I Did It-My Own Cafepress store

Well, after much frustration, it is done.  I invite you to visit my work in progress,  my new online shop for photography gifts and stationary at www.cafepress.com/CoyoteLaughing. I am still learning and have made some mistakes, which I am sure is a normal thing to do.  But, it has begun.  My first series of items is called, Summer Pleasures.  I still have a few more things to add so that I can offer some mix and match items. 

It sure took a long time to get rolling, but now I think I have the hang of it.  I made the error of creating many of my first items in the 'create and buy' section. This was a mistake. When you open the store, you may not be able to transfer items that have already been created.  Fortunately, I did not open a Basic shop (you can't transfer from 'create and buy' to a Basic shop) and I was able to eventually transfer the items I already made. It took a little help from the help center at Cafepress. I must say they were prompt and quite helpful.  Thank goodness!

In addition to adding items without text to my Summer Pleasures Collection, I have a few other collections in the works; Sunsets, Butterflies, Flowers-Wild and Garden Variety, and eventually some travel sets.  And somewhere in there, I intend to get my new blog up and running. Realistically, that might not happen until early August and I have some time off coming as I transition out of full time work to self-employed. But it WILL happen.

With only two weeks left at my full time job, I am right on schedule.  Actually, I sort of wish I had begun this part of the process earlier, but what can I say. Life happens!

So, please checkout my online store and let me know what you think.

I'm Expanding



Cup of the Day

 I am now a member of the Whole Living Daily Challenge Community at http://www.wholeliving.com/ and have added a few blog posts there.  I have also applied there to begin two new groups; In Between for those of us who are at the in-between stage of life where we care for and support those both younger and older in our family group, and 50+ and Counting for those of us who are 50 years young, and beyond, who want to stay active and enjoy life. Both groups are awaiting approval and I'll keep you posted.

Although I have not created a whole new blog and these do not directly fit into my business plan, I do feel this fits into my overall life goals. I will continue to add blog posts and if the groups are approved, I will spend some time with those as well. And in reality, since life is not, or should not be, compartmentalized, I guess this really does fit into my business plan. Not only am I writing more and expanding my reach, I am also seeking to find ways to stay balanced and healthy so that I can work my business and enjoy all aspects of my life. So it fits.

Hey, there is that 'balance' word again. No, I don't mean balanced as in all things being equal and even, but rather balanced as in giving attention, at some regular interval, to all things that are important. I still like the visual example of juggling where you are working with many different balls, and you focus on just one at a time.  To me it is like being in the moment. There are many aspects (juggling balls) to my life, and I can not pay attention to all of them at the same time and do any of them well. Remember the plate balancing acts? Well, I used to be the person who was struggling to keep all the plates balanced at the same time and running back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and .....well you get the idea. No more of that. It is exhausting, and for me, not a healthy way to live.

So I am doing something everyday, expanding my reach (adding another juggling ball), adding another blog post here; and today I will be reading other people's blogs, working on choosing my first photo gift/stationary designs, and doing other photography related things.

Momentum is a beautiful thing and I feel mine picking up again.

Catching Up-or Picking up the Pieces

                                            

It is a cold, blustery day here in the Midwest. I got a call early this morning that the offices where I work are out of power and I don't have to come in until 10:00am.  It was nice to get a little more sleep and to now sit with coffee in hand, watching the autumn colors blow outside my window.

It has been awhile since I have looked at, much less written, on my blog.  And although I won't write much right now, I just wanted to let my readers know I am still here. Since my father's passing earlier this month, I have been spent time with memories, getting caught up at home, at work and helping my mom catch up, too. With this brief, but most welcome gift of time,  I thought I would take a few minutes to do a little catch up inventory for blog and business. 

A few things fell by the wayside over the last month and hold some lessons learned. Even though most of these are directly connected to my dad's illness over the past year and the sad events of October, I believe that some of these hold lessons that would be true, regardless.  I take on too much too fast.  A recipe for disaster. And because a lesson learned is really not helpful unless there is a plan for applying the lesson, I will include my plan, too.  And I am stopping at three.

-I totally forgot about and "flunked" my two online courses for photography and online writing.  I flunked them only because I did not finish them by the deadline.  Two online courses were too much with everything else I was trying to do, not to mention working a fulltime job.
Lesson learned; don't be so eager that it becomes too much and nothing gets done.
So, I will take them again.  This time, I will just take one at a time.  My deadline; hmmm, not sure with holidays approaching, but will have signed up by year's end.

-All my plans to get designs into an online store stopped, as did creating more designs
Lesson learned; I don't need a full line of product to begin and to open an online presence. I just need to begin with a few good choices and get the account/store created.
Choose four designs, then open a Cafepress shop by year's end with photo gifts and stationary.

I stopped doing something everyday.  That's ok, the lesson here is sometimes there are more important things in life.
No regrets, I was where I needed to be. Begin again, today. Do Something Everyday!

Now, to be fair, I have done something over the past few weeks. I was very pleased and honored to have created my dad's memorial service program. I worked hard with my new software to get it just right and learned a lot about the Serif PlusX4. The heart that went into this project will be a good standard to hold the rest of my work to.

And so today begins a new day.

My Creative Corner

Creating Space
My creative corner, formerly known as my daughter's bedroom, is beginning to take shape. Little by little I am setting up for the business I am working toward.  One of the first things I had to do was move my desk, books, and craft supplies into the room and get that all organized. I'm still working on the closets, but there is enough done to work with.

The Work of My Hands
Part of this business will be a photo gift and stationary e-shop.  In addition to playing with my new Serif desktop publishing software and designing various formats of notepads, I have been buying crafty supplies and trying out different supplies like glues.  For my sticky notepads I have tried Modge Podge and some dimensional silicone I had for paper tole as a binding glue. The Modge Podge worked ok and the silicone worked great, but took almost a week to dry.

The other day I bought a little portable paper cutter. It works ok, but not as well as I would like.  I was trying to keep with inexpensive things to begin with. I should know better.  That's ok, it will be fine for small straight cuts.  Then I bought a rotary cutter that has a few different blade attachments. It is not a major heavy duty cutter, but it is lightweight, portable and can nicely cut 10 pages at a time, which is great for now.  A friend of mine had asked that if I ever created bound journals that I make the pages with perforations because she hates tearing off pages and having the scraggly edges.  Well, Barb, my new rotary cutter has a perforating blade and it works great! It also has a 'wavey' blade that leaves a smooth, wavey edge.

So I continue working with my Serif software and enjoying the effects I am finding are possible and I will be trying out different types of paper to find those that provide the quality and look I want at affordable prices.

The Next Step
Now that I am closer to getting some stationary designs finished, I am back to needing to finalize a name for this business and creating a logo. That is my main focus for the week as I also continue to finalize designs and create templates. Slowly but surely, this part of the business is taking shape.