Much Better

The photos I took last night turned out much better than the ones the night before. I'm glad. They aren't perfect, but I can still post them and that's all I want right now.

I have some random drawings floating around that I've worked on within the past few months, weeks, days. This one was in my sketchbook and is one of my favorites. I used my new Prismacolor colored pencils to color it. I love my colored pencils, they are so fun to work with.

I had planned to color this whole image in, but kind of like it the way it is. I don't have plans for it, just like to look at it.

I'm rambling tonight because I'm tired and need to go to sleep. I just wanted to stop in and say "hi!"

Until next time....

I Ain't No Photo-grapher!

I'm not sure why, but listing things in my Etsy shop always seems so incredibly overwhelming. Since I've convinced myself it's a hard thing to do, I tend to procrastinate - which is how I solve many of my life challenges (maybe I'll address that particular issue in another post...). And of course, procrastination rarely solves anything. In fact, most of the time it creates a whole other list of problems.

I have a pile of cards and magnets that I would love to sell. However, since I won't list them, I am the only one who knows I have them. They aren't doing me much good sitting around collecting dust in the Craft Cave. So last night, I made a light box, got my dad's fancy schmancy camera out (he loaned it to me months ago). I was so proud of myself. With every shot, the weight of procrastination became lighter and lighter, until I was finished. It was about 12:30 a.m. or so, but I decided to take a look at the 300+ photos I took. Here's just a sample:

You might be asking yourself "what's wrong with these photos?" well, nothing, if you like your photos to be YELLOW. Every picture, ALL 300+ of them are YELLOW! Man, I'm mad! I spent at least two hours trying to accomplish this task and all my photos look like poop!

Like any good Etsian, I took my frustration to the Forums:

Photo Rant

And the most wonderful thing happened: within 5 minutes I had at least 18 posts from people providing solutions. That is one of the many reasons I love Etsy. I can sit in my basement, in Columbia, Missouri in the middle of the night, send out a cry for help and people from all over the globe offer their support. It blows my mind.

Thanks to everyone who posted on the thread. I sure appreciate it. Now, I'm off to try to do my photos again. Since I'm armed with more wisdom than I had last night, I'm sure everything will turn out fine!

The Robot Gathering

In March, my dad was in the hospital. While I was waiting for him to get out of surgery, I drew this picture. I love robots and I was pleased with how this turned out.

Normally, it's hard for me to come up with things that I consider halfway original. All I did here was think about some different shapes and made those shapes into heads and the robot bodies just followed.

I made this specifically for my son, but haven't given it to him. Since it's in my sketch book I'm not sure what to do with it. Do I recreate it on canvas? Do I print it and color it, do I just rip the page out and give it to him? Not sure yet.

It's Like Riding a Bicycle Up a Hill

It occurred to me that having an Etsy shop is like riding a bicycle. In theory, I like bike riding, it's fun and I love the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair (I mostly wear a helmet now, but sometimes to be a rebel, I don't). I like how free it feels to be on a bike, peddling kind of fast and feeling like I'm part of nature. In a car, I'm all blocked off from fresh air and it's more like watching the scenery go by in a movie.

The reality of bike riding for me is that it hurts my rump, I'm not in good shape, so it hurts pretty much everything else too. (Please keep reading for the explanation of how Etsy is like bike riding... )

When I was dating my husband and living next door to him, he loved going for early morning bike rides before work. He wanted me to go with him and I did, but I made him pay for it. I whined about being up so early, about it being too hot and I only wanted to ride on flat roads. If we came anywhere near something that had any sort of incline, I would say: "that's not a hill is it?" So in that sense, bike riding for him was a pain in the rump too!

Somewhere along the line, I did encounter a hill that I had to ride up. I put my bike in the right gear ("the little circle") and peddled and peddled and peddled until I got to the top. And when I got to the top, I felt good about the accomplishment, but also felt like I was going to pass out 'cause I worked so stinkin' hard to get up the hill.

So this is the part that reminds me of having an Etsy shop (or anything I'm trying to do to sell art). It's a hill and I'm trying to ride to the top. I'm peddling, peddling, peddling, keeping my head down so I don't see how far I have left to go, but concentrating on what I'm doing now. I'm not telling myself it's too hard, too far, too long, I'm just peddling. And as I do, I can see some progress. As I blog, as I Twitter, as I post in the Forums, as I take new pictures, make new banners, write new descriptions, I can see some progress. I have more people following me on Twitter each day, more people viewing my blog and Etsy shop and I'm getting to be in contact with more people than I ever thought possible.

I have a long way to go and a lot of work left to do, but I can tell that some of my efforts are taking me in the right direction. Toward the top of the hill. Even though my rump hurts, I'm happy to be heading somewhere and meeting people along the way!

Stressin' Myself Out!

As 2009 approaches, I find myself stressing out about all the things I would love to accomplish in the new year. I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore, but do think about things to hope for. I don't think there is anything wrong with being optimistic and hopeful. But if there are too many things to "hope" for, then it seems a little overwhelming.

I really want to do things to help my business be more successful. I am not a business-minded person. I'm not good at keeping track of my materials or figuring out money strategies. I just don't know much about that stuff. So, I'm going to try to learn a few business tactics.

I think what stresses me out the most is taking time to learn the things I need to know. For instance, I've tried to figure out the links in this blog so that they will be "live". Now, as you may know, when you click on what you think is a link, you get an error message. The other thing I've tried to do is make my blog 3 columns instead of two. For some reason, that hasn't worked for me either. I have spent lots of time trying to get computer things to work for me and I still can't do it. It's frustrating because I feel like I have so little time to spend learning.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me vent.

So here are 5 of my goals for my business for 2009:

1. Blog at least once a week
2. Update Etsy shop with new photos, write shop policies and re-write descriptions
3. Read about and implement strategies to help my business grow
4. Get the Etsy Street Team (Missouri Etsy-centrics) up and running
5. Be more consistent in organizing activities for the Street Team