Money for Money

Good morning!!! Or afternoon depending on when I actually am able to finish this post.

So lately I've been meditating a lot and working on self-improvement, chakra work, and all that fun stuff. Through all this I've found out that there's one thing that seems to be worrying me and holding me back. The big M word. MONEY!!!

I REALLY didn't realize how much money you have to fork out to actually make money in a small business. Ugh... I mean, I grew up on a farm, so I've always had a sense of it, but DAMN!! I've got my eye on 4 smallish craft sales in the near future and just to apply for them will cost me over $100 dollars... And I still need to get some sort of professional banner made.

So you know what?! I'm on a business hiatus for the winter!! I've found that I'm putting WAY too much pressure on myself to make money in this that I'm not even enjoying it any more. I mean I'll leave up my etsy shop and facebook page, but I'm really feeling that I need to make more products (like actually have a full table) before I do anymore shows or anything. I think I have a Farmer's Market all planned for next summer (less rural), so I may set my sights on that for the future and just save my money to buy more yarn (and maybe even local yarn) and work on my photography skills before I go all out again.

And I WILL go all out again!! I firmly do believe in jumping in with both feet, but I do think that I need to do a little more work before I jump in again. And get a more professional set-up. And I need to work on my sales pitch a lil bit...

BUT!!! I do still firmly believe in jumping in before you feel ready, because let's be honest, who's ever ACTUALLY ready. I've just realized that there's a lot of work to do in the meantime.

So, in the great words of Tiffany Han, DO THE WORK and then JUST SAY YES!!!

Ciao for now!!

Recaculating....

Technology... Always recalculating, always rethinking... Not that I can complain. I mean, without it I wouldn't be able to blog, or check my phone compulsively every 5 minutes while my computer is once again recalculating...

Full circle here right? ...maybe... Lost my train of thought there...

Oh wait!! Got it back!! Basically where I was going with that was that I use technology at work daily. I come in, I log on, and I'm givin' 'er for the day. 8-4 for the most part.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job! I'm very happy here! But I'm just the type to wonder... What else is there? Yes, the grass may not always be greener on the other side, but what if sometimes it is? There's got to be more out there than getting up, going to work, coming home, and going to bed right?

WELL! That's what I'm trying to find out! As a multipotentialite/renaissance soul, that whole concept gives me heart palpations. Just the thought of doing the same thing day in day out until I die is enough to send me screaming in the other direction. Which is why I'm starting this looming/sewing/art business-type-thingy I've got going on here. I want to see if there is more out there. If there is life beyond a job. If I can work from home, sleep late, and work later without having to leave the comfort of my own back yard. Nothing beats a try right?

When I think about this on a grand scale, my previous little worries about posters and signage and all that other menial crap really doesn't matter. On a whole, I'm trying something new! I'm trying to see if there's life out there, and I'm jjjuuusssttt starting to get my feet wet. And DAMN!!! That water is cold!! I have a feeling that it'll get colder before it gets any warmer!

But, because I am the way I am, before I've even begun letting that water warm up just a titch, I've got my eyes wide open exploring new opportunities! That's right, this summer of markets hasn't even started yet and I'm already looking past it to see where the winds might take me. I kind of feel like Pocahontas... Oh darn, now I'm singing too!

Anyways, ciao for now!!!

Courtesy of Google Images

Baby Gone Back... IN TIME!!

This has been a lllooonnnggg week. This is only my second day back at work, but ermagerd I'm ready for it to stop. Needless to say, I've been incredibly busy. Like INCREDIBLY busy.

I went to my first teaching MLHS function on Wednesday (5/25/2016), and it was a total blast!! The leadup was the exhausting part... A little back story, the founder of the organization is getting older, and has been doing far to much for far to long. So, because I'm a huge sucker with a big truck, I volunteered to help out and tote stuff from our shed (approx. 15 minutes out of the city), bring it to the event, and take it back afterwards. Much more work then I thought it would be, yet not more then I expected:P

Anyways, as a result most of my weekend was devoted to this. First off, it was a long weekend to start with, and I'm booked to work tomorrow (Saturday), so as a result I got the Tuesday off as well. The perfect volunteer!! So, Saturday I was shopping all thrifty like (more on that later), Sunday I spent my whole afternoon and part of my evening gathering everything up for the VPRR (Visit the People of Red River), Monday I was running errands most of the day and working on my Farmer's Market content, and finally Tuesday I was running errands and dropping things off at the location we would be at. By Wednesday I was pre-tired.

