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Well, after an unintentional week off, I’m back up and running for the Creative Business Challenge. 🙂 Last week we talked about product photos and descriptions. I wanted to talk about the two of them together, because in a sense they are doing something similar – providing information about your product in a way that appeals to your target market. However, it is just a lot to cover in one post, so we’re still on that topic for this week, looking more at practical ways to put it into action by doing two shop critiques. If you missed last week’s … Read more

Last week I kicked off a new challenge series: Looking Good .. Despite the Holidays. I’m very excited about it! A little while back I emailed myself a list of smaller goals and habits that I wanted to aim for to help me along the way, and I wanted to share that list with you. As you will see, there are a variety of different types of things on my list. The exercise related goals are in red, the style related goals are in blue, and the food related goals are in gray, so there is definitely a mix. This … Read more

Ah, the holidays. I love this time of year. Special memories with family, seasonal good cheer, laughter, delicious food … and the post-holiday surprise of extra pounds when we step on the scale. Um, yeah, not so fond of that last part. No wonder getting in shape is such a common New Years resolution! This year, I’m hoping to keep all the good parts of the holidays, but not feel the regret in the mirror. So for the next weekly Friday challenge, happy holidays can still be healthy holidays! This challenge is actually very personal to me. It’s not that … Read more

I have long been a fan of Shabby Apple dresses. Their style is exactly what I love … classic vintage dress styles with a whimsical modern twist, all while keeping it modest. *swoon* So I am completely honored to be able to host a Shabby Apple giveaway .. and tickled for you to get the chance to win something from their beautiful brand. Also, I thought this really ties in nicely with the “Looking good … despite the holidays” series I just started. What a way to kick things off, eh? (People who know me in real life know that … Read more

We’re getting a new abode! And I don’t mean online – I mean in real life. Many of you know that about 3 months ago, our family moved to Boston. What you may not know is that in that interim time, we haven’t had our own home. Some dear friends of ours let us use their finished basement as our home base while my husband was working on getting a job up here. We’ve felt so blessed to be able to spend this time with our friends, and grow closer to them and learn from their godly examples. Things have … Read more

Yes, we are expecting or second child!! And yes, I am still alive. After almost a year of posting on my blog multiple times every week, even while travelling, or packing, or moving across the country — I suddenly fell off the face of the internet. My last post was at the end of November saying I would be back in a week. Yeaaah, that didn’t happen. There has been a lot of difficult things going on lately, and added on top of that, we just moved into a new apartment, Tim had to start working both an overnight job … Read more

Well, we are on to week 4 in the Creative Biz challenge! This week we are going to be looking at a couple of topics that came up a LOT in the post where you all posted your creative biz questions: photography and descriptions. A few things have to be in place before really honing those two, though – you have to have a great product, know who your target market is, and be pricing to actually make a profit. Those points are what we have talked about in previous weeks, so now we’re moving on to product photos and … Read more

My apologies that this post is a day late! I usually stay up really late on Thursday nights (or stay up late into Friday morning would be more like it) to put up my Friday post. I must admit that sleep won over this week. Life has been crazy lately. (Although, is life ever NOT crazy and busy? I guess not.) Anyway! On to this week’s topic for the creative biz challenge, which I think is one of the stickiest: Pricing. It is hard to figure out how much to charge, especially on handmade items. Pricing feels strange because it … Read more

So let’s say you are selling crochet doilies. Should you be marketing to young urban men? Um, let’s go with NO. A hugely important part of running a successful creative business is understanding your target market. So, we’re going to talk about who your target market is and how to find them, as well as doing a shop critique of one reader’s shop! But before we get into figuring out all of that … why is it so important to know your target market? In the questions you asked me in the opening post, a lot of people asked “how … Read more

Well, we’ve reached the end of the 6 weeks for the Creative Business challenge! And for the finale, we’ll be covering the single most asked-about topic from your handmade biz questions: marketing. I left it for last because one of the reasons marketing can be so difficult is because there are other things about your business that have to be in place first to be able to market more easily, and so I wanted to cover those in the first in the series. I hope you found those posts helpful. If you missed them, they lay out groundwork for how … Read more