It might be a pain in the arse, but still...being able to start your own business is really amazing! Eventually, hopefully, things will all run smoothly Many blessings to you on that venture!

What's Steampunk?

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Love once, laugh twice, life keeps on rolling...

Steampunk is the whole retro-future, Victorian sci-fi thing that's been getting extremely popular lately.

I used to love it, but now I've very bitter towards it. It seems like just by slapping that word onto a piece you can justify tripling it's price despite it being an unfinished piece of shit. I've seen pieces that were just a couple clock parts slapped together randomly and still had the hot glue showing through where they were too lazy to join it properly sell for over $100 yet I can barely seem to make cost on my mugs.
Or, to compare like objects, there's a forum I frequent where everyone knows I'm a leatherworker specializing in custom pieces. There's another guy there who only comes on the forum when he has shit to sell (he also steals time and materials from his employer to cut out metal bits for the stuff he sells, but that's another issue altogether) who decided to start doing leather. I showed a few pieces, people ooohed & ahhed and I got tons of "I want that"s, but when I named a price everyone kind of went quiet. He comes on and shows a piece that has unfinished edges, unDYED edges (meaning the icky whitish color that chemical tanned leather takes on was showing through), and poorly set rivets... but because he called the piece steampunk, people couldn't get to their wallets fast enough and it sold for a ridiculous amount on ebay.

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scars fade... I always assumed love was forever...

I hope your small business goes well! <3

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Captain Tightpants, the unabashed nudist!

When you can't run anymore, you crawl. And when you can't crawl, find someone to carry you.

Amen about the Steampunk! I was a lot like you with that style. Loved it, couldn't get enough of it...until my school did Three Penny Opera Steampunk style. Now, after seeing so many accessories, hip flounces and buckles I'm ready for a vacation.

Best of luck on your new business! Keep me updated as I'm thinking of going down that road after graduation.

Will you be taking your business online?

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Steampunk - It's like I said in my reply to Kamich42, I used to love it. I still do really. I just hate the people who use it's popularity as an excuse to cut corners and pad profits. I hate that the fly-by-night fandom supports that kind of crap while there are some very talented artists out there crossing over into steampunk who are getting passed by because they don't label everything coming out of their shop as steampunk.

As for my business, it's actually primarily online. [link] to be exact, though I haven't finished the website just yet (and I misspelled commissions *headdesk*). Previous to becoming a small business legally, I was mostly going on word of mouth, and that served me well when I was "flying under the radar" as it were. I suffer from social anxiety, so I'm not much of a sales person in person and I tend to do everything but fittings online.

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scars fade... I always assumed love was forever...