Then it was Wednesday!! Yay!! I was assigned to lead the candle making station. I was nervous as hell (didn't really sleep the night before) because I'd never done it before, but it ended up being super fun!! And I learned how they made candles in 1812!! How cool is that?! To them it was something that they needed, for me it was learning a new skill to add to my awesome arsenal of crafty stuff!! Yay!! I also had a lot of fun learning about all of the other stations that were set up as well. Super fun!!

After we went through all the stations, I reloaded my truck (with a little help of course), and headed back out to the shed. I REALLY would've preferred to go home to bed... But off I went and unloaded everything just as it started to rain. It didn't really open up until I had already unpacked everything and was on my way home (whew!!). A fun day had by all!

But what did this mean for lil introverted ole me?? PURE EXHAUSTION!! Tara Swiger (love her info on introverts) defines introverts as people who get their energy from being alone, not from other people. This pretty much defines me!! I am for sure an outgoing introvert, but things like this leave me exhausted and frazzled. There's another event that they're doing on Saturday (tomorrow) that I'm unable to attend because of work, which is kind of a blessing in disguise. I won't be completely alone to zone out and recharge, but at least I can put on my headphones, turn on a podcast and just work. Then I have all Sunday to recharge/clean my house (in all this busy it's gotten incredibly messy).

Anyways, I kind of wanted to go into more detail about the candle making, as this was super fun and a creative endeavor that I've never undertaken but REALLY wanted to. First off I got to see and know all of the different kinds of lights that were used, and I'm planning on building a rush light. This was used by poorer people and was simply a dried out bulrush dipped in animal fat, dried out again, and then lit. MLHS currently doesn't have an example of this and it sounds really fun to try out:) There were different types of lanterns, candle holders, and even an old-fashioned oil lamp. History combined with creativeness, I was in seventh heaven!!

The candles themselves were commonly made with tallow, or animal fat. Apparently they burn smelly and greasy (we didn't actually light one), and don't give off very much light. So we basically melted the tallow (we had bear and buffalo) on a hot plate (NOT historically accurate, but we didn't have all day, or a fire), tied our wick (approx. the length of a sheet of paper) to a wooden dowel (they would have used sticks), and dipped into the tallow to our heart's content. The hardest part for the kids to get was that you had to dip QUICK!! The longer you held the wick in the hot tallow, the more would melt off from your previous dips and your candle would actually get skinnier! O dear!! Some of them had great candles, while others were still very skinny... They all seemed to have fun anyways!! I know I sure did!! Made a real mess, but my hands have never been softer!!

My next post (hopefully a little quicker to come out then this one...) will probably be a continuation of my Style School capers, and will probably touch on my content for the summer.

My outfit for the day.

Inspired by the laundry station a the VPRR:)

Zzz...

Yes, my title is a snore. That is the approximate energy level I am operating on today... Maybe I'm getting sick? I'm also kinda bummed out that this time last year (even though I'm pretty sure I was near death) I was packing it up to go to the Rocky Mountains... This year I plan on sleeping. Such is my life :P

So, I just posted yesterday. What the heck could I have done since then?? Anything super interesting? Did I just post to complain about how tired I am? No and no:P I didn't do anything amazing last night. I mean, I planned out some merchandise stuff for MAHTA, and some of the things that I'd like to cover in the next newsletter (to be decided tomorrow night, another meeting... Ugh...). No, that's not really what I think is interesting right now.

This morning, after checking my email box, facebook, etc., I decided to check my spam box. There I found an email from Tara Swiger (I had signed up for her newsletter a while ago and had forgotten about it), with a little gem in it. Craft Sale's for Introverts. It's like it was meant for me!

Back story, I am a ridiculously introverted person, and being around people for any amount of time completely drains my energy. I'm also incredibly outgoing (or try to be), but I get no energy whatsoever from being around people, and I HATE reasoning things out out loud. HATE it. I'd rather talk to people through email or text message than actually call them or seek them out. This has been problematic in the past, but I've kind of come to accept it as just me.

Apparently there are other people out there who are introverts who are trying to somewhat do the same thing as me. Who knew!! In her podcast she has multiple tips for introverts stuck in an extrovert world of business. HALLELUJAH!! I was so drawn in to what she was saying I even took notes on it for this summer.

It's not easy being an introvert in an extroverts world.

PS. This was supposed to be published on the 19th, but apparently I hit save instead of publish:P OOPS!!!!

Flyin by the Seat of my Pants

HOLY MOLY IT'S WEDNESDAY!!! Tonight is literally the only night I'll have at home to myself, and that's only because I cancelled an event I was supposed to go to... UGH...

