learned my lesson...

R.I.P. RUBY LANE DESIGNS...

so, i learned a valuable lesson today! not one i wanted to learn, but nonetheless i learned it...

i got up this morning and logged onto my etsy account this morning to see if i had any buys, and saw i had a new conversation. so, i checked it. it happened to be palmer marketing executive from www.rubylane.com. he was requesting information from me about my shop and wondered if i could send him my phone number. i thought this was awkward, so i googled his name and found a phone number, so i called him. and this is where the fun began....

he informed me that my shop was in violation of copyright infringement... and i had until the 31st of october to change everything and destroy anything that had ruby lane on it, unless i wanted to speak to his lawyer...

i just wanted to die...

so, now, to escape the clutches of a corporate lawsuit, i have a lot of work ahead of me in the next few weeks...

this means i need to design a new banner for my store, a new avatar for my chat and forum sites, business cards, retail tags, monogrammed tags for my purses, (which by the way i have to rip all of my bags apart to remove them)... so i feel buried... and on top of it all i have my first show on november first, and i am so behind! so, what a terrible, awful, horrible, no good, very bad day...

so what is this important lesson?

always search the US trademark database BEFORE you decide to start a business, even it it only based on your kitchen table...