Crafting Full-Time Shop Talk Tuesday

Kara from Secret Safe Books shared her studio with us on Saturday, in the feature I did on her shop. Here, she returns to share with us a bit about herself and how she recently quit her regular (night) job to focus on her craft full-time. I guess you could say that Kara isn't keeping her secret safe:

I was born Kim Soon Ae in Seoul, South Korea (I'm now 34) and was adopted by an American couple in Minnesota at 6 months old and then got the name Kara. Fast-forward to 1993...I met my husband and we eloped 10 years later and now my married last name is Witham and we live in Chicago. We had a wonderful cat named Angelo who died a few years ago. I would LOVE to get a new cat or dog, but as we travel a lot, it's probably for the best that we don't have one...

I have my BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in painting and drawing, but last year rambled into the wide world of crafting after taking up the hobby of crafting hollow books. Now it's turned into a full-time job. A few weeks ago I quit my day job (more like night job), as a museum guard to work full-time on my business. I'm definitely missing being part of the gang at the museum, self-employment can get lonely, that's for sure. So now my new co-workers are the people at my local cafe where I go to list my items and do computer stuff. The Baristas pretty much know I will get either a banana smoothie or a coffee, black. (Or both).