So, what have I been doing?? Well, Monday night was my first ever art critique... Ugh... Everyone was super nice, but I feel like I'm still digesting everything... When I said that everything that I had done so far was self taught, it was almost discounted... Like I should go and take some classes right now... If I wanted to take classes I would have by now, I just don't have time. Another suggestion was to join a group. Yeah, this might be fun, but right now I really prefer to work on my skills by myself... Ugh... Just been bugging me ya know:P

Anyways, so that was Monday night and my first ever professional critique. Not too sure if I'd do another. I didn't get home until pretty late on Monday, but as a huge bonus I didn't work until noon yesterday (Tuesday) so I got to sleep off a bit of my unhappiness with life recently.

Now, Monday was also the official start of my Style School, and our power song outfit challenge. This is basically listening to a pre-selected song and picking out an outfit that goes with it. This has really been stoking me up all week and I've really been having fun with it. On Monday the song was Katy Perry's "Roar", to which I responded with my beloved orange top and some semi-shimmery black pants. I REALLY wasn't feeling it at all to be honest. I was SUPER worried about my crit that evening, but whatevs right:P Yesterday, however, I dawned the most colourful outfit I've worn in a lllooonnnggg time! It was super fun! And super weird. I'm not used to giving what I wear more than a once over to make sure there's no terrible stains on it.

Today, however, I had some real fun with it! The song was "I Will Survive," which some of you may or may not know, is sung by a talking pug named Frank on Men in Black 2. My natural reaction to this song? Suit up MIB style!! So much fun!! There's a pic of it down below:P

This whole clothing thing is a whole new side of creative that I haven't even begun to explore! I'm having a real hoot! Who knew right? This was totally something out of left field that I wanted to try out, not  expecting all this. We are also doing exercises to find out what's inside (true personality) so that it can match the outside. First off we had to petition family and friends to come up with three words that best describe us. The response was amazing!! I made a wordcloud for a pump up:P

Anyways, I'm having a super time experiencing and playing with this new type of creativity:) Now to plan my Born to be Wild outfit for tomorrow:D

Men in Black style... With bare feet:P

Feeling Colourful!!

What others think of me:P

Thrifty Business

Hi all!! Happy Friday the 13th!!!

Finally the weekend... It's been another rough week for me, my Grannie's funeral was a couple of days ago, so I've pretty much been a total basketcase since then. But the show must go on, and she wouldn't have wanted me to be miserable.

So, what have I been up to? Surprisingly, LOTS!! I haven't drawn or painted anything for a little while, but I'll probably get on that this weekend, as I have my very first art critique on Monday!!! AHHH!!!

A little backround on me. I didn't take any art classes in school. I've only had 2 official art classes, and those were in acrylic painting a few years ago. The only people who really look at my art are usually family, or random people on the internet who I not only don't know. No one who really knows who their talking about has ever looked at my art (or at least not that I know of), so this is a TOTALLY new thing for me! I'm terrified, but also super excited... Raise Your Hand Say Yes right?

So how did this critique come about? Well, a couple months ago I signed up for a group called MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women's Art). They have a mentorship program (the one that I missed the application deadline for:(), and they also have workshops, etc. Well I signed up for their email updates, and their monthly Crit Club popped up. It intrigued me, and when I looked into it further I thought "What the hell, why not!!" and signed up. Then it hit me. What had I done?!? I've never been critiqued!! My art has always been pretty private, and it's only been VERY recent that I've actually opened up my sketchbook and showed the world. This is truly terrifying!!

But I have to do it!! I'm huge on facing your fears head on, and when my imposter complex kicks in, just saying "Yeah, you know what, this is scary, but guaranteed it won't be as bad as you're making it out to be." Pretty sure nothing could be that bad; I have an incredibly vivid imagination. It's both my trump card and Achilles heal:P This is super important to me though!! I've just gotten confirmation that I will, in fact, be having a booth at a Farmer's Market this summer, and since I plan on selling my art I should probably start showing the world a lil bit more... Still terrifying though!!

AAAHHH!!!! Speaking of terrifying, I also went to a couple thrift stores for the first time in my life last night. Pretty sure I was expecting dumpy gross-ness, but that was NOT what I got!! Once I learn what will look good on my body, and what is actually my style, I for sure will not be going retail. WWWAYYY to expensive. Like WWWWAAAAAYYYYY!!!!! I found a bunch of stuff with tags still on that were original $50 marked down to like $10!!! WHOAH!!!!! AAAHHHH!!!!

Come on Style School and Art Critique!!! Needless to say, next week is going to be terrifyingly awesome:) I'll probably be writing a lot about it next week.

Ciao for now!!

Stack of clothes I donated... They don't fit!!

Same pile, different chair:P

My tree art... I may have already posted this... Not too sure:P