bye bye, little muffintop!

so i finally did it - in the wee hours of the morning, my sweet little muffintopdesigns shop was renamed.  i am now "the lovely smith".  while i've been trying on that name for a while and it definitely is the ONE, i am very sad to be saying goodbye to the muffintop.  new business cards have been ordered, a new etsy banner uploaded, a heartsy deal on deck and now i'm looking at revamping my packaging.  i have kept my 'colours' - it was my intention to maintain my current palette, knowing that i was eventually going to take the plunge, and hopefully it will help with the transition.  i am going to keep my blog and twitter accounts the way they are, just because i'm not ready to completely let go yet.  and really, the "muffintop" is still a part of me.

this has been a long time coming.  i think there will be a period of mourning, but i am still quite excited.  i think that moving in this direction will free me to think a little more outside the box - and better describe what i do now.  the lovely julie already refers to me as TLS - so funny but yet it was kind of the push that i needed to click the button to change my name on etsy.

thanks, little muffintop.  i will always love you!  (now i have to re-register my business name when ServiceOntario opens.  crap, i hope no one has taken it yet...)

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still thinking about the name change...

 i am still thinking about renaming my shop.  even though i am horribly relucant to let go of the "muffintop" (the one i possess in real life, not so much, sigh!) i really do feel like i should.  i know that julie and L doth protest much, and M likes the muffin stamp i designed ages ago and still use on my packaging, but i think that "jewelry by muffin top designs" does not look professional as a byline on the fashion pages of InStyle.  not that i'd ever get there, but a girl can dream, can't she?  i also seem to get a lot of web traffic to my blog and my shop by people searching for things like "muffin top jewelry" or "muffin top shop".  can i give that up?  i don't know.

anyhow, the latest name i am enamored with is "TheLovelySmith".  (i wiki-ed the definition of "smith" - here it is.)  i can envision a handcrafted wooden sign hanging outside a small, thatched roof studio cottage in the forest and me hammering over an open flame.  kind of dorky and sappy, huh?  i do kind of feel badly referring to myself as "lovely" (self-esteem is not my strong point, obviously) but it just FITS for some reason.  i don't know if i can parlay the muffin into a lovely smith, but maybe this is what i've been looking for?

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omg. the reality of changing my name.

so today, etsy rolled out to shop owners the ability to change your shop name.  i can do it, but only once.  and i am still debating with myself whether or not to change it.  i am nostalgic about the muffin top legacy (ha ha ha) and am reluctant to lose all the marketing that i have done over the past 4+ years.  however, i feel that "muffintop" does not truly represent the work that i do now and really have been seriously throwing around ideas for names. 

they are as follows:

solder & flux
solder & burn
metallique
tumbled
rock silver hammer
pyrograph (it means writing with fire - how cool! but is it too close to pyromaniac?)
sterling & solder
torch & burn (i don't know why i like names with "&" in it but i do and this is my shop)
evolved/evolve/evolutionary (no, the words individually, not with the slashes in between)
or just my last name - rainville

this "short list" is so not a short list.  i'm torn.  this is a once in a lifetime change and i don't want to make a misstep.  because i've made quite a few in my lifetime, LOL.  sigh.

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