in the beginning....

it's been five months since i joined up to start my own shop on etsy. i can still remember my first sale.... it was this bright orange vintage tunic top!! (please keep reading - i promise it gets better!! with better pictures as well!! hee hee)

it really all started because i love to thrift and shop for unique and fun items that most people would walk by every day. i just don't like to "fit in," and be like everyone else. there were some days while thrifting that i would find such cute items, but they didn't fit me or weren't quite my style, but i KNEW that i couldn't leave them in the store. so i started my collection. i told a friend about this, who had just opened a shop a few weeks before, modernmama, and she said, hey, you should start your own shop! so theVintageZoo was created.

now, i know there has been quite a bit of controversy over vintage on etsy, some love it, some hate it. but over the past five months, i have seen my store morph into something totally different. i look at this picture above, and it makes me laugh outloud. what was i thinking wearing that bright orange tunic with those bright orange 80s heels?? eek! i had some VERY lovely people offer me suggestions on how to better my store, i.e., taking better pictures - after all presentation is KEY on etsy. those same lovely people encouraged me to create something - to find what it was that i liked to do, and DO IT! and so started my love for appliquing. i always watched my mother sew, and never really was interested, until this past year. my mom bought me a sewing machine for my birthday, and i haven't been the same since.



here is my latest listing

wow - what a change from the bright orange top!! i am SO proud of this latest creation, and have also started making magnets, rings from vintage clip-ons, and trying to be more selective of what type of vintage items i put in my shop. no more bright orange things!!

a month or so ago, i was contacted by another vintage seller who asked me to take a look at her shop and give her advice. i took about 30 minutes, browsing through her shop and taking notes. i convo'd her back, listing all the things that i thought she could improve on, and guess what? she totally took my advice and did those things! i just wanted to give back some of what was given to me. i look forward to seeing how her shops progresses.

i love etsy and am looking every day at ways to improve my skills, my shop, and ways to help others! it is such a wonderful place, isn't it???