Tales From The Disabled Crafter - February 2017

So I’ve got to the end of January and finally my craft room is back to some semblance of order apart from still being overcrowded with crafting items that I cannot find home/space for.  I should feel proud as literally after the craft fairs in December it not only have the decimation of the remanence of makes for the craft fair, but everything unsold and the structure of the stand got dumped in there.  But I’m not proud, I knew it would be some recovery for me after the events, and we had a very quiet Christmas too, but I still beat myself up over not achieving more.  So why am I telling you this, well in fact this is not uncommon with any crafter, those that are well, those that run crafting part time alongside other jobs, those that are a house-parent and a crafter and those like me disabled and crafting all set ideals that sometimes we know from the outset are beyond reach and then punish ourselves when we feel we have not done enough. What is enough?  Here lies the problem, crafters/artists have to in a lot of cases create and sell their work, it’s a dual role one that is difficult to balance, you can spend all your time at fairs, marketing on social media, topping up your websites, stocking shelves in shops where you have rented space and therefore neglect the creating side of the creative wheel. Or we flip that round and spend all the time creating (especially if your busy with orders)and neglecting our presence outside of the ‘Crafting Zone’, to future and repeat customers and finding that when we have dropped out of people’s minds the sales do too.  We have to keep that wheel turning and turning smoothly.  Now I admit I am a failure, I am a cheeky fat hamster who looks at the wheel and feels daunted by it. I step on, go for a little spin, get out of breath and exhausted, to then step off and leave it in the corner for a while, achieving very little. Come on hands up all those that have started a new year’s resolution and haven’t maintained it. So what am I doing, I’m creating fits and starts for both the sales and making, this isn’t good I’ve not got my wheel running smoothly, and risk it coming off its frame altogether.  So, I have started a new plan (not a New Year’s Resolution, I suck at those to), to research ‘the wheel’ to make it work for me and keep me running at a pace that I can and then implement and maintain.

Well how on earth do I do that, in truth I’m not yet sure, I have started by buying an A4 diary, and I’m looking at and trying bullet journaling. I’m researching more into social media and the platforms and tools to help make this work for me.  I plan to start a mailing list and engage my followers, with my future and existing customers with direct contact of my makes, well as we know social media doesn’t show all our magic to all our followers so I need them to be able to see the magic I am making.  I’m working on my selling platforms, current and future ones, I have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from me don’t I?  But I can’t do this all in one day, and if I tried I will have pushed my little fat hamster body to exhaustion on the wheel.  So I’m making to-do lists, daily ones (yes even weekends) and there is only a few items a day, but I also add in the other things that may crop up and throw themselves into my day, like an order, *whoopee*.  This is so that when I’ve not completed an item on the list I can possibly see why the day didn’t go to plan,  though, I don’t have as yet a tick box for the cat sleeping across my keyboard therefore I could not type *grins sheepishly* which I think should be added. 

It’s even got me on a new make, a stencil to slot into a diary that gives you tracings to bring alive your bullet journal *go me*. So as I move further into February I am still using the diary, which has to be a first for me.  My planning today is already interrupted with an order, a make which will take me most of this coming week, but I have a stencil for that to add it to my journal, so when I look back I can see that is why the next article for the Professional Crafters Guild took me longer,  *sneeks off to make a coffee while no one looks*.

Catch you soon xx Saz xx

You can purchase my Bullet Journal here on Etsy at http://etsy.me/2leqi1g or you can come and chat to me on my face book page Spratt’s Designs www.facebook.com/sprattsdesigns

Tales From The Disabled Crafter - August 2016

So a few days ago I ventured into the neglected craft room.  In truth it has been a waste land for stock, materials, rubbish and other oddities that just needed to be left quickly whilst I was in hospital.  Craft rooms are lovely and a luxury not every crafter has and I know I’m lucky to have one.  In truth I convinced my husband (I will say he didn’t wince too much in the arm lock) to part with the spare room to give me a craft room.   It really became a need, during the day I am restricted upstairs and when I first started out I started with just the canvas printing which was a ‘clean’ process, so we put the printer in the spare room and run it from there. Now although my canvas printing is popular, it’s not a constant demand and as I said during the day I’m restricted upstairs and needed to keep my hands busy, so I started playing with other crafts, like my diamante work, and hand painted glass.  This in turn also helped me in several ways, I have found ways to keep my productive parts of the days busy and by also creating a mixture of crafts it created temptation for customers to come back and buy other creations allowing me to build customer relationships but also repeat trade.

Now I’m going to try and put into words how much a craft space means to me and means to craft with my conditions.  Now if my body was fully functional, I would be able to work as I used to, I could get up in the morning get ready, set out my crafts, work for a full day and pack away all my gear at the end of the day, sit down with my husband have some dinner chill out and finally go to bed.  My body can no longer work like that, there are days that getting up in the morning becomes a problem, so if my crafts were all packed away, just getting out everything I need could use up my productive part of the day.  Just by having a craft room, full of a variety of accessible crafts allows me to be productive for the limited productive time I have in the day. Now on bad days I also craft from my bed (and I do), having the craft room next door again makes it easier for me to remain productive. 

