crazy!! It seemed like every woman in town was at my house buying a purse! And eight years later....I'm still the bag lady and I still love purses. So, while I haven't a clue if this Etsy business is going to be a dead end or another beautiful scenic highway....one thing I do know. I have to try. Ready to go for a ride?