Blog - Page 89 of 108

Throwing a party inside the CraftyBiz Kitchen

Let's get right to the point: The CraftyBiz Kitchen is now open.
You can join us here.

I tried to keep that page short and to the point, but there is so much that I'm excited about that I just had to share some of it here.
Let's do Q+A, shall we?

What's the CraftyBiz Kitchen?

When it started, in July 2010, it was simply a subscription to my CraftyBiz classes. Every class came with recordings, worksheets and post-class chats. As more people joined and started asking for different features, I decided to close it to new members on September 1, so we could experiment together.
Over the next 3 months, I added some things, tried other things and asked the Kitcheners what they wanted at every turn.

They voted and what we have now is something we all really love:

2 hours of classes/month (most of them private, a few classes will be available to the public for $30-$70)
30 minute one-on-one session with me, via Google chat. We talk about your business, prioritize for the next month or just brainstorm product ideas (like Zombie Jesus. Yes)
Weekly chats, in a private (online) room and on Twitter

The best part?

You pay each month and can leave at any time.
Or, if you'd prefer, you can pay for 3 months at once.

(Once you've been in it for 3 months, you have the option of buying a 6 month membership, at the request of some very eager Kitcheners!)

What classes?

This is the part I am most! excited! about!

The CraftyBiz Kitchen allows me to know who, exactly,will be in the classes, so I can shape the content and discussion to benefit you, the individual business crafter.
I've started to work on the outline of the first quarter and am delighted that as I was mapping everything out, it turns out that each step could happen in a real kitchen, as you're planning a party. So that's the metaphor we're going with (but we're also going to spend some time coming up with a metaphor YOU like, for YOUR biz (if you're into that sorta thing)).

January
For starters, everyone who joins will get Right Price + Right People in mid-December, so we're all on the same page when we start in January.

Build your own Kitchen: Building the “home base” for your business, the fist step in creating a thoroughly-you business. We'll look at all the different spokes of your business + learn how to make them cohesively you. This step makes it easier for your Right People to recognize you when they find you.

Stocking the Shelves: Does your online presence (website, etsy shop, etc) answer all of your Right People's questions? Is it easy to navigate? Easy to understand? Before we invite people over, we need to make sure we've got what they need.

February

Planning a Party: We all want more sales, but before you invite the people, let's plan for what kind of party you're throwing. In other words, what your Unique Selling Point? What's the thing that makes your thing awesome?

Putting together the invitation list: In this class, we'll dig into who YOUR Right People are. Who do you hope shows up? What do they want from you?

Who has it helped?

Here are some CBKers who agreed to share their story.

Kristine says, “I launched my crafty business in 2010, and the help that Tara gave in form of classes, one-on-one, and chats was invaluable to getting off the ground. I'd highly recommend that if 2011 will be the year of something new for YOU, consider investing in yourself and join the CraftyBiz Kitchen!”
Joyce started her business after our first IdeaStorming and has since started teaching, succeeded at her first craft show and totally rocked it.
(Also, she sends me emails after classes that say hilarious things like this:

“I got so much from the most recent class!!! SO incredibly informative and helpful! I dub thee Tara Awesomepants! “

There are lots more stories and sillyness, but everything you share in the CBK stays in the CBK. Privacy and mystery and ridiculous passwords. Yes.

But here's the thing: none of this is the CraftyBiz Kitchen.
It's all them. Their hard work. Their application of what we've talked about. Their curiosity and experiments and willingness to try.
I'm just delighted I get to hang out with them while they work on it!

Is this for me?

It depends.
If you're wondering if this is for where you are in your business, the answer is “Probably yes.” I'm working on baking layers (like a cake!) into each of the topics we cover. The general concepts are great for someone just starting their business, but the specifics of how YOU implement them will help even the most advanced crafty business.
For newbies, you'll be building your business as we learn.
For established businesses, you'll be tweaking and improving as we learn.
For everyone in between, it'll be a combination of new-to-you-stuff and oh-I-should-really-look-again-at-that stuff.
Everyone will have the support of me (via one-on-one time) and other crafters (via chat) to ask questions, dig deeper and explore all the gooey layers.

(Side Note: The layers thing is something I am terribly excited about. I plan on playing with the concept (and maybe even actual cake layers) a lot during my sabbatical. You've been warned.)

If you're wondering if this kind of thing is right for you, the answer is “maybe“.

