The Path Less Taken

Did you ever wonder what would happen if you were on life's road, traveling along on your wide, smooth, comfortable path... and all of the sudden you saw a small path leading off in a different direction? You stop and look down the path. It seems to be overgrown, rocky, and barely a path at all. Yet down the path... way off in the distance you see something. Something that pulls at you; that calls to you. Should you continue on your chosen way? or should you detour along that unknown path?

I chose to take that detour... and what a wild, bumpy path it has become. The path led me from a series of dead end jobs that I could barely tolerate, to something that I love doing. To becoming my own boss with not one but TWO businesses.

I started with a small scrapbook store named "Patti's Paper Crafts" in the front our newly purchased home in Old Forge, NY. It evolved into a lucrative art rubber stamp business which also blossomed online.
                                     

For fun I started playing around with some art; recycled book and paper art.

This evolved into junk art, mixed media, and collage art. I also started making jewelry out of up-cycled vintage jewelry.



I took a small booth in a vintage shop that opened next door to my house. I became friends with the owner of the shop, Tina, and once in a while brought in items I found to resell. I found that I had a knack for it. Tina and I spent the first year her business was open (my second year of business) running back and forth between the two shops. We decided for the next year, we would move my shop into her shop so that I could help her out. 

                                 

My vintage resale business grew as I continued to run my papercraft business. I started taking the occasional vintage piece and re-purposing it. I painted some damaged furniture, made some outdated vintage items new again by turning them into something new.

              

That business grew with a life of it's own. I was unsure of where to go with it. I started getting custom orders for a piece here and a piece there.

                                             

Four years later, I have cut back my papercraft business to strictly selling custom printed paper featuring local themes, and my original design rubber stamps. The custom furniture and resale business, which now had a name.... "Vintage Revisited"..... had become the main business.

This past fall, I invested in a pre-made building and had it brought in as a business workshop. It's coming along nicely and should be completed (all 14' by 23' of it) in the fall of 2017. It will have an office under the storage loft in the front, and a workshop with a painting booth in the back. It will also have a welding station outside (a newly acquired skill).

This is my story.... the "overgrown, rocky, and barely a path" path I took. I haven't looked back at that "wide, smooth, comfortable path" and haven't regretted a step.