Check out my Etsy Shop for everything, as I continue to fine tune

I’ve decided to change things around, and re-focus this site on my vintage blog and on writing more about some of the fabulous finds that I post on my Etsy shop. I’ll only be posting higher end, and personal favorite, vintage items in my shop on this site (and ofcourse ephemera as I scan or photograph it).

The practical reason is that for a twenty five dollar dress, it takes an extra 15-20 minutes to upload the images to this site as well as to Etsy. That time adds up, and I could be listing even more, or marketing, or writing a fun blog entry or scanning more ephemera! There’s currently no way to import Etsy listings into this ecommerce system 🙁

With that hour or two that I save every few listings, I’m going to be blogging and writing more personally here. 2013 has brought me many personal changes, the most notable being a healthy dose of getting fed up!

I’ve always struggled with self value. Like many women, I’ve had a hard time saying “no” to people and to more responsibilities that don’t really benefit me. I also undervalued my work, and in an effort to be competitive and GET work, I lowballed website design projects. During 2012, I kept running into people and clients who left me feeling totally drained. I knew how to create websites and give great customer service, but I sucked at the business end, and doing things like telling people when their projects were going over-time (which I just swallowed, instead of telling them and billing for more hours). Needless to say, I ultimately found myself burned out!

Running my website design business the wrong way completely distracted me from my mounting collection of vintage! Friends keep giving me old clothing, and I did some temporary work for another in exchange for the bulk of my clothing. Other pieces are finds from the charity store up the street.

Finally, my boyfriend told me that if I wasn’t going to sell anything, that it was creeping him out that I seemed to be hoarding it all.

I decided to take a break from website design, figuring that the worst case scenario was that I’d have to get a part time clerical job to pay for my meager personal bills.

October(ish) until approximately February 1, I took off. Not really, but I didn’t accept any new work, and I didn’t really “do” anything. I DID watch and listen to a bunch of webinars, especially those on CreativeLive. I also read every piece of free business advice I could get my eyes on (which is quite a bit). Psyched myself up. Vented to all my friends as I quit lowballing my rates and started communicating more assertively. October 2012-February I immersed myself in learning about the businesses side of website design, photography, and vintage e-tailing.

When it felt right, I redesigned and rebranded KMurrayCreative.com, refined my business process and client contract, and within two weeks got fresh inquiries for web design, sent out proposals in my new and improved format, and even landed a few projects! What great validation!

Ditto for the redesign of my pinup photography, ReverieRevel.com! A major new change, besides making cute graphics for my new packages, is that I finally got the nerve to more assertively do vintage styled makeup on clients and guide them with their hair (did you know that in Missouri you can call yourself a makeup artist, and be entirely self taught?). When a professional makeup artist is in the budget, I’ve been going with an esthetician who has worked on commercial sets and has years of experience working at health spas. It creates a win-win for everyone, and really no reason not to indulge in a private shoot 🙂

This site is the last to be tweaked and refreshed. I feel like I’ve had more direction with this since the beginning, and the main thing lacking was that I wasn’t posting enough for sale. It’s for the best, though. Unlike six months ago, I can now confidently distinguish dresses from the 1940s from 1950s from 1960s from 1970s dresses. I have a much better feel for describing the clothes and selling them. I’ve sold online, off and on, since 2005, but selling vintage clothing is a specialty in and of itsself!

Anyway, everything has been all good, though a bit stressful all the same, and I get so darn impatient!!!

Be sure to check out my Etsy listings for the most recent things for sale… and send me a note or leave a comment, and ofcourse sign up for my newsletter to stay abreast of Etsy shop coupon codes!

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