Before you decide, it might help to ask yourself these questions (this is what I ask myself before I buy anything):

How do I intend to use this, actually implement it, to improve my business?

Do I have time to listen to the classes and join in chats (about 4 hours a month)?

Do I enjoy the other things by this person (blog, other classes, etc)? Would I like hanging out with her on a regular basis?

But is this for ME?

Still not sure? Send me an email: vulcan@taraswiger.com

And you know what?

If this isn't for you? Or it isn't for you right now? That's totally cool. I still adore you and your businessy dream and can't wait to hang out with you in the comments.

Sabbatical

I quit my dayjob in July 2009. Since that first day, I have always had a to-do list. Always had deadlines. Always been working.
Oh, I have taken some vacations, but each of those were full-fledged ignore-all-work weeks off.

I have not experimented.

I have not started a work day without a list.

And I love lists and calendars and plans; it's not lists that are the problem.

It's that I've been working in much the same way that I worked in the dayjob. Similar hours, similar goals. Looking at my time in chunks of hours of days, not weeks or seasons.

I'm ready to play with this. To explore. To experiment.

I'm taking a sabbatical.

Not a vacation.
Not away from work.

But a focus on a more inward kind of work. More writing. More plotting. More listening to what wants to be built and building it.

From this Thursday through January 3rd, I'm changing the way I interact online and off, with customers and with ideas, with working and with resting.

What this looks like (for you):

I'll be:

Answering emails once a week (except about something you bought, that gets a reply within 2 days).
Writing for the blog once a week.
Finishing up the IdeaStorming sessions I have left in December, but not scheduling any more until late January.
Taking a break from the SparklePointer emails. They'll recommence on 1/4.

What this looks like (for me):

I'll be:

Experimenting with my relationship to work. What does a day without a to-do list look like? How do I feel when I don't have (self-imposed) deadlines?
Organizing and researching for first quarter classes in the CraftyBiz Kitchen.
Writing mini-books to go with my past classes (I'm turning them into more-complete resources, which will be available in January and February. If you want them at their current price, get them now.)

So what's different?

Really, from your point of view, not a lot. It's mostly internal.

It's really a pulling-back, not a going-away. I'll still be on Twitter (as, just, myself, hanging out). I'll still be sharing the Good Shtuff I find.

But I won't be brunching or launching or promoting anything new. Even though I've had the CraftyBiz Kitchen set to reopen 12/15 (for months!), it's getting very little fanfare.
Tomorrow I'll share a bit about the specific classes for the first quarter of 2011 CraftyBiz Kitchen, but that's it. It's not even officially open and it's already filling up, so I'm comfortable with it.

Thank you

Thank you!

It felt scary to even imagine a world with a sabbatical, let alone say it out loud. But here it is. And I feel great.
Thank you for your support with yesterday's bad news and thank you for making the past year awesome!

Wanna take your own sabbatical? Check out my course with Stacey Trock of FreshStitches: Take a Break (without breaking your biz!)

The recent unpleasantness

My house was broken into last week, while I was in Seattle.

It's the third time.

We're moving. As soon as we can.

But, of course, it's not as simple as that.
It's the feeling unsafe when we're home, worried when we're gone.
It's never feeling really home-y.
It's knowing how much we love this house, how much it symbolized (my first studio! Our first not-apartment!) and how we've lost all that fondness.
It's the wondering if they're watching us or if they know us or if if if.

It's not knowing how we're going to afford everything involved in moving (deposits, rent, getting all the utilities turned on, moving truck).
It's feeling like someone else (some very bad, very violating person) is dictating the timing of this big decision.

I considered not writing about it.
It feels personal. And raw. And scary.
But my goal with this space is to share my own experience in crafting a business. And that means sharing these unpleasant aspects where “personal” comes crashing into “business” and everything feels like it might crack apart.

Also, this impending move is prompting a bit of a sabbatical, which I'll talk more about tomorrow.

Until then, I'd appreciate words of encouragement, but no you-should-have-alreadys, please.

Good Shtuff – PDX Edition

Portland, as it proved in my short 27 hour stay, is overflowing with good shtuff. Here's just a snippet of what I loved.

Yarn

Twisted PDX is a seriously great yarn store. Delightful selection, well lit and open and spacious and smart. Not to mention, they know how to make a girl feel welcome. My trunk show was absolutely wonderful.

