It has been three months since I announced our production break, which is also my own personal deadline for officially going back to work as before.
“So what have you been busy with?”
That’s the question everyone has been asking. Which is to be expected, as it is something I keep asking myself too!
I find myself trying to justify my ‘pause’: “oh I have been quite busy actually… Doing more workshops, prototyping new products, and actually for quite a bit of those 3 months, I was still busy finishing up back orders!”
All true, which does sound like I have been very busy. But in truth, I found myself a bit aimless at times without the need to actively churn out products since nothing really was barking at my heels.
It was both unsettling and liberating.
I gave in to doing some things on a whim/ for the sake of doing it. Why not? I tried hard to push aside thinking about making profits. Sometimes I was successful.
One morning, I woke up thinking about starting a new art brand, which I did that same day. While the artworks listed are not new, (they have all been previously exhibited), the thought of starting a brand to market them separate from Momshoo is. If you have not seen it, check out my new baby, Marks by Shu. It was exhilarating starting the new Etsy shop and being back to a ‘newbie’ seller 🙂
I also took more walks in the parks, stopping to stare more. And this led to my mini art pieces inspired by our local birds… Which eventually became a workshop too. It proved to myself how having fun led to new ideas too!
Of course there were periods of self-doubt and times when I started to feel a bit ‘hungry’ (aka poor) In one such period, I gave in to my financial needs and took on a commission work on… a wedding dress! And in the process experimented with sewing on see-through mesh material (a whole different experience!)
Did I managed to do everything I wanted to do? No I didn’t. But I did things outside of my plan and more importantly, I enjoyed my pause. Now it is back to work, till the next pause!
ramblings. 