Starting up again after a break, and juggling with a full time job??

[Former_Member]

Hi everyone,

I took a long break recently because I was extremely busy with my full time job and I needed to buy a new car, so any spending on supplies had to be minimised to absolutely nothing in the end.

Now that I have my new car and I have a bit more freedom on my spending, I'm eager to get started up again.

My head is buzzing with ideas, but I just wondered what everyone's experience was of starting up again? Did you go all out with a full makeover and go nuts on new packaging, new lines of items etc? Did you put money to one side, as a sort of starting up float?
I'm learning from the first time I started up and I'm just looking for what everyone else did differently too.

Also, for those of you who don't have Etsy as a full time job, how do you juggle a full time job and Etsy? I don't want to give up either. :D

Thanking You :)

[Former_Member]

Hello! :)

I am quite a newby (I opened in January) and balance a full time job, etsy, and a small but hopefully progressing writing career. Etsy seems to have been taking over everything since Jan and I've found it quite hard to balance really. I took some advice from another thread and gave myself a break a month or so ago and had two weeks off and I think it really did help ym sanity! When I came back I didn't do much of a makeover but I tried to get back into it by reading lots of new advice and getting a new perspective. I'm retouching photos and just carrying on with my usual promotions (twitter, facebook, pinterest, etc). It suited me but everyone's different!

[Former_Member]

I juggle a full time job and honestly, it gets tiring, but I'm the one who wants to quit my day job. You just have to keep at it when you can and keep making it something you love to do. One day you might be full of engery and that's when you can produce more stuff and another day you might just have to tell yourself that it's okay not to work on the business that day. Although, everyday I do usually at least list or relist a new item or two to keep my items at the top of searches. Recently I had some extra energy and time to retake some photos and change some of my tags and now I'm sitting back waiting to see how that pans out. I also read these forums and the "Quit your Day Job" series, but I wish they would focus more on people that are making it on their own and don't have spouses or other funds to rely on as they start out. Just take it one day at a time, try to always think of new things (because artists need to evolve too) and have fun with it. If you're not having fun with it, it's not going to be worth your time.