People

Part of what made the trunk show so fun was the people who stopped by (knitters + non-knitters alike!). If you're not already following the following on Twitter, what's up with that?
A huge smooshy hug to Chris, Kristine, Sparky + Jenni, Danielle (+ friends!), Dryden, Shannon, Lee, Jolie, and all y'all who's names are escaping me (leave a comment and remind me?)

I'm sure you already suspected this, but Sister Diane of CraftyPod is as sweet and smart as you imagine. This was our second (or third?) time hanging out and every time I walk away bubbling with inspiration and encouragement.

Bridget was another fabulous eating companion. Funny and generous and clever, she introduced me (verbally, not visually) to vagazzling. Yes.

The food!

The food! I only ate 4 meals, but all of them were delightful. Even a vegetarian gluten-free gal like myself found a tasty burger/fry/milkshake combo at Bugerville. The sweet potato chipotle soup at Costello's is just the right kind of warming-spicy. Mother's honors a “Mother of the month” that contributes recipes for the specials. How adorable is that? I go to Thai Peacock every time I'm in Portland, because, well, I keep walking past it.

Now that I'm on to my last 2 days of Seattle (and really, the first time that I'm not working), what Good Shtuff should I not miss?

Help!

Seattlites + Portlanders!

I will be in your fair cities this week (see this if you want to hang out!) and I'd love to sample as much coffee, glutenfree sammiches + yarn shops as possible.

So…what do you suggest?

Leave it in the comments and next Thursday I'll share all the places I went!

Confession: I love Christmas

Oh, it's not fashionable.

It's so much easier to HATE Christmas.

The commericalization.
The consumerism.
The obligations.
The unreachable expectations.

Yes, I can't stand those things.

But?

It's my choice to partake in the consumerism.
It's my choice to fulfill obligations that I don't want to.
It's my choice to spend time with people I want to spend time with, to do the things I'd rather do, to set boundaries.

And when I choose right…

When I choose based on sanity and wholeness and boundaries and sovereignty…
When I respect other people by being honest and kind…
I love the Christmas season.

Oh, I don't care a thing about the actual day.
What matters is the season. The festivity. The fun.

Christmas, when I choose it, is full of

light
joy
tradition
rarely-seen friends
relaxed travel
crafting time
cookies
family
snuggles
movies
hot chocolate

But, here's the catch:

I have to choose.

To choose the spirit of generosity over consumerism.
To choose the peace instead of the obligations.
To choose the ease instead of the struggle.

And it's not easy to choose.

Sometimes it's not all the much fun (especially when others challenge my right to make my own decisions).

But it's still mine to choose.
And it's yours.

Want more survival tips? Check out the (free) Definitive Guide.

Good Shtuff: Thanksgiving Sanity Edition

Good Shtuff is a weekly-ish look at what I’m reading and thinking about. This week, it’s all about tomorrow: Thanksgiving (for Americans) and the many ways the holidays can knock you around.

Don't Lose the sanity!

Family driving you crazy? Feeling the smoosh of peopletrafficmoneyACK? Fabeku's kit is the solution to all that. Seriously. Breathing stuff, sound stuff, being present stuff. I sound like an infomercial, I know…but that's because I LOVE it.
He's @fabeku on Twitter.

Permission to save your sanity

I was feeling a little overwhelmed trying to get everything for my trip while still doing all the usual emailing/twittering/etc and then I remembered this post by Charlie Gilkey. When I break up my tasks into Create, Connect and Consume, I realize that, to make all the yarn for the show, I may just need to immerse myself in the Create stuff and move on to the Connect + Consume stuff a bit later. I don't recommend it long-term, but giving myself permission to slack on my reading + answering has helped ease the ack.
He's @CharlieGilkey.

Money Sanity

Travel, gifts, all the accoutrements of the holiday season are just waiting to pounce on your money sanity. Briana's brilliant Money Balloon is how I'm hanging onto mine. This is a full-fledged, totally unscary tool for looking clearly at your personal money facts + planning for future money awesomeness.
She's @BrianaAldrich

What are you using to hold onto your sanity?

Short week

I woke up this morning feeling flustered. I leave for Seattle in less than two weeks and the list of things I want to do before I leave seems to be growing instead of shrinking.

And Thanksgiving is Thursday.
An entire day spent lounging around with family, without my wheel or computer nearby. I love it, but it's cramping my to do list.

And I still need to tell everyone that I'm going to be in Seattle + Portland.
And plan meet-ups.
And send yarn.

