I have requests for work almost daily now with no advertising material anywhere. I just feature my work on certain sites such as Dribbble, DeviantArt and Facebook. Most of the enquiries come through my ThemeForest work or word of mouth.

So what has it been like for me as a freelancer? AMAZING! Just having the freedom to be able to book an opticians appointment or take my kitty to the vet without thinking ‘Damn I’m going to have to book a day off or use flexi-time’, BLEH! I do what I want, when I want. If I wake up late then I just work late… simples. I have more time for me. I’m now drinking less coffee, exercising more and eating healthier. I can actually go out for a morning run now without having to get up at 6am!

I also LOVE having the freedom to work on the projects I want and also working on a lot more creative stuff. I’ve got loads of projects on at the moment which you’ll soon see in my portfolio. I also completed the new WordPress website for Ideal Design Co this month, go check it out.

On the 10th to the 12th of May I went away to the Ayaltis business conference and spent the weekend in the 5 star Stoke Park Luxury Golf and Spa Country Club. I had my first proper lessons in golf and really enjoyed it, even if I did almost destroy a few trees, golf carts and a shed. I had to give a little presentation of the new website design I created for them. So that is another project to look out for in the near future.

My highlight of this week though has to be finding out that the Tesco on my doorstep now sells Lucky Charms! My childhood favourite breakfast cereal! Also this week I’ve been finding it really easy to get up at half 8 to start working at 9am. Not sure how long this will last for though.

So in all my first month has been amazing and its flown by in a blink of an eye!

Nimble comes with many custom widgets and areas for you to customise until your heart is content! Everything can be customised through the theme options panel right down to the text on buttons. So you don’t have to touch any code if you don’t want to. Check out the themes documentation for more information.

I did manage to finally finish my next Tumblr theme, Nimble. It’s a business style theme this time. It’s also my first all white theme. Thought I’d give this clean look a try and stay away from colourful stuff. I’m not just waiting for the theme to get accepted on ThemeForest.

Check out the live preview here: http://wildemedia-nimble.tumblr.com

Other than working on that I enjoyed some of the sun by sitting outside. Although the glare on my MacBook Pro is ridiculous! It took me a good minute just to find where the cursor was!

I also started on a new logo design for another company. Seems I have more logo design projects than anything else at the moment. Hoping to get these signed off next week and out the door.

People keep asking me what it’s like working for myself and to be honest it feels like I’m on holiday from work. Either that or I’m skiving off work. I’ve worked for a company since I was 16, always having to go work for someone else and now working for myself I feel great! I guess that’s a good thing because I’m so happy and relaxed now, hopefully all the stress will slowly go away. Even if there is ever a shortage of work I know I can work on a new Tumblr theme or finally get round to creating a WordPress theme for ThemeForest. To be honest I have work coming out my ears!

Today has been a lot more productive. I managed to get up at 8:30am today without setting an alarm.

I’ve managed to clear out the list of bugs for a WordPress website I’m working on. Got a few invoices paid off and started on 2 new logo designs. I even managed to work on my new Tumblr theme some more. I still don’t have anything to show of my next theme so go check out Optic instead.

It has also been nice knowing that I’ve earned money whilst earning money. I have an app on my MBP that tells me every time I sell a theme or graphic on the Envato Marketplaces. It sounds like a cash register.

It’s also been nice weather today, unfortunately too windy though so I couldn’t sit outside. But it has been nice to be able to open a window and get some fresh air in my lungs, something I’m not used to when working in a company.

I think after my first week of freelancing I’ll cut these posts down to one a week then eventually one a month. Otherwise they will become very boring and mostly repetitive.

I’m wanting to finish work at around 5pm everyday but as I’m now writing this at 6:30pm you can see I’m failing at that!

Right I’m off to do another hours reviewing and then grab some food.

I got very distracted with walking around town for about an hour and not realising how quickly the time was going. It’s so easy to do. I did however meet up with the guys at Westleigh Dental to go over the logo I designed for them. They want to stay away from the obvious tooth image and go for something more abstract. I would have thought a tooth would be better so that customers can instantly see what sort of company it is. But then I thought well my logo doesn’t have a mouse cursor in it. If anything people viewing my site might think I supply Safari adventures!

Other than my couple of hours reviewing for GraphicRiver I spent some time researching some ideas for 2 new logos I need to design and I also finished off a massive chunk of my next Tumblr theme. Hopefully I’ll have something to show you tomorrow.

I would’t suggest going out during the week because now I feel like I’ve wasted part of the day and will be working later. But then that is the joy of working for yourself, you can set the times you work and work in your PJ’s.

