Crafting a beautiful life

By Kelsey on February 6, 2012 in uncategorized

Photo by ☂☁ miriam ☁☂

Creating is a big part of my life and not just professionally. I love spending the time making just the right gift for someone I love. For this past Christmas, I made Taggies for my youngest three nieces and nephews. Two years ago, I made stuffed bunnies.

I also spend a lot of time crafting for my own home. I studied interior design for awhile and creating a beautiful, comfortable space is something that I hold dear to my heart. To me, having a beautiful home isn’t just for show (although I do love when people appreciate my work!). Because I work from home, I spend a great deal of time here and having a beautiful home feeds my creativity and my soul.

I look for inspiration for creativity all around, but there are places I go to for inspiration again and again. Today I share with you what brings inspiration to my life and makes this creative soul sing.

I love, love, love Pinterest. I am sure you’ve heard this a lot lately and I’ve probably said it more than once before. I find inspiration for everything from home decor to gifts to food and beyond. It’s a brilliant tool for the creatively inclined.

A couple of years ago I read about super mom/furniture builder Ana White in a DIY magazine. Ana’s website features plans to create your own versions of high end furniture for a fraction of the cost. I’ve never made anything from her site due to lack of space (hello, 850 square foot condo!), but I love to browse and see other people’s creativity in action.

Wandering the aisles of one of my favorite shops always brings gets my creative wheels turning. I love strolling through Anthropologie (or perusing their website) and just being surrounded by beautiful things. Similarly, I discovered Francesca’s the other day and came away from their shop feeling inspired.

Where do you find inspiration for your creativity? Is it a shop, a person, a website? Share with me below!

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Keeping Creativity Alive – Tips to ward off creative burnout

By Kelsey on February 3, 2012 in business, creativity

photo by antphotos. click photo for source.

It happens to all of us – We are toodling along, getting into our creative stride when the dreaded moment of every creative person happens: the ideas run dry. Or similarly disconcerting, the ideas are flowing, but you just can’t bring yourself to create.

I’ve been there more than once. Sometimes for really long periods of time.

But through trial and error, I have become better at knowing when I just need a little push or when I should step away and give myself a break.

The trick is to know the difference between creative block and creative burnout. I hear you asking, “Alright, Kelsey. What is the difference?”

Are you feeling overwhelmed by your work?

Do you have a feeling of dread when you have a task you can’t put off , such as selling a made-to-order item from your shop, emails to reply to, blog posts to write?

Are you looking for to justify procrastination on tasks that aren’t as time sensitive?

These illustrate classic burnout. Yup, I’ve been there. It isn’t that you no longer love your craft, it’s that you’ve become too immersed into your craft. It can be a tricky thing to juggle, passion with temperance. When we are excited about something, we want to give it our all. The problem with investing our all into one thing is that it leaves very little time to nuture our creative souls, which is a key component to being successful and happy in our creative endeavors.

It takes a concerted effort but when we temper our passion with self-nurture, we can attain far more longevity. So how do we get that temperance?

Take time off – If you’re a frequent blog or business book reader, you’ll no doubt have seen it said that to be successful takes hard work. Absolutely. However, spending day, night, and every weekend (and vacation) investing time and effort into your business will no doubt leave you worn out and resentful. Schedule time that is work-free. Time away from the busyness does a creative soul good.

Get creative – You began a creative business because you love to be creative, right? The problem with having a creative job is, well, that it’s a job. Make a date with yourself to explore a new mode of creativity or one you’ve been neglecting to relight your creative fire.

Go explore - Grab your pooch and take a hike. Spending an hour or two in nature can recharch your batteries without a huge time investment. Even better, take along your camera and challenge yourself to look at the world in new, unexpected ways.

Chill out! Sometimes warding off burnout is as simple as taking a night to just veg. Watch your favorite movie, take a long bath, bake a batch of cookies, or whatever your favorite hangout in your sweats activity is, and don’t feel guilty about it!

I want to hear from you guys; what’s your favorite battery recharging activity? How do you balance work and fun to keep the creativitity flowing?

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Making the most of your day – Time management strategies

By Kelsey on February 1, 2012 in business, uncategorized

Like everyone else, I am busy. I have two jobs, a home, a husband, a demanding dog, and hopefully soon, a child. I also have a back that will freak out at the littlest thing, so I have to take advantage of the good days (or even hours) to get the most done.

While I have been a creative entrepreneur for two years, I have worked from home for the past almost seven years and I know it can be difficult to focus on the task at hand when there’s laundry to do, or your dog is barking it’s head off at the neighbor kids (take it from me, it’s distracting), or whatever the distraction might be in your particular situation.

Over the last seven years though, I’ve implemented a few strategies to help me take advantage of my time. They’re little, easy things that anyone can do too, whether it be just during the workday or to help maximize all 24 hours in your day (who needs sleep, right?).

*Commit to working on a task for one hour without interruption. In addition to Pipsqueak & Petunia, I also work as a medical transcriptionist, which is a production-based job and focusing for at least an hour at a time really makes a big difference in my bottom line. The more you focus, the more you’ll get done. Commit to spending uninterrupted time.

*Turn off the phone! My family knows that if it’s during my work hours I’m not likely to answer and if I do, I’m going to keep it as brief as possible. Same goes for the texting. And Facebook. And Twitter. You get the idea.

*Don’t answer the front door. If you have frequent drop-in guests, post a note on the front door to let your visitors know you’re unavailable. I also highly recommend setting up a UPS My Choice account. I don’t know about you, but I am a huge online shopper. The UPS delivery guy is at my house at least two or three times a week and he always comes during my work hours. With a UPS My Choice account, you can authorize your delivery person to just leave packages at a designated place at your home. That way your flow isn’t interrupted, the dog doesn’t bark his head off at the UPS guy, and peace remains.

