"The time has come," the walrus said,
"To talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings,
And about dropping from Stampin' Up!"
Yes, my friends, the time has come for me to stop being a demonstrator. I've been a demonstrator almost 13 years, but it's time to go.
It's not because I don't like the company any longer. It's not because they have done things I don't like or that I'm angry. It's not because I am not making any money. And it's definitely not because I no longer enjoy the products.
It's because I realized that if I want to get to a point of making a full time living doing what I love, which is creating with paper, ink, paint, and any other crazy substance I use to make art from paper, that I could only do one of two things:
a) Throw myself headlong into direct sales, book lots of workshops, and recruit a lot of people.
b) Throw myself headlong into blogging, try to find some companies to work with and design for, with the ultimate goal of having a company I like hire me to work for them in some capacity.
I chose B. Why? Because while I love Stampin' Up!, the parts I love are blogging and designing. I enjoy showing what a stamp set can do, to put it through its paces, and show what's possible. I always love to hear, "That set just went on my wishlist when I saw what you did with it!"
I do enjoy teaching classes. I enjoy workshops (but not all the prep). I am not a big recruiter however. And I don't have the flexibility to do lots of workshops, teach lots of classes, or train a lot of recruits with a full-time job that is now mostly done at night.
I have been pondering this a lot lately. Medical transcription is a nice job, but it isn't what I love to do. Now that I have two kids in art college, it really made me think about how I went to college for art, and now I sit in front of a computer all day. I want to do what I love all the time and make money doing it. And direct sales just wasn't going to work for me in that way.
Being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator was absolutely one of the best things I have ever done in my life. I will always be grateful for the friends I have made, for the experiences I have had, and for the way it made me grow as a person more than almost any experience I have had (other than motherhood!) I have learned so much about what I am capable of doing. It's been a great time in my life.
Before when I thought about quitting, it was always because I was feeling tired and discouraged. I always gave myself one more quarter to see if things got better, and they always did. My business is actually up for the past couple of years so I'm not leaving because I'm not making money. I'm leaving because I have something else to work towards, and it's a good feeling. I can leave now without feeling bitter or discouraged. I am excited about what the future holds, and I hope you can be excited right along with me! I still have my backup job as a transcriptionist to keep paying my kids' tuition while I work on launching myself as a papercrafts blogger extraordinaire! So you won't see me in a van down by the river anytime soon!
My biggest hope is that you will continue to come to my blog for fabulous content as I move on. I know a lot of my readers are demonstrators for Stampin' Up!, but I will still be sharing cool techniques, beautiful cards and other projects, and the kind of crazy blather you have come to know and hopefully love! And you probably will continue to see Stampin' Up! products appear here; if I see something cute, you know I will be buying it!
For those of you who are my customers, I have not forgotten you. I will be dropping after this month's commissions are finalized, but I will be turning off my demonstrator business website as of 10/31/2015. So if you want to order this month before it's gone, please do visit my webstore.
After that, I want to provide some possibilities for you to choose from to continue ordering Stampin' Up! products.
For local customers in the Metro Detroit area, feel free to contact my upline, Sharon Carr, about classes, workshops, or ordering:
Sharon Carr
For my online customers, I provide the following links so that you can continue to order Stampin' Up! products. I have a lot of friends you can order through, but I really couldn't list them all! So here are a few of my friends from various areas of the country whom I know will give you stellar customer service:
Wendy Weixler - Utah
Dawn Griffith - Michigan
Lydia Fiedler - Texas
Sharon Armstrong - Texas
Patty Bennett - California
Kyra Sanders - Washington State
Thank you for your support, and I hope you will continue to follow me in my new journey!