Category: Organization

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Un-complicate Your Crafty Business Life

Yes, it is something that I have been trying to do this summer. I have felt overloaded for years, home schooling the kids, running the house, running a home business, being taxi driver for the kids. I am sure that your life is just as equally busy. I ran across this blog post http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/03/08/11-easy-ways-to-uncomplicate-your-life/ and decided that I can come up with a list of  ways to un-complicate my crafty/Etsy life.

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Here are the 11 things to un-complicate your life adapted and changed to apply to your crafty/Etsy life.

Learn from the past, and then get the heck out of there!

Learn from your mistakes and then MOVE on. Remove items from your shop that cause less than positive feedback or gives you excessive stress to create it. I am no longer going to carry these egg cozies!

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Focus on what’s truly important

Why do you create? Is it a good reason? Do you really need to be able to do this? My big thing that I don’t do is fancy  decorated cakes. Everyone assumes that since I am a creative person that I can decorate cakes and make them really cool. NOPE…I do not do cakes. I also do not do rubber stamping, yes, I have tried and NO I prefer not to rubber stamp. I am never pleased with the result.

Focus on being productive, not being busy

Time in the studio for me is precious. I want to be able to get things done when I am actually having time to sew. It is easier to be productive if I keep a running list of what needs to be done. I also will spend time cutting out a bunch of bibs or cozies one day so that I can sew a bunch when I get the chance. I sew all of the items that take the same color thread at one time. That way I don’t change thread color all day long.

Give what you want to receive.

If you would not want to receive some product of  yours as a gift then do not sell it, except as de-stash! If you want happy customers than make them happy. Give refunds when you need to.

Stop trying to be everything to everyone.

You need to make what you are best at creating. Create what makes you happy and causes you joy. If you are selling something that is more hassle than it is worth, stop creating it! Do not accept custom orders to create items that you don’t have the skills or time to make. Evaluate each custom order request; do you have the time, energy, desire, does it take skills you don’t have?

These give me the most joy!

 

Do what you know in your heart is right.

Price your product so that you make profit not sales! You do not want to be the Dollar mart of the arts and crafts world. Sell quality handmade work for a fair price. You are an expert, you do have experience, charge a reasonable amount for the work you do. Everyone comes out better in the end. Along the same line of thought; if you are run off your feet from sales and don’t have enough profit; you might need to raise prices a bit to slow down the sales.

Organize your space.

Keeping your supplies orderly will save you time, money and heartache. Knowing where your products and shipping supplies are, make it easier to ship your product. If you have to stop and find scissors every time you need to pack a box then you are adding frustration to your day.

Be efficient.

Learn new ways of doing things. Research how to be better at your business, follow trends, customer requests. Order your supplies wholesale instead of from the neighborhood crafts store. You spend less time in the car, you don’t pay sales tax and you don’t over buy.

You need to have a routine. It makes it easier to find time to do the little things that need doing.  Plan to spend times developing new ideas, cleaning, paperwork, new products, restocking your shop, creating old favorites or just thinking about making new things.

Let go of needless drama and those who create it.

Do your best that you can do at the time and let go of any sales drama that comes your way.

Forget what everyone else thinks and wants for you.

People have told me for years to open another online shop front so that I have one kind of product in each shop. I know my limits. I only have time to promote, stock and keep up with one shop.

What would you add to this list?

Karen

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What are you going to do different?

If what we are doing in our business isn’t bringing us the results we want and if Insanity is defined as this (see below)?

http://www.etsy.com/listing/47911287/wall-decals-definition-of-insanity-vinyl

Then why do we keep doing the same things over and over in our business and expect different results. So my question to you is WHAT are YOU going to do DIFFERENTLY this year? How are you going to change the status quo? This has been the question that has occupied my mind the last five weeks. Yes, this question was going through my mind during the Christmas rush. It was a good Christmas season for the shop. Not as good as I had hoped for but quite good anyway. There were some things that I had done differently in the shop and it did pay off.

