We tend to love to just wander. That’s what we do. He’s holds the pup’s leash to keep him from darting to the couple playing frisbee across the park and I stop to take pictures at anything that catches my eye. Yesterday was perfect wandering weather, sunny and 80. Did I mention how much I love our quant little neighborhood?

Start you own online business comes with A LOT of trial and error. What works, what doesn’t, what’s most convenient, what’s the most fun, what’s the least stressful, etc…

I’ve been doing a lot of personal shop evaluation and I’m finding my self saying “they told me so” over and over in my head. They told me to start small. They told me to start with Etsy because it has an online community that helps small businesses get started. They told me it was worth it.

Ok Ok. You guys were right. I started with an online shop run by Big Cartel and love the ability to present a fully branded shop. I thought I’d be able to spend the time driving awareness to my new digital space and money to spend on advertising. I was somewhat wrong. I work full time at an advertising agency, and I’ve found that promoting a new shop is another full time job.

So I’ve decided to migrate most of my inventory over to Etsy and build a community in that space for the time being. I love browsing Etsy, creating treasuries, and bookmarking favorites, so I’m sure a lot of other people do the same thing. Let’s see how it goes. I’m willing to try several approaches until I find something that works.

Another little announcement is that I’m expanding the category of items in my shop. I started with items that fit into the “container” category and now I’ll slowly be adding more industrial vintage pieces to the shop. I’m exciting about being able to shop for more things I love. Yippee!

Oh, what do you think of the new logo? 

With warehouses in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, Big Daddy’s Antiques has a massive amount of floor space to fill with one of a kind antiques. I’ve never been to California, but if I ever had the chance to stop by Big Daddy’s I’m sure I could waste several hours perusing all the goodies. If you are like me and live across the US, the Big Daddy Antiques website has a ton of images to flip through that will give you a good idea of what’s currently in stock and what’s currently sold.

I love randomly searching the internet for antique finds and stumbling upon a treasure like this. There is so much stuff out there just waiting to be found!

While in Portland the boy and I took a day to do some touristy things, like visit the Multhnomah Falls and hike to the highest point. Seems like a good idea when the starting signs said it was only 1 mile to the top. LIARS!!! We got about half way up the constant incline climb to find a sign that said, “You are half way there. You have traveled 1 mile”. Let’s just say that was mildly discouraging to put it lightly, especially when the both of us are extremely out of shape and the boy was toughing it out mid flu/food poisoning. Oh yeah. That happened. We about died and that’s being generous with word choice. We felt like we were suffocating and our shins and batootie muscles were about to snap in half. Slightly dramatic, but not really. It was pretty, but OMG was it painful.

*note to self…1 mile by foot feels NOTHING like 1 mile by car.

*click image to visit my treasury for my office makeover!

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I couldn’t resist. I’m going to have to make one of these!

I’ve been doing a lot of Etsy shop hopping, hoping to find items that I’d want to include in my home office makeover. Because I’m a treasure hunter myself, I have a hard time settling for what’s on Etsy with the thought that I can find the stuff myself with just a little bit of hunting. I’m finding that if I go out searching for a specific item in mind, I don’t find it. I’ve discovered the art of thrifting, hunting, pickin’ is that you never know what you’ll find, so throw all expectations out the door.

Let’s talk Etsy for a moment shall we. I’d like to start a discussion in the comments section of this post today and I’m going to try and actively participate. So here’s the thing. I really enjoy the community that comes along with Etsy. The search tools are very easy to navigate and it seems that if you are searching for anything hand made or vintage, Etsy is the first place to check. My pet peeve with Etsy is there are a lot of shops that just exist because they can. They lack a direction, lack branding, and lack any kind of professionalism. I really appreciate the Etsy sellers out there who know that building a cohesive brand through product selection and branding is extremely important.

I currently use Big Cartel to sell my vintage goods because I’m passionate about having a shop that is branded and over time can stand as it’s own identity. I am noticing that even though I’ve made efforts to advertise my new shop to bring awareness, the lack of online community means that I am constantly working REALLY hard to get people to stop by. I’m reassessing my strategy at the moment and thinking about having both and Etsy and a Big Cartel shop (different items in each with a few overlap). This sounds like it might be more work than it’s work, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts about Etsy vs Big Cartel and if you have any advice for driving traffic to online shops.

