Establishing a Business

I think I have been very fortunate so far with my makeup career. I never really planned to be a makeup artist when I was younger, in fact I didn't know what I was going to do for my career. I always knew that I wanted to do something with art, I just didn't know what. Then one day, my sister came to me and showed me an ad in the newspaper for a makeup artistry program at a school downtown. I had been going to college for communications and at that point knew it wasn't something I wanted to continue. So I looked into this course and everything fell into place from there.

After I graduated, actually just before, I had landed a job at Merle Norman. Needless to say, it wasn't the best 9 months of my life. I quickly realized that I had potential to do something better and I wanted to be happy. I applied to Spa Utopia just in the nick of time and was hired in December of 2006. I think that doing a lot of volunteer makeup jobs (fashion shows, theatre makeup for local schools, photo shoots etc.) helped a lot with my experience and looked really good on my resume. I have been happily employed at Spa Utopia for the past 3 and a half years now and I still love it.

So why am I doing freelance? Mostly because it works for me and I have some big dreams I want to pursue. I am lucky to have 3 days off a week: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And Fridays and Saturdays tend to be a little busier when it comes to weddings and demand for makeup for special events. So that works out really well for me. I live about 40 minutes away from my work, so majority of my freelance clients are in my area and always looking specifically for someone to come into their home to do makeup for them. This is something that my workplace doesn't really offer. I am loyal to my workplace though, and I never tell guests of Spa Utopia that I offer this service because I do not want to take their business. If the spa asks me to do this for them, through them, I am willing to. All of my personal clients are unable or not willing to travel to the spa for makeup.

Another reason I am doing this is because I enjoy it - of course! And why do we work? To make money. Unfortunately working 4 days a week doesn't pay all of the bills, and with the recession, my husband has been laid off for the past while. If I hadn't been taking clients, life would have been a lot harder. I have been very fortunate to have had enough bookings to get by and even save a little bit. It's really exciting.

I have no plan to leave Spa Utopia for a long, long, long time. I really do love it there and my work situation is perfect for me. It is such a wonderful place to be. But my ultimate dream one day would be to live off doing photo shoots year round, and weddings from spring to fall. I am not too sure when I will get there and I know I have a long way to go. It's going to take a lot of hard work building my portfolio, getting my name out there, meeting and networking with lots of people, and spending a lot of time on the paperwork side of things. I want my name to be well-known. Oh, what a life it would be to be flown all over the world for my talents!!! Yes, I am dreaming big, baby! So far, things have come fairly easily to me and I know it may not always be that way. So I am going to always do my very best.

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