I did my usual house keeping tasks such as answering emails and support tickets. I then stared blankly at a piece of code created in Canvas for about an hour, it frustrated me so much as to why it wasn’t working I moved on to something else. But I know I’ll have to go back to it.

I started working on my next Tumblr theme for ThemeForest. This time I’m going to stay away from too many colours and focus on a nice clean, white, corporate theme. It’s going to feature some new widgets and gadgets that will make it look like your using a WordPress theme. It’ll be for all those people who want to show off their services and portfolio on Tumblr.

So today has unfortunately been pretty unproductive. So hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to show you something I’ve been working on.

The start to the day didn’t go too well as I had blood tests at 9am. Fun times! After that I wondered down the high street as the market was on. It feels like a different world going out during ‘work hours’. I feel like I need a zimmer frame, be on my pension or be wearing a baseball cap and trackies to be out between 9am to 5pm. Where do all the freelancers hide? On the plus side I did get paid by Envato for the themes and graphic bits I sell online today.

So my day started off with answering emails and checking to see if anyone had sent through support tickets for my Tumblr themes. Other than that I updated my Optic Tumblr theme with some new features and bug fixes.

My day then consisted of 3 hours reviewing time for Graphic River. I could not have gone freelance without the help of the guys at Envato. Much love!

I then did some finishing touches to the initial logo design I’m creating for Westleigh Dental Practice. These guys have been my dentist for the past 20 odd years and it feels great to be working on their new branding and website. If you can’t see it yet the tooth is made up of the W and the D of Westleigh Dental.

After a spot of lunch in my local pub (thought I would just cos I could!) I returned to squash some bugs for a clients WordPress site build. Hopefully the site will be live soon so I can show you guys another site I’ve been working on.

I have to say that is great to be able to do what I want when I want without restrictions. It might be a novelty and it might wear off but I’m going to make sure I make the most of it.

Right I’m off now to enjoy my first evening off in nearly a year!

I landed a contract as a reviewer for GraphicRiver which I love doing. I can’t wait to get home after the full time gig and check out all the new items that need reviewing. It has also boosted me to work on more of my own items so this year you will see a lot more stock items being uploaded to my portfolio. Also I plan on uploading a new 3D model once a week to 3D Ocean.

I also have a few clients asking for a wide range of work / projects which is always nice to have a change now and again. I’ll always have the Envato marketplaces keeping me busy with reviewing, updating my themes and creating new items. I also recently got accepted at PhotoDune so expect to see some stock photography soon as well. I’m hoping the stock photography side of my career will help me to get out and about and see the world outside of the monitor.

I’m looking forward to working a flexible schedule and being able to pop to the bank or the doctors without worrying about time off… blah blah blah. Also summer time and sitting outside whilst working. Going to freelancer meet ups, conferences and working with other awesome freelancers.

I plan on redesigning my online portfolio and updating that regularly with posts about working as a freelancer, etc. This is obviously when I get 5 minutes to do my own stuff.

Well there it is. My official leaving date is the 16th of April 2013. If you have any projects you need a hand on or you would just like to know what steps you need to take to become freelance then leave a comment or get in touch! I’ll always be happy to answer any questions.

Below are a few resolutions / goals that I’ve thought are achievable but still need a lot of work and dedication to reach.

Work / Freelance

• Achieve 3,000 sales on the Envato Marketplaces (1,752 at time of writing)
• Have 100 3D models on 3D Ocean (53 at time of writing)
• Have 20 Tumblr themes on ThemeForest (10 at time of writing)
• Have 2 WordPress themes on ThemeForest (1 at time of writing)
• Make all themes responsive (3/11 at time of writing)
• Reach 150 sales a month (97 at time of writing)
• Get a steady income of over $1k average a month in earnings from Envato ($689.34 at time of writing)
• Get 5 star rating back!
• Blog more! At least once a month.

Personal

• Lose 1 stone in weight and get fit.
• Start saving money for a house.
• Be better with money.
• Make more time for friends and family.
• Reach 40 platinum trophies on Playstation 3 (currently 29, just for fun)

I’m going to design some little achievement / trophies for these tasks and create a post for each one I reach. Should be a nice little illustration project and a good sense of achievement. I’ll review this list in 6 months and see if anything has changed.

There was a lot of entries for this competition, nera on 50! I know a few of you have managed to get Dribbble invites whilst the giveaway was on, so congrats! There was a lot of awesome work submitted and thank you to everyone who sent in their entries.

Here are the winners who will be receiving the Dribbble invites from me:

1. Emilioex – http://emilioex.deviantart.com/gallery/
2. Mehmet – http://cargocollective.com/skillshots

Congrats to the winners! I’ll be in contact soon to send your invites over.