And That’s….the Truth

Well I have decided to set up a new website on my hostgator account. I’m setting up a website, not a blog. I think I have enough blogs. I have seven. The reason why I’m going to set up a website is because I need to start showcasing and promoting my home crafting business. I used to have a blog to do this, but found that I really wasn’t getting a lot of sales through that route. But I think if I set up a professional website for this adventure, people might take me a little more seriously. I need to get this venture up and off the ground and I honestly do think this is a step in the right direction.

Well I finally decided to try to get out of my rut. Instead of spending my days on the computer looking up it degrees and the possibility of changing careers I spent most of the last couple of days looking up knitted afghan patterns. I found one that I really liked and starting knitting once again. Honestly this has changed my mood dramatically. I really do enjoy knitting and if it’s a pattern that I can really get in to it does help me relax. Too bad I can’t make any serious money doing this type of thing as I would if I had an it degree but at this point I don’t really care about the money. So my mood since the last time I posted is a bit better. So life is looking up once again and the days don’t seem quite so boring to me any longer.

So I’ve been doing quite a bit of work on my home crafting business. Not only have I been doing quite a bit of crafting but I have also set up a new website (it’s still in progress) and have been testing out a document management system as well. Things are starting to look up with. My ideal goal is to be able to do this full time and make a little extra income along way. If I keep going the way I’ve been going lately I really do think this dream will eventually come to life.

So a little over a year ago I began a small crafting home business. I sold a few pieces of jewelry and sold a couple of quilts but that was about it. Then I got discouraged and kind of gave up on the entire thing. Well I’m back at it with a vengeance. I have started purchasing promotional items in order to get my name out there and I have started a new website for advertising. I’m really going to give this my all this time and hopefully I can get this thing up and running.

One of i use provillus
my kids favorite things to do is make crafts. Buy them construction paper, pens, markers, glue and crayons and they are set for life. Well over the weekend they both heard me on the phone with my neighbor and we were discussing her son’s upcoming 16th birthday. Well the two kids got so excited you would have sworn it was their own birthday. So over the weekend they got out their papers and supplies and made my neighbor’s boy a birthday card. Then today after school we delivered the card.

Any excuse to create crafts. Their father’s birthday is this Saturday so guess what their doing today??

I don’t know if you all remember, but last year I attempted to get a small home crafting business up and running. Well to say that this didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it to, would be a mild understatement. So I kind of got discouraged and haven’t really done very much with it at all. I did advertise a bit and even purchased some promotional pens to see if I couldn’t drum up some business. But I really wasn’t very successful in my efforts. Even though I don’t do a whole lot of crafts right now, I do plan on getting back into it at a later date. Maybe when my motivation returns, I may have better success at getting this business up and running.

The other day I was talking to a professional jewelry maker about some of the reasons why I am not having very good luck when trying to sell my handcrafted jewelry. One area of concern seems to be that I am not taking very good pictures of all the items that I have for sale. I think the reason for this is because I have a pretty crappy camera right now. So I’m thinking about investing a little bit of money into a Canon camera. I really do think that if I could take better pictures of my jewelry, I could probably have more sales. There are a few other things I’m going to try as well, but buying a new camera is definitely on my to do list. Who knows, maybe Santa may come through for me this year.

As you all know about a year ago I starting setting up a home crafting business. I have set up a website and blog, I have done a lot of word of mouth advertising (free) and I have even tried selling my stuff on Etsy. Well I have to say that although I’m really not seeing the business that I would like to be, I have been doing a little bit of business. So to kick up my advertising efforts, I have been considering purchasing some promotional items. I have thought about purchasing some magnets, postcards and business cards. I realize that for any business to become a success you need to get the word out of your existence. And I really think that by using promotional items, I could get the word out much more quickly. And the more people that know about my business, possibly the more sales I could look forward to.

This coming weekend one of my friends is holding a yard sale at her house and has invited me to come down with some of my handcrafted jewelry and try to sell them. For a yard sale like this, I really wish I could have some marketing pens to advertise my crafting business as well as my website. But since I don’t have any of these promotional tools on hand, I guess I’ll have to let my work speak for itself. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I have a ton of sales and sell everything I have.

Over the past few months I have discovered that running a small home business is not as easy as I thought it would be. I assumed by setting up a website and blog that I would have tons of visitors coming to my site and begging for my products. This has not happened. So I have decided to try something different. I’m going to order some personalized pens and start handing them out to everyone I know. Maybe this will get the word out and hopefully generate more sales for me. I’ll let you all know how I make out in this advertising adventure.