We recently connected with Catelyn Johnson and have shared our conversation below.
Catelyn, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
I started Vintage Afterlife with a lifelong passion for lessening my footprint by shopping secondhand whenever possible. I fell in love with antiques and vintage after walking through countless antique malls and thrift stores with my mother and grandmother, eating up every story I could about each piece I found interesting. As a grew into an adult, my personal style has landed somewhere between weird goth girl and your groovy grandma. I appreciate a good Merry Mushroom canister as much as the next gal, but I’m also interested in any teeth or spooky vintage halloween decor I can find. Basically, creating more plastic waste and throw away decor breaks my heart a bit and I think vintage used decor with a story is so much more fun!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I sell antiques and vintage home decor, from spooky to groovy. I pride myself in having a pretty good eye for finding things that stand out and also just give a cozy vibe to your home. I worked as an ER nurse for 8 years before becoming a stay at home mom and found myself wanting to contribute to our household financially as well as share my obsession with weird vintage finds and cozy decor. I’m still very much learning and growing my business and I feel so lucky to be able to spend time with my family as well as monetize a passion I’ve had for years. I hope that my business and others like it will encourage others to shop smaller (and cuter) in a world that is overflowing with plastic decor, boring corporate art, and mass produced items.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The biggest pivot in my life has happened fairly recently with the birth of my children and the birth of this business, haha. As I mentioned before, I worked as an emergency room nurse for around 8 years through COVID before becoming a stay at home mom and starting this business. Letting go of the constant need to prove my worthiness in the world by sacrificing my mental health, sleep and peace was such a huge hurdle for me. I absolutely love being an ER nurse, but the hospital healthcare industry is often a very toxic environment, now more than ever and I’m so incredibly grateful to be able to take a beat to slow down and watch my children grow up as well as explore other passions of mine.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Luckily, my love of vintage made the inventory part of my business a lot of fun (sometimes a bit too much fun, really). The expenses of actually starting a business: licenses, accounting expenses, supplies, legal fees, etc. were more than I anticipated when I was starting out but having a bit of savings set aside from my ER travel nursing days helped ALOT. I have two children and really wanted this venture to help my family and contribute to the household, so starting small was crucial for me. I started with a small shelf at an antique mall years ago, before I actually even had an official business. I made lots of mistakes through that, but I was able to gain valuable experience in knowledge in the area of antiques and vintage, without committing a giant amount of funds to do it. I now have a large booth in an antique mall, I’ve just started an Etsy shop and I’m looking to expand to more antique malls in the future. At the moment, I’m able to fund my inventory sourcing and fees for supplies through the profit that the business is making and I hope to be paying myself a paycheck in the next year or so.
Contact Info:
- Other: https://linktr.ee/VintageAfterlife
This has links to my instagram, tiktok, facebook and etsy shop!
