Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Time to take off the Purple Raincoat

You may have noticed this blog has been dormant for a while. There are a couple of reasons. 2009 was a tough year for me - I got laid off from my day job, and was working frantically to get a new one in the midst of the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

In December 2009, I fell on the ice and broke my right forearm, strained my rotator cuff, and basically broke my wrist. And, of course, I am right-handed. Not ony did this put a crimp into my job hunting, it also made it nearly impossible to either write or work on collages.

But it got worse. In January 2010, my father slipped on a patch of ice inside his house (don't ask) and that was the end of his independence, which he sustained for 99 years. We needed to transition him to assisted living, which meant convincing him to give up the apartment he had lived in for 20 years (with all of its accumulated clutter). I spent a week cleaning it out with one bad arm, finding thousands of jokes in my father's illegible handwriting on tiny notes. He had every greeting card (plus the envelope) that had been sent to him for 20 years, as well as the yarmulke (skullcap) from every Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, and wedding that he had ever been invited to. He also had the receipts from furniture that he and my mother bought in the 1950s. You get the idea - there was a lot of work to do.

At the same time, my daughter was finishing her senior year in high school and going through the college application, acceptance, and decision process. And I needed a job to be able to pay her tuition. College was on the front burner. Collages were definitely on the back burner.

Zoe graduated high school in June, 2010. Shortly thereafter, I was offered a job about one mile from my house. Purple Raincoat went on an even further back burner - I did the occasional collage, but couldn't really spare the time for marketing. My father passed away in late July. Zoe went off to school in late August, and I started my job in early September.

Fast forward to spring 2012. My day job felt secure and I was itching to get back to working on collages and promoting my business. I found advisors I could trust, did some soul searching, and began the rebranding process in my "spare" time, which was pretty spare until... September 2012. My rebranding work was coming along. My daughter was beginning her junior year in college. I got called in and told that my day job was being eliminated immediately. Suddenly, there was plenty of time for my collage business.



In November 2012, I launched the rebranded website for my business, Carol Colman Creations. That's where you'll find the same beautiful collages, the same great customer service, and a beautiful new website and blog. So come visit, and connect with me in all the other ways that have evolved since Purple Raincoat was launched in 2006:



Please visit me in all my new homes. Sign up on the contact page so we can keep in touch (just your name and email will do just fine).

I would love the opportunity to create something beautiful for you!