Happy Daylight-Savings Monday everyone! (insert collective sigh re: morning darkness)
And welcome to all new readers! You can find out more about me and this blog by clicking the page links at the top.
This weekend Ben and I took a quick mini-trip to Michigan to visit his mom, and it was great to relax and spend some time away from the grind of the city and our usual routine. For the first time in FOUR MONTHS I didn't bring any yarn or knitting with me--since I've been seriously neglecting my inner bookworm I decided to bring a few books instead. At the library last week I came across How to Sell Your Crafts Online and Social Media 101, which are both amazing resources for mastering social media and building a craft empire (two of my current personal goals, muahaha), and after devouring them over the weekend I feel like I just came away from a private professional development seminar.
I've written this blog on a casual and sporadic basis since 2009 woahhhh, mainly as a way to update my mom and grandma on my goings-on and to share useful links and recipes I came across. For a long time I never even told the people in my real life about it because I'm pretty introverted and private. Now that I'm attempting to start an indie craft biz however, I think it's time to take things to the next level and really use this space to develop a community and grow my "brand." (See, I can sound like I know what I'm doing!)
The first steps I've taken are to add a couple subscription options over on the right side. You can now subscribe easily via email or the reader of your choice to stay updated on my latest posts. (If you have subscribed via either way, please let me know if it's working!!) Also note the cute new social media icons that I figured out how to add!
I am also going to start posting on a regular schedule, starting with MWF and maybe an occasional weekend post. Maybe someday I'll be able to post every single day, but I'm going to start with baby steps. I'm planning to share a lot more sewing, painting, and knitting tutorials, more peeks into my life, and my favorite links and sites across the web, in addition to the occasional shop update. I'm also going to clean up my tagging system so it's easier to find old posts. The current state of my tags (see "inside my mind" cloud on the sidebar) is pretty messy and abysmal. Ugh.
And because no blog post is complete without a few pictures, here's what's been happening lately:
I finally made a scarf for myself!!! Using my favorite yarn (Cozy Wool from Michael's, it is so soft) and the fun and fast arm-knitting technique that seems to be really popular right now.
I've been using up my yarn stash by making adorable and happy pom poms! I'm thinking of posting a pom pom garland tutorial and selling a few garlands in my shop for around $14. Would anyone be interested in the tutorial or in purchasing a garland??
Since I now officially own my car, it got a name change too after nine years. Bye bye vanity plates, hello random numbers. So if anyone has been itching to name their license plates VLUGTJE, it is now available! (This is a picture of my old plates. Hope I'm not breaching any online safety rule by posting a pic of my car...)
Thanks for bearing with me on this long brain-dump post, and thanks to Lindsey for pushing me to get serious! I'm really excited to see how far I can push myself this year.
Is there anything in particular you'd like to see more of here?