Yellow legal pads are my go-to business tool. They’re cheap and easy to find – I buy them in 3-packs at the office supply store. And they’re immediate. With no software to learn and no program to load, nothing could be simpler. Perhaps I love lined paper because I started college in 1993. I went…
Archives for September 2015
Book Review: My Felt Doll by Shelly Down
When I first began to explore creating and selling PDF sewing patterns for softies and dolls I did some research to see if the idea was actually viable. Would people buy a digital doll pattern? And if they did, what should it include, how should it be photographed and described, and how should it be…
Podcast Episode #57: Etsy
Today on the While She Naps podcast we’re talking about Etsy with my guests Stephanie Schacht and Heather Jassy. This episode is a little bit different from past episodes of the podcast. I’ve been an Etsy seller since July of 2005 when Etsy was still in it’s infancy. Over the past 10 years, I’ve ridden…
3 Excellent Newsletters
I love newsletters. Writing a newsletter is the best thing I do for my business each week. It’s fun, it builds community, it brings me new freelance work, and it drives sales more effectively than all the social media updates I do combined. I’ve really enjoyed helping other small creative businesses develop their own email…
L’Shanah Tova (Happy New Year)
Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We’re dipping apples in honey for a sweet new year, eating round challah, and reflecting on the year that’s gone by and the year that’s now beginning. L’Shanah Tovah.
Craftsy Responds: An Open Letter from CEO John Levisay
Yesterday afternoon I got an email from John Levisay, the CEO of Craftsy. He was positive and upbeat. He’s read the post and all of your comments and he’s written an open letter to us. I admire a company that listens and is willing to engage openly in conversation. Here’s John: Recently, there have been…
Craftsy Potentially to Launch Fabric and Yarn Lines
*Edit 9/11/15: CEO of Craftsy, John Levisay, wrote an open letter in response to this post. You can find that here. On June 17 Craftsy’s parent company, Sympoz, Inc., registered two new trademarks that appear to be for their own fabric and yarn lines. The fabric line will be called Boundless Fabrics and the yarn…
Podcast Episode #56: Geninne Zlatkis
On today’s episode of the While She Naps podcast we’re talking about art and illustration with my guest, Geninne Zlatkis. Geninne is an artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband Manolo, their two sons and a rescue puppy named Zorro. She was born in New York, but shortly after her parents began…
Awesome Handmade Toys: Rag Dolls
Pumpkin was my very special doll when I was six or so. She had red hair that I’d washed and played with so much it was matted. Her face was plastic, but she had a cloth body and a dress you could take on and off. She was my favorite. I still love dolls and…
Pattern in Progress
I’m working on a new pattern for a little owl. This will actually be my first print pattern! It’ll be a two-sided card and should be ready in a few months. I wanted this owl to be a project you could make in an hour and hold in the palm of your hand – a…