Since I have been mulling this thought over and over in my mind and the start of a new year is a time for reflection. I was getting frustrated with my inability to come to some decisions. It seemed like the year started with a huge rush of activity; getting kids back to school, kids getting sick, getting some appointments made, updating some paperwork, insurance paperwork, and house keeping stuff. All of it was keeping me from really working on the shop. I felt behind the curve already and we hadn’t even really started the year.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85132427/wall-clock-retro-black-red-and-gray

I even worked on this questionnaire  from Etsy and was going to do a great big blog article on it.  http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2013/reflect-on-2012-t/ It was a great place to start but it built in some frustrations as well. I may still do the blog article but really you have no desire to read about my goals unless it is a bullet list and you can scan it quickly.  I am not sure I can condense it down to a bullet list. I even tried to photograph the studio and motivate myself to clean it up because cleaning always has the ability to start a rush of ideas. I did indeed clean up the studio, but then we found some boxes downstairs that had studio items in them… and you can guess the rest.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/110369861/2013-desk-calendar-little-owls

It is a big year ahead of us with some pretty major changes. Like all families some big things and lots of little things are ahead of us. Some of them we have advance notice of and some we don’t.  So here is…finally a short list of things I am going to do in 2013

  1. Try and blog more consistently
  2. Feature other artisans once a week….
  3. Make 12 tutorials for my blog…that is roughly one a month… This is a huge hurdle and one I am rather frightened of.
  4. Keep the studio more organized
  5. Diversify the items in the Studio shop…same style of items just different kinds of things…
  6. Read 4 good books about business… I have two titles that were reccomended by my husband. Since he usually only reads non-fiction he is a great resource.
  7. Try to find 4 brick and mortar shops to consign my items here in my region.
  8. Limit my work time to a more regular schedule which includes time off for family and other activities.
  9. Build a link up spot once a week to help others market their shop items.

Then like everyone else I also have the goals to lose weight, exercise, eat right and save money that fit into the personal list along with

  1. Do the budget thing
  2. Continue working on home improvement projects
  3. Get the veggie garden and flower gardens back looking good.
  4. At least once a week do something fun with kids….
  5. Teach DD to cook and sew…she is the last one to learn. I am on the down hill side of child rearing and she deserves to know learn as much as they did.
  6. Make time for friends.

Talk to you later…

Karen

 

 

 

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Monday: Goal Check 1!

Here we are another Monday. I am running a goal check. This helps keep me on track and remind me that I AM reaching those goals and actually doing something!

Business goals:

  • Finish three two afghans (I have two left to finish this goal. Currently I have three afghans started….

 

The zig zag chevron stripe is finished. The one on top is started….and I have a granny striped started in my new yarns, and a sampler granny square afghan started.

  • Start three more afghans
  • Sew 50+ cup cozies in new styles ( I prepare for the holiday buying season in advance, because I also home school.)
  • Sew the 30+ new items I need him to photograph
  • Make the new Christmas items….
  • Blog more consistently (I have been writing ahead and found my blog planning pages…)
  • Write a business plan

Family goals:

  • Take two summery day trips every week
  • Make some meals for the freezer for THOSE days when I just really need them (one lasagna down…)
  • Help K get her things ready for College…. (two major things marked off our list.)
  • Take T for driving practice
  • Exercise (walked and/or exercised three times last week.  YAY!)
  • Make the kitchen a better place to be, using things I already have. (It seems small and I really have to work at loving being in there.)
  • Make the curtains in the living room fit the windows better and the hems the same length (I put these curtains up super quick when I realized that the bamboo shades are see through at night with the lights on.) 

Rather lofty goals aren’t they. I also have some personal ones that I have not added to this list.

Personal goals:

  • Work through my Bible study that I stopped this Spring.
  • Have us sit at the table for dinners 5 nights a week. (Totally missed out on this one this past week, but we have another week ahead of us!)
  • Keep my kitchen and laundry caught up and ready for action. ( Frankly, got clothes washed but not folded or put away. Laundry is my most hated chore. It is never finished)
  • Have some friends over for dinner…or coffee or dessert or something.
  • Read some books about homeschooling
  • Attend the home school curriculum sale this weekend.  (Totally missed out on this. Now, I need to find inspiration in another place…)
  • Help with the Youth at church at least 2 times a month.

Well, those are my rather lofty goals. I hope that things get better and I get more organized at meeting my goals.

Things I/we accomplished that weren’t on my list of things to do!

I started cleaning and organizing my studio areas.We also moved the furniture around in this area and I need to finish organizing, pitching or donating items.  I have a lot of boxes left to go through but we are happy with the new arrangement of the room and how it is starting to come together.  I re-opened my Amazon.com shop by listing more books for sale. We did a quick check up on our budget and re-affirmed our money goals. I sat down with our calendar and checked dates and times of appointments as we missed some important things last week.

Talk to you later,

Karen