And and and.

And then I took a deep breath, took a sip of tea and remembered: I don't have to do it all.

I can get help with some of it (find out how you can help here).
I can skip some of it (my email is back to “answer only on Monday + Friday” status).
I can build my days the way I want (who says I need to stop spinning to make dinner?).
I can sink into the enjoyment of Thanksgiving, knowing that it will rejuvenate me.

So today, in keeping with what I sent in the SparklePointer, I'm taking the stress out.
I'm organizing my to-do-before Seattle list, baking bread, planning to be offline for the rest of the week, spinning yarn, teaching a class.
I'm doing what I can, when I can, knowing it will all somehow get done (it always does).

How are you taking it easy this week?

Gluten-free Thanksgiving

I know I don't write a lot about baking and food.
But I always mean to.

It's a big part of my life and the opportunity to bake whenever the mood strikes is one of my favoritist parts of being self-employed.

My inspiration in sharing is Shauna's gluten-free Thanksgiving baking extravaganza.
This weekend, I'll be updating this post with my gluten-free contributions to my Thanksgiving dinners (yes, plural). You can follow (in pretty much real-time) on Twitter (me or everyone with the tag #gfbakingchallenge).

The Recipes

Here's what I'll be baking from (with changes noted in each section):

Stuffing
Gingerbread cookies + pie crust
Cornbread casserole

Stuffing

Remember that I mentioned multiple meals? The first one is tomorrow with my family and the second is on the actual Thanksgiving, with Jay's ginormous family.

We have to travel to get to the actual Thanksgiving, so I'll need to make the stuffing that I'm taking at least a day in advance (refridgerate it and then bake it when the turkey comes out of the oven). Since the thing with Jay's family is HUGE, I don't want to take an untested recipe (especially since I'm not entirely sure it will hold up with making it so far in advance), I'm testing the recipe this weekend for my mom's meal (you'll note, I don't mind serving her an untested recipe!).

All that to say: I made the stuffing this morning, but I'll be making it again this Wednesday. We'll see how this turns out.

I followed Shauna's recipe pretty much exactly except:

I started with Bob's Red Mill Wonderful White Bread. It's a mix that is so simple to make. I bake a loaf nearly every week and it's my toast, my sandwich bread, my everything.

I only had one loaf, which was plenty, because I'm the only one that has to be eating this stuffing (at both Thanksgivings, there'll be a big, platter of glutenous, meat-filled stuffing).
To the meat-filled point, I used veggie stock instead of chicken stock.
Since I had less bread, I used slightly less stock (maybe 3/4 of a cup).

This is what it looked like as it went into the fridge. Tomorrow I'll put a picture of here of how it looked baked (and how it tasted).

Gingerbread

I'm using this recipe, only for the gingerbread.

I'm using the dough to make a crust that my mom will fill with her cooked-down-pumpkin + spices mixture tomorrow.

The changes I made it were simply because I don't have the 500 kinds of flours it calls for. Here are my substitutions:

30 g buckwheat flour = 30 g sorghum flour (I had it on hand, I have no idea if it's an appropriate substitution)
30 g teff flour = 30g amranth (I had it, it seemed properly hearty)
50 g sweet rice flour = 50 g brown rice flour

Oh, and I used only 1/4 tsp of pepper instead of 3/4 because, well, I just don't want peppery cookies.

And that's the great thing about this recipe: it made enough for a pie crust (pictures tomorrow!) and enough for a few cookies.

To bake the cookies, I rolled out little balls, rolled them in sugar, baked them until they looked done (I was pressing out the pie crust and lost all sense of time…I might have overbaked them a smidge). Delicious!

Cornbread Casserole

Tomorrow morning I'm making a casserole like my grams used to make: cornbread dough (I'll use this, but she used the jiffy box) + one can creamed corn. Stirred all together and cooked for 30 minutes it is DELICIOUS. Just the right amount of corny-ness, but bready enough that it doesn't feel like a vegetable.

More about how it goes tomorrow.

Got Questions?

Just a quick note to let you know I'll be answering your questions, celebrating your successes and just generally hanging out for about an hour on Twitter at Noon ET today.

Ask your questions and get to know other crafters + business-minded by putting #craftybiz in your tweet and following along here. If you're new to Twitter this is a great way to meet people and get the hang of it.

See you there!

Previous 1 … 87 88 89 90 91 … 108 Next