Want to listen instead of reading?
Wednesday.
Today also started with tea and puppy snuggles. Then I ran a few errands to the post office and Michaels. I signed up to participate in a quilt block swap and I mailed off my pieces this morning. I signed up because I wanted a reason to sew something just for fun and not for work. But it turned out to land right in a couple of busy weeks and it stressed me out a little bit. So I am really glad they are done and out the door. I’m not normally a quilter but I am going to use my swap blocks to make some storage “baskets” for my studio and these thread spool blocks will be really cute in photos of my workspace.
I also had to fetch some adhesive because my mini skein winder that I use to make craft kits for my Etsy shop broke a piece last week. I ordered a new laser cut part that got here yesterday but I needed some acrylic adhesive to put it back together. Hopefully that will be a quick fix and the glue will cure so I can get some kits made at the end of this week.
Meetings.
Being a full time artist means wearing many hats and doing many jobs. I have a few website and graphic design clients that I do freelance work for periodically. I update websites, design newsletters, and do graphic design for a local non-profit. Today I’ve got two meetings to talk about some projects; a quick website update and a bigger annual report project. So I spent a little time this morning reviewing some of the copy for that design job so I have a list of questions ready for that meeting.
In the minutes before and after meetings I have been researching a new email service for sending my newsletters. I was using SendGrid but I have realized that when you are on their free tier plan that you are on the same mail servers as eleventy-one spammers who sign up for free accounts and send buckets of spam. So that server is constantly being blacklisted and that means I get blacklisted along with everyone else. So my last newsletter actually arrived in like half of the inboxes it was supposed to. My mom couldn’t even get it! I reached out to their customer support, but they basically shrugged and said there was nothing they could do. Using the free plan was one of the ways I was trying to keep my business expenses low, but I think this has become a necessary expense. So I’m looking now to upgrade it to a paid plan which hopefully means a better server reputation and my emails actually getting to the people who asked to be subscribed.
Class planning.
One of my goals for this year was to add a new online class to my website or Skillshare every month. So I started writing notes for April’s class today while I was between meetings. This one is for Skillshare and it’s going to be about one of my favorite fabric design tools. I am still learning who my Skillshare audience is because I have only posted 3 classes there so far. At this point, my bookbinding with embroidery class seems to be the most popular. So I am going to make sure that this new class is focused on surface design techniques that you can use for fabric, but also for paper crafts like book covers and endpapers. That will be a fun new twist for me when I am planning this one. I start planning by first figuring out what the skill/technique is that I want you to have learned by the end of class and then I brainstorm a list of lessons to get you there. This class is based on a project I have taught in my in-person classes for years, so it’s pretty easy to plan. I’m adding a couple of things that were hard to do in an in-person class but should work really well as an on-demand one.
I want to have some “what can you do with this technique” samples to show at the end of the class, so I took a few minutes to design something, upload to Spoonflower, and order a swatch of metallic wallpaper. I know it will take a week or so to get here so I need to plan ahead so I can make a book out of it before I film that lesson for the class. There’s a tiny sneak peek.
Post Office run
My local post office is just a block from my house and I have a class kit to mail off today, so I made another run over there. It’s a nice day for a walk.
Start dinner & clean up
A fabulous part of working from home is that when I want to make things like wild rice that needs to simmer for an hour, I can do that and then go back to work. I sent off a few more emails answering some class questions and asking a email platform I am considering about migrating from my current service and how to make that as simple as possible.
My studio is looking like something exploded in it, so it’s time to put on some music and do a deep clean. I just finished up a couple of big projects (launching a new online class, quilt blocks) so there are samples and bits and pieces everywhere because I was working to some deadlines. Time to put that away!