Busy, busy, busy

Wow - my blogging has been pretty nonexistent lately. Apologies for that. There hasn't been much going on in the Brier household the last 5 or so weeks. Joe is swamped with school, and I am swamped with work and Paparazzi stuff. While I am thrilled that it's taken off as it has (I have online parties booked every night for the next 8 nights - only stopping because I leave for 10 days in California after that), I have been running myself ragged trying to work my real job and trying to keep up with all the demands of this jewelry business.

Last week I had parties on 4 nights - it takes me about 2 hours per night (1 for the party, 1 for prepping/wrapping up), so that is 8 hours. Then, it took me about an hour to invoice, 2 hours to sort all the jewelry, and 5 hours to pack all the packages. The post office trips (I had to do 2 so far) added up to about 1 1/2 hours (darn those lines). I also had to prep marketing materials for the parties, which I probably spent another 1 1/2 hours on. So that means I spent about 19-20 hours last week on those two Paparazzi parties. Based on what I sold, I probably made about $280, so that means that this part-time job paid out around $14 an hour.

Honestly - not bad.

I'm actually happy I took the time to calculate that since I've been pretty frustrated with how time consuming it's been - haha. But when I have a full-time job already, devoting 20+ hours a week to a hobby is just not something I am going to be able to keep up.

How true this is haha

Frankly, the reason I started Paparazzi in the first place is because I was hoping it could evolve into a big enough moneymaker that when I needed to look for another job (since mine is a contract position), we'd have a cushion (since Philly's job market SUCKS). Deep down, I dreamed it could get big enough that I could do Paparazzi full-time and not have to find something else.

I'm seeing now that is actually a real possibility. The only catch is that my contract job is going really well, and it sounds like it's going to last a lot longer than I expected.

So now I need to make some serious decisions about how I want to proceed. I think what makes obvious sense is to cut way back on the parties once I get home from California next month. I'll probably just do one a week (instead of the 2-3 that I have been doing lately). It really stinks because I enjoy doing it, but my real job pays based on output. If I have extra time on my hands, it makes financial sense to do more of my actual job than to do jewelry parties.

Once that job is finished, I'll be able to ramp the jewelry biz back up :)

***Side Note*** And, by the way, don't get me wrong - I absolutely see the blessing in being busy because of work. It took a long time for me to find a job when we moved to Philadelphia, and I am so grateful that I am able to support my little family. I am especially grateful that this job is SO AMAZING - I truly could not ask for anything better. That said, were it not for Paparazzi, I'm sure I'd be bored out of my mind and have too much time on my hands. So I just need a happy medium. ***End of Side Note***

Alright - so it's settled. I have a plan moving forward!

I guess blogs can be therapeutic ;) it's nice to have a place to get my thoughts out... sorry you were along for this ride. I'm sure this didn't make the most entertaining post ;) But when all I've been doing and thinking about for the last 5 weeks is jewelry and work, you can't expect anything too exciting from me.

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