*Make a list! Mayi Carles’ Life Is Messy planners changed my life. There are lists and planners for the week, month, year and Mayi has truly thought of everything. The planners are printable from your home computer, so you can print as many as you need FOREVER! Really, you’ll never regret the purchase. Just as a side note: If you’re not familiar with Mayi, hop over to www.heartmadeblog.com. You’ll love her, I promise.

Simple changes will make your day go more smoothly and you’re bound to get more done! What time management strategies help you get through your workday?

Have you visited Pipsqueak & Petunia’s Etsy shop lately? We have tons of fun new products just for your fabulous furry friend! Come on by!

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Making the most of your marketing budget – Inexpensive strategies to promote your Etsy shop

By Kelsey on January 30, 2012 in business

Don't waste your hard work - Promote!

A friend of mine asked me the other day for some ideas on how to promote her Etsy shop with a limited budget. Contrary to what you may think, you really don’t need a big budget for marketing, BUT (and it’s a really big but) you do need to have some allotment for marketing. After all, you’ve spent hours laboring, you want people to see your item, right?

There are plenty of easy, inexpensive ways to promote your Etsy shop and draw new people to check out your items. I suggest experimenting with one or two at a time and keeping an eye on your Etsy stats or Google Analytics to see which ones are most effective for you.

Renew, renew, renew – Renewing my items on Etsy is the single most effective way for me to draw customers into my shop. It helps keep you at the top of the heap with search results and makes your items easier to find. I recommend renewing several items a day, spaced out over several hours. You can also use a tool such as buy viagra kenya‘s auto renew feature. Don’t forget to add their $5 monthly fee into your marketing budget, though.

Advertising – Placing an ad for your shop doesn’t have to be expensive. Craftopolis and Craftcult offer inexpensive ads (starting at $15 a week) and get a lot of traffic from fellow Etsy sellers. Also consider placing an ad on one of your favorite blogs; I’ve run one on Everything Etsy. Kim from Everything Etsy periodically runs specials on ads, including ones just for Etsy sellers. Sign up to be notified of her ad sales here.

Another great way to get some exposure is to get a blogger to feature you and your shop. I have had features on Everything Etsy, Scoutie Girl, and as well as numerous other blogs. A lot of bloggers will tweet or post on Facebook about feature opportunities; keep an eye on your favorite bloggers to take advantage of this.

Do a strategic giveaway with another blog. I would recommend it be a blog you’re familiar with and one that draws in a lot of traffic. Some blogs do require you to pay to do a giveaway, some do it for free because they enjoy it. Read the fine print, be comfortable with who you’re working with, and don’t do it if you’re unsure.

Get involved with a creative community. There are some great options including Etsypreneur, ARTrepreneur, as well as the Etsy teams and message boards. I have made many a sale from a fellow Etsy seller who checked out my shop after reading a post on the Etsy message boards!

Sign up for Twitter and Facebook accounts. They are easy and free, and a great way to get to know your demographic. Be cautious not to be spammy with links to your Etsy shop, however. Remember to engage your customer!

These are just a few of the many free and inexpensive ways to market your Etsy shop. If you have a strategy that has worked well for you, tell me about it below!

Hey you! Have you signed up for our newsletter yet? Some great new changes will be coming to the Pipsqueak & Petunia brand; sign up and be the first to know!

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Great artists need great tools – Tools to keep your Etsy shop running smoothly

By Kelsey on January 27, 2012 in business

Did you know there are all kinds of tools available to Etsy sellers to help them manage their shops and stats efficiently? Some of them are nifty and fun, but some are downright amazing and will change your life & the way you run your shop.

First and foremost, there’s the shops stats section of your very own Etsy account. It’s available to every Etsy seller and gives a basic overview of who’s visiting your shop, what they’re looking at, how much you’ve sold, etcetera. You can learn what keywords are getting the most attention or which items in your shop have the least hearts and perhaps need a little work done on their photos or descriptions. To get to your shop stats, hover of your seller name on the top right of the Etsy main page and click on “Shop Stats.” Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

One site I really love is Craftopolis. They have similar functions as your Etsy stats page, but so much more! If you’re logged into Etsy and Google Analytics, you can access your sales and hearts, but what is more amazing is you can do bulk edits on your listings! The bulk edits tool has saved me hours and hours of work. It is awesome for those times when you’re running a sale and you want to let every customer who may click on one of your listings know about it. You can also change the price of an item or the wording of the title. Awesome, awesome tool.

Next up we have , which is a cool tool that will send a text to your phone whenever you make a sale from your shop. Well, in theory. Admittedly, this tool works off and on for me and was at one time more reliable. It’s still fun to get those texts that say you’ve made a sale.

buy viagra kenya is another cool site with several helpful tools available to Etsy sellers. You can schedule a shop sale and auto-renew items in your shop (good for forgetful people like me!). Just an FYI, unlike the other tools I have mentioned, Etsy On Sale charges what they call a “nominal fee.” To use their auto-renew feature costs about $5 a month and scheduling a shop sale is $4. They do require you to purchase credits and then put the credits toward your tool subscriptions; however, the more credits you purchase, the lower the price per credit.

Do you have an Etsy tool that you love to use? Tell me about it below!

Have you signed up for Pipsqueak & Petunia’s newsletter yet? Great members-only things are coming soon, but only to subscribers!

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