Well we get to a few days later and my craft room no longer looks like a tornado got loose in there.  Yep I did say a couple of days; it did take me that long. Firstly I have to do things in short bursts and rest in between, but mainly I do not like to part with anything, everything may be of use one day.  I mean I am often left in a situation that I throw something out, and then in the following days it turns out I could have put it to use. Anyone else? Ahh, you see it’s not just me who’s a craft hoarder.  In itself this hoarding leads to storage issues, that many Knicks and Knacks needs homes and those homes have to be accessible for me, and despite many requests my husband tells me we are too poor for me to have an entire crafting house (though sometimes it looks like I’m already there).

I am also a gadget freak, I don’t mean in having the latest snazzy phone or a TV bigger than my house, no I am a gadget freak for craft tools and aids and I have become great at taking something and putting it to use for something else.  You see not wanting to pack away equipment and materials has made me find ways to make this happen.  I purchased from an online auction site a shop display stand that we got heavy duty breaking wheels for and this is my main working bench, it’s perfect for standing height and can just be pulled out into the room or pushed into the corner.  Plus I have an ironing board, well an old one that was going to be thrown out, we removed the cover and mounted a piece on MDF to the top. Why does this excite me so well for me this is brilliant, if I need to stand I or sit I can easily adjust the ironing boards height to suit, it’s been one of the best gadgets for me to craft with. 

I also use lots of ribbon to trim my Illuminated glass blocks, now as I said I don’t like packing things away for the energy spent getting things out and putting away, but in addition I’m useless at remembering the variety of ribbon I have (I’m talking 40mm wide 20mtrs on a roll size and 20+ types), so I never thought I’d get hubby to be putting gutter up in my craft room (yes the type on the outside of your house).  You know what gutter is awesome for holding ribbon spools, much better than hanging it on dowel rods, where its always the middle spool you need and have to take all the others off just to get to that one.  So although currently I have guttering attached to my twin slot shelving, I have plans, mwahaha she laughs rubbing my hands (ok not really evil plans but I thought I’d try).  I noticed that I am running out of shelf space and floor space, yet……the ceiling is underutilised, so I have invested in a couple of bike ceiling pulleys (surprised low cost pulley system), one will be set up to hold dual sections of gutter that will run the length of the ceiling (just think of all that luscious ribbon it will hold).  The second will go over the resting place for my workbench on wheels, and I am currently hunting for an old wooden ladder, which I will overlay with a strong metal mesh, this will then give me a racking system where I can hang my ‘S’ hooks for drying crafts and my hanging mini tin planters than can hold tools, pens, brushes and other crafting tools freeing up much needed space from shelves and of course creating more space for new items, Oh, and shhh, please don’t tell the hubby.

So Crafters out there, are you hoarders? Do you have your own type gadgets?  And for those that know crafters, do we seem insane to you?

Saz

www.spratt-designs.co.uk
www.facebook.com/sprattsprints

Tales From The Disabled Crafter

 By Sarah Spratt of Spratt’s Designs

It’s a bit of an obvious title isn’t it but there is no point in hiding the fact, yes, I’m a crafter.  Oh, you meant the other, the disabled bit, well yeah I’m that too and together they can make a very interesting life for me, and I hope to tell you some of what goes on in my daily life and along the way introduce you to things that have helped or hindered me in the hope that you will find them useful.

Crafting became my work when ill health caused me to be medically retired at the age of forty.  Now I was left not able to work in employment but with a brain still active, I’d like to say fully functioning but I doubt anyone would believe me.  Well I needed to do something, and I have always crafted, so with encouragement what was a hobby making gifts for friends and family was launched to a wider audience.

Currently as I write this, I’m in a Hospital bed in a Specialist Unit in Salford where I have been for the last twelve weeks.  In truth it’s quite an inconvenience as it has taken me away from my crafting, well almost …

I never expected to continue work whilst an inpatient, or for that matter have the hospital actually be good for business.  Now, had my hospital stay been a bit more of a ‘routine’ elective surgery type, where I would have come in, had my operation and then gone home a few days after, I know this experience would never have occurred.  However there is some planning that I had done that could have been relevant for even a short stay.

Many Crafters use social media, and the Internet for business, be it complete sales or just advertising.  Yet we are mainly a sole trader, we are the designer, maker, secretary, accountant, advertising executive, shall I go on?  So when we can’t work we may have no one in place to pick up the pieces, putting ourselves at risk of damaging our business.  It may be as simple as not posting advertising as much and dropping off visibility, to not responding to a potential customer, losing a sale and perhaps your reputation you have worked hard to build.  It can be hard to let people in and be part of your business but it makes sense, you may end up in a situation where you end up in hospital tomorrow.  Myself, I have suffered from ill health for some time, after all it’s being disabled that got me into a crafting business, so I have been in this situation from the outset.  So what can you do?  Well in my case I have few people around me that help me out all the time, but at times like this when I’m in hospital they have stepped up to do more.  I have a good friend (who I actually met through social media), and she keeps an eye on my Facebook, Instagram and Etsy pages, she helps me out in general but has been there even more so all the time I’m in hospital.  We have a wonderful set of neighbours and one family have a spare key to the house and they take in deliveries.  Then there is my husband, not comfortable with my pages but is a second on them in case my friend needs to query anything.  He has processed orders that could be done, also I have taught him remotely how to complete some of my crafts that needed finishing at home,  He has been a great delivery man, bringing in crafts for me to make orders and then packaging them up and shipping them off.  Without them I couldn’t have done the orders I have in the time I’ve been in hospital, in addition they help me maintain my business when at home too.

