This is Ollie. He’s overseeing my creations. I thought he was so cute I had to bring him into being.
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paper dolls
- Victorian Paper Dolls A blog about paper doll art
pottery
- The Leaky Cup My friend anna’s pottery site
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Big Red F!! for Failure!
This week I didn’t track one step towards my goal. I made some steps but didn’t keep track. Plus I wanted to expand on the last post about goal tracking and break down my goals from the BIG ONE of ultimate success to the other smaller goals that will make it up and I didn’t do that. I did it in my head but i want to write it down so I can keep myself accountable and so i can see progress, because that’s so motivational (at least that’s what all the motivational people say).
Big Red F
Goal Tracker
Goal!
My goal is to be a successful craft and internet entrepreneur and eventually be able to leave my “real job” and work at my ideal job of crafter and internet success.
I read a recent article about one of the ways to achieve your goals is take three to five steps toward it every day and you’ll get there! Sound simple enough. So I’m going to use this blog to keep track of the steps I’m taking every day toward the above stated goal. That way I’ll visually see my progress and track my “doing”.
Cause I’m a great planner. I LOVE to fill out cute forms with pretty graphics plotting my goals and schedules. But the doing, ah! there’s the rub. At the end of a week there’s not so much “doing” going on.
So I’m going to post every day “What I did today toward my goal” and see how much gets done, and what adjustments need to be made. Also no
One step at a time
counting just “reading about how to do something” because that’s my other trick I use to not DO anything.
So the steps I took today were:
1. Figured out how to put Pinterest and Twitter follow buttons on my blog and did it.
2. Figured out how to get photos from Morgue photo site and put them in picture file on my computer so I can use them in blog posts ans figured out how to put them in the blog post. (Hey this is big stuff for tech-impaired me. LOL)
Posted in Goal, Learning
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Heart Swatches
Knitted and crochet hearts
Ideas are still bouncing around my head like crazy and this week I was working on hearts. I need some for appliques and some for garlands or buntings I’m considering making. I wanted something quick but pretty. I like the red knitted one in the upper center but it takes too long relatively to make if I have to make several. The heart pom-pom in front is cute but heavy for garlands and again there’s a lot of trimming and futzing to get it right and it takes too long. The quickest of this bunch were the crochet hearts in the upper corners. And they’re okay.
Pink Heart
But this one is best because it’s crocheted all in one piece and it’s pretty and lacy. And I can sew a button in the middle to attach it and cover the center hole if I want.
Posted in Crochet, swatches
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Photo Tent
Photo tent
WOO-HOO!! I just got my photo tent I ordered from Amazon. It was only $20.00 and has 3 different colored backgrounds.. I can’t wait to try it. I’ve been making more swatches so I’m going to set it up tonight and take some photos and see how it works. It’s the little things that get me excited nowadays.
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Design Fever and Display Tips
Crochet Lace Swatches
Today I’m in the throes of design fever. Making crochet lace swatches for baby blankies, crocheting flowers and being inundated with ideas of how to use them, and designing “too cute” baby clothes.
I have to keep a notebook with me cause my brain keeps churning ideas out faster than I can keep up and I don’t want to miss a one! I buzz around my craft room looking at yarns and hooks and studying old pattern books and the ideas just keep on a-coming. I’m not complaining because I’ve been thru the dry spells so I want to get ‘em while their hot and keep ‘em for slow times. Now if I could just knit and crochet as fast. LOL.
One of the best things that came out of studying old pattern books was seeing how they photographed stuff. I’m trying to get my Etsy shop up and running in the next few weeks and one of the biggest problems I was having was how to photograph baby clothes without actually using a baby. (For various reasons I don’t like having photos of children on the web and I don’t have a small enough baby available anyway right now). I got some great ideas! I spent last night perusing my craft magazine stash (some of these were my Mom’s and date back to the 50s) and studied the photography and took notes and now I can’t wait to try some displays. Before I was dreading taking the photos, but now I’m psyched!
My advice for great photos is study the pros. Find magazines that display your type of items and try them (the displays) out with your items. For instance, one magazine showed baby sweaters hanging on a little hanger off a vintage chair with a small stuffed toy near it. Sold me! Another good idea is take a trip to the mall and see how they display similar items. They probably won’t let you photograph it but you can take notes.
Flower Loom Debacle
Yikes!
I spent three (THREE!!!) hours making 4 flowers on a flower loom. I’ve been crafting for years and I get a new flower loom that adjusts to all sizes and supposedly one can make flowers out of yarn, raffia or ribbons. So I scan the directions and figure I’m gonna start right out and make a flower out of ribbon. After all how hard can it be?
Ugh!
So I go back and skim the directions again and think “Okay, maybe ribbon is too difficult for the first try”, after all it did keep popping off the loom, “so I’ll do a yarn flower.
So NOW, I read the directions more carefully and I see, “Ohhhh, I’m not supposed to have the peg in the center AND I’m supposed to take the loom off the base to sew the center of the flower.”
Better, but not perfect.
Much Better
Moral of the story: Even if you think you know it all, read the directions anyway. LOL!
CAN DO
Brand new year, same old me with a new attitude. It’s a CAN-DO attitude. AS in:
1. I CAN make my dream come true of running my own craft business.
2. I CAN master my website and all it’s attendant fun of blogging.
3. I CAN master social media or at least enough to use it for my business.
4. I CAN learn to take great (okay, maybe good) photos.
5. I CAN learn to be a little selfish and work on making MY dreams come true.
However for some reason I can’t make my numbers line up in this list even tho they look lined up back on the “add new post” page. Hmm. Just another thing to add to my CAN-DO someday.