The End of an Era...

...Albeit a short, quiet, and uneventful era.

Some of you know that I opened up my own website a couple of years ago (I mentioned it briefly in a post here, but anyway). The website features the clay figurines that I make, most notably the cake toppers. This is something I've been doing for years. It actually had it's start from the cake topper I made for our wedding. Then a friend requested one for her wedding... then an aquaintence... then a few people from an on-line community I was a part of during our engagement (anyone who has been married in the last six-to-eight years knows it well, http://www.theknot.com/)... even a bride who contacted me from Boston! It just kept blossoming from there. Soon, I was to the point where I almost couldn't handle the amount of business I was getting - all by referral, mind you. I knew I wasn't getting paid enough for the time I put in, especially since I had really perfected my technique and had come a long way since the first few. But, having recently been married, I knew what a racket the wedding undustry was, so I wasn't comfortable charging people more than I was. So I stopped. I made a rule: Only for friends and family... OR ... if I just felt like making a few extra bucks.

And that's how it was for a year or so. It was nice not having to spend 16 hour days and marathon weekend sessions cranking out these things, and resenting the time I could have been spending with Dustin, or outside on those beautiful Spring days when wedding season is at it's peak. But I did miss that little extra ching.

Then Dustin & I were discussing ways we could jump-start our finances. Nothing that we HAD to do to make ends meet or spend tons of time apart. Just something we could do together when we felt like it to enhance our bottom line. Around that time, he was approached by a previous coworker to see if he wanted to take on some simple drafting sidework, which would be an on-going supply to be done at his liesure. It really just fell in his lap. So he accepted. It was pretty obvious what I was able to do in my spare time, so we decided to go for it. He would accept the sidework and I would start marketing my cake toppers. As a result, we would set up the office to accommodate both our practices, and spend a portion of our free time working together. I decided as part of my marketing, I would set up a website in order to reach more people and have a more professional way for potential clients to view my work.

Two-hundred dollars and a website later... his sidework fell through. The company made a bunch of layoffs, including his friend that gave him the work, and he lost all connection with the company. Why they would hire a new freelance in a time like that is beyond me. Anyway... we tried to think of something else he could do, but just couldn't come up with anything that would really work. And so ended the idea to work from home in our free time. I have kept the website up and running for two years now. I never fully marketed it because I was afraid that once I paid for the advertising and it hit Google or Yahoo, I'd be loaded with jobs and be overwhelmed and end up ruining the great word-of-mouth that I have built up. Could I do it full time? Probably, but I have absolutely no desire to. I love my job.

It is time once again to renew my hosting subscription, and I have decided not to. As cool as it has been to see my own original work posted on a real, legitimate site on the big bad internet... the time has come. In the time that I have had the site, I have done a total of ONE cake topper (for income), and that was another very solid word-of-mouth referral. I dare say I would have gotten the job without the site, even if it did give them a place to view photos on-line. Now, being faced with the decision whether to renew or cancel, I have to realize that a profit of $100 on a $400 investment is not a sound reason for keeping the site. And the realization that doing these cake toppers takes up way too much of my precious free time to consider only a $100 profit has forced me to say goodbye to my website that has been "under construction" for the entire two years.

So here's to you, http://www.YouInClay.com/! Farewell!! If you haven't seen the site yet, you should still be able to see it for another couple of weeks before my subscription runs out.

Footnote: I do plan to set up a blog with photos of all or most of my caketoppers, so that people will still be able to have a place on-line to view photos. But I have realized that it's not worth the money in order to keep a more professional site. As long as the photos are organized and pretty, I don't think anyone will mind that they aren't on a formal website. At least I hope not.