So as you hear despite being in hospital I am still working.  Now don’t get me wrong there have been a couple of potential orders that would have required me to be at home to make, and which were impossible to remotely train my hubby to do on my behalf.  I found however, being honest with them and admitting I was in hospital meant that although I had to disappoint them I didn’t cause them to be dissatisfied in my service and therefore my business. 
One thing I didn’t expect from being in hospital was to actually grow sales.  But as I sat in my hospital bed finishing the hand painting on my Fairy Tea Light Lanterns and Jam Jars, Nurses and Patients would see what I was creating and then ask me to do them some.  From that they would ask me what else I did, and I could direct them to my website or Facebook page, and sales started to grow. 

As items were finished and waited to be collected others would see them and ask me to do creations for them.  In truth I’ve never been so busy.  Now this put challenges in my path to overcome, how to do the work, I started with taking orders with the plan to do them when I got home and send them out. 
I got a weekend leave and completed a lot of orders, it was then I realised that I couldn’t let them build up, and as I passed my initial discharge deadline I couldn’t offer a date.  So I sat down with Hubby and we worked out a way of him preparing some of my creations, and then the issue arose, how can I work on my designs on the PC I can hardly take my computer in and then if I was able to work on them in the hospital how could hubby access them to put them through the cutter?

Computers and access have come a long way in only a short time and storing and moving documents has become much easier.  It’s a great help to me that Hubby is an IT technician, but for those without that sort of access to hand there is great IT help in high street computer stores, but even the little local independent PC stores can have great knowledge.  Hubby dug out a laptop we inherited a while ago.  The Laptop wasn’t the fastest or newest, but it was more than suitable for what I needed to do.  He loaded on only the graphic programs that I would need.  Also a while back he had invested in a Terabyte (that’s big storage in my language) to run backup’s on a regular basis’s my PC. 

Now let’s stop and talk about Backup’s, if you don’t do it, you should be doing it.  Backing up your PC means if you were to lose the PC and you take it somewhere to be saved and they turn to you and say nothing can be retrieved, you then know that you can buy a new PC and pick up from where your last back up was recorded, without it you may just find yourself rocking and crying in a corner for all that work you have ever saved on your PC, accounts, photos, designs, articles, price lists and more.  Now these days hard drives have come right down in price and it won’t take you long to learn how to back up and you could even run one weekly.  OK Backup discussed.  But how does backup help me? My PC hadn’t died.  It helped because on a device really no bigger than my mobile phone sat a copy of all my work that was on my main PC, this meant that I could plug it into the laptop like you would a USB or CD and access all my documents, awesome. 

Next was the to-and-fro of a design from me creating it to hubby then cutting it, so that he could bring it back for me to unpick, before he brought in a prepped glass block for me to lay the vinyl on.  This was actually easy, I was already using an online storage system called Dropbox (there are others out there) to get designs to customers and printers, so we would fling the design in Dropbox at the hospital, hubby would pick it up at home and cut the vinyl, I could then archive the document off of Dropbox onto the hard drive so as not to use too much storage space on Dropbox.

OK so things are looking good but this meant one more thing I would need Internet access in the hospital.  Well here in Salford I was lucky they had free Wi-Fi access for the patients, it did however get overused at peak times and on occasion I needed something more. Hubby being technical had for a long time been renting (like you would a mobile phone) a Mi-Fi system, this gave us roaming Wi-Fi data on a monthly contract. Now we’ve used this for years, being able to use Facebook, email etc. when out and about, that in turn prevented us using our data up on our phones.  These Dongle devices (as they are called) have also come down in price, and in most places give good connection, so if you want to use a mobile credit card device or PayPal at a craft fair, a stronger connection can make it so much easier. So I was sorted I now had a strong connection to pass my documents back and forth.

So there it was, from my hospital bed and with the help of others I not only didn’t have to put up the closed sign while in hospital, and with still being in after 3 months it could have been fatal to the craft business and reputation I had built, but also I gained business from patients and nurses seeing me crafting from my Hospital Bed.

I’ll leave you with this idea, for those of you that are crafters  that do craft fairs etc.  Some hospitals have stalls in their main atriums every month or so, I remember Liverpool Women’s Hospital having some in their Main Entrance when I used to Teach. Now if I can do business from my hospital bed, I can imagine that booking one of these regular stalls at your local hospital if they run such things could be good business.

I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings; I’ll catch up with you again in another issue.

Saz