Like anything else, I understand that a shops success just takes time and patience. As long as I am doing everything I can to get to my end goal, I’m a happy camper.

Thoughts?

1. Card catalogue with file drawer  2. accents of vintage apothecary bottles   3. stacks of my favorite books and a classic time piece   4. some task lighting   5. a bold typographic calendar  6. more storage for small items   7.  wire desk racks from my shop for paper organization  8. a stool to sit close by and collaborate on projects   9. a vintage metal lunch box for incoming/outgoing mail   10. a vintage scale to weigh market203 products before shipping  11. and of course my vintage mint green typewriter 

It’s that time again. Time to redo, refresh, and revitalize my work space. My current space is decent, but after almost 2 years of moving around in the space, things could be better (aesthetically and functionally). I’ve also decided that our current his/hers office space doesn’t really work when you have one person that is super organized and another that loves controlled chaos. So we are separating our spaces. He can keep his action figures and stacks of recycling and I can have my aesthetically pleasing/organized office. These are things you learn along the way. The goal is to slowly gather key pieces and create a space for myself that feels cozy and allows me to comfortably put in long hours of freelance work.

Here’s my mood board for the space. It’s always evolving based on what items I’m able to source, but I’m pretty happy with the direction. Keep in mind that all my personal items, desk, desk chair, and artwork are not included in the mood board, but will be included in the space later. I hope to create a space that is clutter free and brings new life to several vintage pieces. What do you think?

A crappy building sitting on a somewhat crappy street corner, but full of greatness. I saw the sign “leather co” and beelined for the front door like a mosquito to sugar water. Don’t you just love leather products? Oh….and they smell so yummy!

Before heading to our lunch date, the boy and I decided to stop in the Portland Leather Company to see what it’s all about. To my surprise it was a good mix of behind-the-scenes leather workshop, product gallery, and consumer shop where they were selling a variety of leather goods. (I wanted one of the backpacks SOOOO bad!) If you are looking for scrapes of leather for your next DIY project, this place is your jackpot. If you looking for something to fill your time, totally worth stopping by!

See inside our room–>

Last week, the boy and I were enjoying our stay in the Pacific Northwest. Since anything west of St. Louis is a totally new experience for us, we felt it was ok to splurge on our hotel stay. We chose to stay at the Ace hotel, a hotel that we both had been ooooing and ahhhing over for some years. Let’s just say that we were beyond pleased with our experience and would stay there again in a heart beat.

Today I was asked by a close friend (who has a travel blog) if I’d write a review of the hotel. I jumped on the opportunity, so if you are looking for more information about our stay, you’ll find all the details over there. She just got back from a two week trip through Italy and will be posting little aspects from her trip over the next couple weeks. I highly recommend you stopping by. Written by a writer, Julie’s blog is always a good read!

On our second night in Portland (when we were finally starting to feel settled in) we took an evening drive around the Northwest Quadrant of the city. Just outside of immediate downtown, we left the hustle and bustle and were suddenly surrounded by the Pacific Northwest iconic greenery. Since this was our first time in the west, we were both in awe and kept saying “Look how green it is”.

On our way back into downtown, we stopped at the Hoyt Arboretum to walk some of the shorter trails. It was one of those “pull over to the side of the road” kind of unexpected adventures (the best in my opinion). This non-profit green space was an 187 acre ridge-top area with paved hiking travels of a variety of walking lengths. We discovered that slugs must be the state’s most popular animal. They were EVERYWHERE!

One thing I really loved about Portland was the GOOD food and the variety of restaurant atmospheres. Each place had it’s own iconic look/feel and had their own well-known dishes. I never ordered anything that I just hated. Even the little, seemingly nobody hole-in-the-wall kind of places were the places with the best food and vibe.

Some of the most notable places. Ironically almost all the below places were on the street of our hotel. Very convenient 😉

1. Clyde Commons (yummo, amazing french fries & really enjoyable dinner vibe)
2. Kenny & Zuck’s Delicatessen (double yummo, amazing Ceasar Salad and great lunch place)
3. Living Room Theaters (best hot chocolate and late night chats with the bartender 😉
4. Bunk Sandwiches (got the pulled pork sandwich and a mexican coke)