Monday, February 22, 2016

Gearing Up For Spring Selling!

I just KNOW that Spring is on its way, because I'm only seeing little blobs of snow here and there on the ground, and hoping that it won't snow again! 



Enough until NEXT Winter, because by then we'll be tired of the heat, and ready for some more snow. Hard to believe, isn't it? lol! 

And with Spring on the way, my thoughts are turning to gearing up my Etsy shop with new ideas, and taking it in a new direction! I've been wanting to come up with some new sets, and I'm working on that at the moment, along with a few other ideas :) 

One thing I have been working on which I touched on a little bit in my last blog post, is learning to be more organized. It isn't that I don't know how to organize, it's more a matter of I just....well, I'm kind of lazy sometimes, lol~ 

One thing I did start doing (since it's a Monday, and it seemed like a good time to 'start' doing something- Mondays are notorious for that!) was to make a 'To Do' list on just a scrap of paper, number them in order of importance, and cross them out as I do them. I'm on number two at the moment, which is posting in my blog! My first one was to go through and change all of the postage rates in my Etsy shop. Postage rates went up recently (sigh), and although I know there is probably an easier way to 'mass change' the postage, I went through them separately because some things are different than others, so...Yeah, I took the 'road less traveled', ha! 



Either way, this list is helping today- I feel a little more...'together' with things, and feel that I'm accomplishing things a little better, as opposed to just being all over the place. 

If you need to organize more in your small business as well (and who doesn't!), I would say to start slow, such as with the 'To Do' list- and go through each one before starting on the next- I used to have a bad habit of jumping around on a list, and would discover that at the end of the day, I had the beginnings of several things started, but not finished~ best to just go through and finish each as you go. It gives you a sense of accomplishment, as well. I know, that sounds so lame, lol, but it's true- and if you have a small home business, it's a necessity- there is nobody around to give you orders and tell you what needs to be done - we have to kick ourselves in the pants!

And on that note...I'm back to work!

God Bless :)

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Do You Ever...

I'm curious...how many of you out there are working on your own small business from home? Sometimes it's a necessity, sometimes just for fun, but it's always something that we have deep down inside of us. The creativity, I mean! 

I recently found a blog called justagirlandherblog and this site was pretty awesome, seriously. I don't even know how I landed there, but I did.

Let me tell you...I was impressed. 

I have to admit, I felt like a completely disorganized sloth after surfing around on her site, lol- she just has EVERYthing together, and it is a really fun site. Not to mention the fact that she and her husband make some serious $$ with her blog, etc.- so awesome for them. I even printed out a few of the free printables she has there, along with the first chapter of a book about blogging that she wrote- now this isn't to say that this girl hasn't had her huge troubles in life- she had a double mastectomy (the whole same situation as Angelina Jolie had, along with the...plastic surgery at the same time...the females in her family have the BRCA gene, I believe..), but she has managed to just overcome and pull together and be successful, and...and...makes me breathless to think about it, lol. 

Does your fridge look like this? Mine neither! 
So here is MY question to all of you! Do you feel overwhelmed with which way to go in your small business, such as...Facebook, Pinterest, Etsy, Blogging, how much, when, where, etc., etc., ETC.! What are your secrets to pulling it all together, and making sense of it? 

Moment of Honesty: I'm sitting here amongst printouts, button orders, looking online at various sticks I have in the fire and I have to admit, I feel a bit overwhelmed. Well, maybe 'overwhelmed' isn't the correct word to use...wait, yes it is, lol! After looking at just a girl's site (and if you go there, you will see exactly what i mean), it has a tendency to make one feel a bit...ok, a LOT...disorganized! 

Goals this week? For me, definitely prioritizing and organization! 

I will let you know how it goes, and what worked for me! Meanwhile...if you have ideas that have worked for you, definitely leave a comment and tell about it, I would love to hear from you!

God Bless! 

:)

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Own your creativity!

The actual term that is on the new button I made is, "Regift like a Boss!". It features one of my fun, 1950s housewife images (from some truly awesome old 40s and 50s ads in the public domain, I love it!) of a woman smiling (they always smiled back then) as she is tying a ribbon on a fancy gift. Here is the original image I used:

Aren't these pics just awesome? I think we all have a tendency to believe the past is where the 'better days' were, well...maybe so...but I doubt that they thought so then, lol. And what's really fun is to add sarcastic quotes that are common for the lives we live today, to these 'picture perfect' images of (mostly) housewives from the past. Which is what I do.

And I love it :)

I've been crafting in one way or another for a lot of years, although making buttons and magnets (and soon, cupcake toppers!) is a newer endeavor for me, just in the last couple of years. Prior to this, off and on, I've done mostly artistic painting, some sewing (decorative dolls, back when they were the craze in the 90s), and I was actually quite successful at it. Not enough to make a living but I did alright and I had a lot of fun doing it. These days the majority of my 'creativity' comes in the form of pics like the above, Gimp (it's like PhotoShop, but for my Mac...and it's FREE, look it up it's awesome), and my button maker/magnets. I wanted something that was more...streamlined and wouldn't create as much clutter as some of my past crafts had done. So what do you suppose happened...? Yep...I have things scattered from one end of the house to the other, lol.

Creativity is not a 'neatness' thing, is it? At least for me, it isn't! I need to remind myself that a future blog post needs to be about an orderly area for craftwork (a girl can dream, right?!). Something inexpensive, cute, functional. You wouldn't believe all of the things you can do and create with what you have around your home, trust me on this one! Like I said, craft it like a boss, and OWN your creativity...sky's the limit!

This is my first blog post, and in the future here is what I hope to add to it, in order to have people actually want to come here and read what I have to say, lol:

*Sarcastic Freebies - I would like to post some finished 'sarcastic' quote images for you to print, and use whatever way you would like to use it~
*How-To - Maybe you would like to figure out how to do your own 'clean ups' on Gimp- I don't think I would ever be successful enough at Gimp to write and publish an extensive book on all of its attributes, but...I get by, and I can show you how to as well!
*Blogs on Other Crafty-Type-People - I don't need to steal all of the thunder for myself (!), when there are LOADS of truly gifted crafters that I admire out there, many on Etsy where I have my own shop as well~
*Tips on having your own crafting business from home - I'm not giving up my day job (ok, I don't have one, I stay home and my husband works, but I work too! lol), but I've actually had some success at my shop on Etsy. It wasn't overnight, for sure- but I can tell you the things that have worked for me, and I'm also spreading my wings a little to include a Shopify site, and I'm even looking into posting some youtube how-to videos, as well!

Brave soul, yes she is, lol.

Until next time, God Bless!