A little over a year ago I decided to go with "Dear My Love" as my shop and blog name. I chose it because I love the song of the same title by Miyavi, and because I thought it sounded cute, but not sickly cute. I make Japanese fashion inspired jewelry and am working on my own line of skirts and JSKs. Sweet lolita, fairy kei, decora... that kind of stuff.

A little over two weeks ago I officially opened my shop on Storenvy after a year of "eh" sales on Etsy... and have been promoting the hell out of it. Every day I'm posting a different product on tumblr and linking back, I've been uploading new stuff on my DeviantArt and linking to my store, I've been pinning business cards on community boards around town... I've just been really happy with it all. I love the name, I love my logo, I just love it.

It recently came to my attention, simply just from browsing Tumblr, that a company that makes lolita/cutsey clothes in Japan has the same name... they even use a heart for the O in Love like I used to in the first version of my logo. They're not big, and it's hard to find a way to buy from them... but they're there.

I did actually do a fair amount of looking around before I chose the name to make sure there were no other etsy/storenvy shops or active blogs with the same name, and somehow I just completely missed this brand in my searches.

Part of me doesn't want to change my name after all the work I've put into all this, and I feel super dumb changing everything mere weeks after opening... and part of me is insanely guilty for not changing my name immediately upon discovery of this more established brand.

I don't want customers to think I'm mooching off of original Dear My Love's name, since they're geared towards the same people I am... But then I google "dear my love" and "dear my love clothing" and my blog and shop still appear on Google's first page of results.

I'm really at a loss of what to do. The morally correct thing to do would be to change the name, right? But I don't even know where to start. I guess it's good I caught it now while I don't have a ton of people knowing me by this name... but at the same time, it seems stupid to be like "Hahaha guys, just kidding. That's not my name!".

Help? Point me in some sort of direction?

I posted these on my tumblr the other day and was insanely surprised at how many people liked them, so I thought I'd post them here to share some more!



They started out as black and red pumps from the thrift store. I've been itching for custom shoes lately and until I can afford to get/make some shoe lasts so I can make my own from scratch, I've resigned to just painting and sprucing up already made shoes. These were $1.50 and super super comfy, but had some problems with the fabric peeling off the heel, so I fixed that and then headed outside to spray paint them!





I really didn't like the idea of light pink on the outside and red on the inside, so I painted the inside blue even though no one will see it while they're being worn.



I regret not priming them first because it took almost the entire can of pink paint to get these covered. Silly me. Still, they looked great!



But not great enough, because there was just a little too much pink (I know, how is it possible to have too much pink?!). I was paranoid about putting painters tape down on top and spraypainting the bottom with the blue that went inside, so I just mixed up some acrylic and hand painted the bottom and sealed with some good glossy topcoat.

Then I added the cute little bow and BAM! CUTE!



The only problem is that they are starting to crack in certain spots when I wear them. I had a feeling that would happen with the spray paint (or any kind of paint, actually...), but I'm totally okay with it... because honestly, I'd rather set these on my desk and just stare at them all day then wear them out and about. I seriously love looking at them.

I think one day I'm going to end up being one of those old ladies who has way too many lawn ornaments that don't actually go together... because I see cute things like this everywhere and I just want it all!

So awesome!

I don't even like mushrooms at all, but that's just so cool!!

I started crafting today... but apparently my cold porcelain potion was incorrectly written in the textbook, and the resulting clay is very tough to work with. I may just have to go get some fancy smancy polymer clay to use on this project instead.

 

How has nobody commented on this yet?! Those are so beautiful!

I want to join in! I need some extra schooling during the boring summer!

... but is there anything I have to fill out, like when doing swaps? I've never participated in a craftalong and I see a few replies have said they've sent things or are awaiting letters... and I can't tell if they've actually send something that I don't see or they're just being fun.

*newbie so confused*

They're just being fun. As of now there isn't anything to send in, unless you're sending pinkleo a pm letting her know you'd like to be a Head of House or something like that for the fall semester.

I'm definitely in! I need to work on my potions assignment, I was forgetting things all day on Saturday!

Yay, thank you! That's what I figured, but I was just making sure.
I like to have all my ducks dragons in a row before starting something.

I want to join in! I need some extra schooling during the boring summer!

... but is there anything I have to fill out, like when doing swaps? I've never participated in a craftalong and I see a few replies have said they've sent things or are awaiting letters... and I can't tell if they've actually send something that I don't see or they're just being fun.

*newbie so confused*

Omfg I want to do this swap soooo bad!

But I'm in the middle of moving across the country right now and I don't know if I'll have all my craft stuff available to me when I'd need to be making stuff for this.

We'll see... we'll see...

Question to anyone that's made one of these:

Do you think it would be okay for a beginner to start on?

I've never used a spinning wheel at all before and to be honest, how to make spin on one completely escapes me for some reason. Even when watching videos I'm just like "Uh... what?". I feel like I have to have it right in front of me to be able to comprehend what's going on. haha

Would it be easier for me to understand how they work with a more traditional wheel, or do you think this would be okay to learn on?