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.
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
