nervous about making the jump to freelance

[kellyportfolio]

This is a great site! I am a new mother to Lily and am trying to make a stay at home career with my illustration. www.kellyportfolio.com
Freelance is an intimidating prospect with a mortgage to pay and new baby. This is really the first time I have considered taking the risk and becoming a fulltime freelance illustrator. My desire is to work from home. Any advice, succcess stories would be great to hear!

[Lori]

This is a great site! I am a new mother to Lily and am trying to make a stay at home career with my illustration. www.kellyportfolio.com
Freelance is an intimidating prospect with a mortgage to pay and new baby. This is really the first time I have considered taking the risk and becoming a fulltime freelance illustrator. My desire is to work from home. Any advice, succcess stories would be great to hear!

Kelly -- Your work is WONDERFUL!!! I love it!

I know it can be an intimidating leap -- I totally hear you. You need to figure out how much you REALLY need to make, how many expenses you can cut out of the picture and go from there.

Check out some of the freelancing sites out there. Especially a site like elance... I bet you could do some really amazing logos and custom icon work.

In fact the first thing that I thought of when I saw your work was what wonderful icons you could make.

You will need to promote yourself and network. You might even try networking with web designers. I don't think there are many web designers who can offer custom graphics. They might be very happy to outsource parts of their projects to you.

Good luck! Keep us posted :)

Lori

[Debbi]

This is a great site! I am a new mother to Lily and am trying to make a stay at home career with my illustration. www.kellyportfolio.com
Freelance is an intimidating prospect with a mortgage to pay and new baby. This is really the first time I have considered taking the risk and becoming a fulltime freelance illustrator. My desire is to work from home. Any advice, succcess stories would be great to hear!

Welcome Kelly!

I, too, love your work. Tell me, is this done freehand or with Illustrator? Depending upon how competititve your rates are, you can do a lot of work. In fact, I am interested in a logo for my business ... something unique and not corporate, which seems to be right down your alley. I'll send you a PM and maybe you could give me a quote?

As for being intimidated, don't be! There is a lot of work out there still, if you are willing to work, be flexible, etc. Let me tell you my story, briefly.

My husband just finished his graduate degree as a Physician Assistant (a 2.5 year program) in Portland, Or. It is a full time committment, as he had a full year of class work, and after that a full year of internships, often with long hours and without breaks. After that, he had to complete his research project. It wasn't possible for him to work and complete his degree (in fact, they prohibited it during his intership), so I had to support us. Us being my husband and I, and our three kids (now ages 9, 5, & 3). I did this working freelance from my home office.

It was terrifying, overwelming, stressful and I often thought I would go insane, but I did it. In fact, I am still doing it, working less now than I was then, but that just means I can focus on what I really enjoy, which is design. But believe me, I have done just about everything there is to do, and I discovered something (things actually).

1. It is always best when you do what you love. Other things may pay the bills, but your passion will make it worthwhile.

2. In my opinion, the most easily marketable skill online today is design. Let me explain. Easily marketable because it isn't something that a person can just grab the program and do it (such as word processing, data entry, bookkeeping, etc.) It takes expensive software and real skill. Also, it is the best paying skill to market from home, again in my opinion. People are willing to pay for truly inspiring design.

I hope this helps you stay optimistic!

Any time you need anything, want to swap pictures of kids, whatever, just let me know!

Debbi

[Holly]

Kelly,

I just visited your site and I really enjoyed what you've done there. I was most interested because I hope to have a site up soon and I was able to see some of the great options out there. I am envious of those of you who have already taken the leap.

I'm so happy you visited the us......come back often.

Holly

[asharene]

Kelly, you should post your site for review at the www.webproworld.com forum - your site is great, but also there will be a LOT of webmasters possibly in need of your illustrations. All you need to do in return is to review other sites in return. Really good, usable advice for your website too.