If 2012 taught me one thing ...

It showed me that I can find a way of getting a job - even if I have to make that job myself. Moving to America I had the wild dreams of actually being able to do something with my degrees - to get out of retail and start a "career". Yeah couple my lack of experience and not being able to sell myself and it wasn't looking good. While I was job hunting I'd been selling and playing on ebay on the side selling a mixture of things from Transformer Toys to Pokemon cards then I randomly started selling some crochet patterns and I've never looked back. I'm slowly building confidence in selling other pieces, vintage postcards, vintage recipe books to model train pieces and dolls house accessories.

Ebay rolled into Etsy which rolled into creating the Hook, Stitch, Treasure brand and we've additionally started selling on Amazon too. After building up ebay for a good couple of months I took the time in December to start working on my Etsy brand, I found some old letter stamps at an estate sale and started making my own postcard thank you come business cards. As Etsy has grown slowly bigger it's getting there - it certainly doesn't compare to ebay in the slightest when it comes to sales - but it does work better for older, quirkier items.

Non of this could of happened without having Joe to back and believe in me and drive me around to estate sales and post office whatever the weather and generally put up with me. Secondly without Detroit and the metro region being the second largest area for estate sales in the whole of the US this wouldn't be occurring either.

I've managed to prove to myself I can make my dreams a reality, and I do it all on a very low budget. Granted I don't make loads, certainly not enough to live off but it's growing and so are the profits and it's more then paying it's way and I'm going into 2013 with a whole new confidence and plans to really expand and work hard at it. But working it as a job it takes up a lot of hours, I often do 12 hour days taking pictures, writing up stock to parcelling up items but I don't mind, I love it, I love knowing old vintage patterns especially are finding new homes rather then being thrown away.

I think I got by and really got into it because of being a crafter myself, I knew a little about crocheting and knitting to be able to judge and resell items, I knew what I was talking about. If you have a passion or a hobby then turning and using it has part of your job is an amazing feeling and hopefully this post might encourage any of you to follow your own dreams.

How did 2012 fair for you? I'll be seeing you on the other side!

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To say thank you and to welcome everyone into 2013 I'm offering a 25% discount off all items (patterns, recipe books, postcards) on my Etsy store with the code NewYear until the end of the week.