The clothes make the person.

To keep in the mood for working your own business the best thing to remember that to be the best you need to wear the best and your best is your uniform. It can be a button up shirt and khaki bottoms or it can be blue jeans and a t-shirt. But what might the shirts say about you or your business? When you go into any store you notice that even in grocery stores you will find the employees wearing certain colors and the store's name on their shirts. It's the set uniform. If those employees go out for lunch you can bet they won't change before they leave the store but wherever they go whether to pay the bills or grab a bite to eat they are a walking billboard for the company and it will remind someone to go to that store to look for what they need to find or even just go by there to pick up something.
The clothes do make you a success. I can't trust someone trying to sell me anything if they don't have a shirt advertising who they work for. It's hard to know if they are legit or not. Jason has shirts for both his company. I had one for the company that I work on with him but he had a sales rep. that went out to do sales and I gave her my shirt. As a graphics designer I'm rarely out in the field like a sales rep. But for my company I have t-shirts with my logo on the front and website information in huge logo form on the back. People do get interested in what your wearing when they are waiting any where and sometimes conversations get started.
Okay so some of you are saying I can't afford to go out and pay another company to create shirts for my company. I just don't have it in the budget. I've got a solution for you. As long as you have a good printer and every small business needs a good reliable printer. Get yourself some Avery fabric transfers, they can be found at Michael's, Joann's fabric, walmart, k-mart and Hobby Lobby. Depending on the shirt color for white or beige go with Light fabric transfers all other colors go with dark fabric transfers. Make sure that you have your logo that you want to wear on your computer. Follow the instructions for the fabric transfer but don't forget to tell the computer when you have everything set up on Avery's website to fill page in the print section. Also it's best to tell the printing section that it's photo paper. (If you don't do this you will get frustrated with paper jams.)
Print these out and iron onto your shirts following the directions. Too long under the iron your logo will smear. And there you go, Bob's your uncle. Your done. Pretty simple you control how many you want and if you want to save some transfers for later shirt printings.

Is my product good enough?

Last Saturday we talked about upcycling. In all honesty upcycle is nothing new it just recycling the way they did before the 70's. What is that saying from Bob the Builder? Reduce, reuse, recycle. That's basically the ins and out's of upcycling.
You can upcycle shirts into scarves, necklaces, braclets and many many more. Upcycling teaches you new ways to create new products, reuse what you have. Take something old and make it entirely new. A friend of mine posted about the new year and the blanket with sleeves. That's un upcycle product. The snuggy, cuddleuppets, stompeez, that's taking something old and turning it into something new. Of course we all know anything you upcycle and gear it towards children you either have and instant hit or an instant bomb.
So how do you know if what you upcycle is gonna be popular with kids? You love it right? Yeah what you love that's not to say that someone else will detest it. Do you have kids that are school age? Do you have relatives that you are close to with school aged children. Ask to come to the class for a show and tell project when you have a product for children. That way you will know right off the bat what you need to change to make your product better.

Keeping the Faith

So Saturday our show was about keeping the faith. The faith in yourself and the faith in your business. You've got to have it it you truely plan to succeed. Friday night was a night for me that ended very late. For the most part Jason wrote the script and I worked in my kitchen on the charms for the ladies' faith bracelets. Due to the clay that I used it had to be baked slowly for 2 hours. So while Jason and I skyped to discuss what all would be going into the script and what we felt was important to discuss for the show on Saturday I rolled out the silver clay, used my clay cutter to make the flowers and then scooped the clay off the counter where it got stuck. It was an exhausting Friday night and considering I needed to test how the screen press would need to work that I built myself  for the t-shirts my night didn't end until late.
I was not about to try to put bracelets together so late. It would be best to do that in the morning. And well as we know Saturday morning.has come and with it came not hearing the alarm. I was hoping to get up at 8:30 but got up at about 9:30. Time for another crunch. Worked on how the bracelets should be put together, the type of wire to use, etc. etc. Once that was figured out and the first bracelet created, it was time to get the pictures together so that we can sell the survival bracelets that I created several weeks ago, the new women's bracelet and the t-shirts.
I can't believe that we managed to get the pictures created and posted and then after the show Jason put together the section of the website where all the products would be sold. I really am surprised that we managed to get everything done today. But we did it. Another day another show in the books.

So on Saturday's show titled Getting your business off the ground we talked about a form of branding yourself that was inexpensive using clear pens and a pin that I saw on pinterest. So here is the breakdown on the pens and how to create it using your information or like us, even your pictures.
The pens that we used for the Something Building brand is R.S.V.P. by Pentel, a nice clear pen that can easily be taken apart add your paper and then put back together with no problems. The pens cost us $9.49 for a pack of 12. As an e-publisher I'm pretty good with photoshop but if photoshop is not something that you can afford you can do a google search and find free versions of photoshop knock off's that work just as well. And if you have a regular color printer that works just fine. You don't need to have anything super expensive or mind blowing out of this world for a printer, just make sure that you don't have any jumps or skips when you print. When I measured out the inside of the clear pens I used cm's and roughly got 8 cm's wide and 2 cm's in height.
When you create your page to be that size in photoshop or even the photoshop knock off it makes it easy to go wild with creating how you want your information displayed regarding your business and yes if you prefer to have your face in your pen have at it! It's not hard at all. From there print it out and cut, roll the paper with a round chop stick or a super small pencil, this will make it easier to add the rolled paper right to the tube and put the pen back together. And to prove how easy it really was here is the proof. And it only took less then an hour to "fix up" all 12 of the pens that I purchased at office depot.

And as you can see I have added our picture from our radio show and somethingbuilding.com web adress.

Entrepreneur Evaluation

So today on the radio we talked about evaluating yourself as an entrepreneur. It's always best to evaluate where you stand for the simple fact that you can eleminate time wasters and find where to strengthen your business. For those who catch the show but did happen upon this blog, check out the show. We were live and yes I did have a blunder but no big deal for me, I love to laugh at my mistakes and own my mistakes proudly cause it's another lesson learned. www.blogtalkradio.com/somethingbuilding

Here's your evaluation for your small business!

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1nolifQjMkcZ0NzSjZhNGRYV2M

Fall crafts to make the kids happy

So it's fall and halloween is about a week and a half away. Little ones are begining to become excited. So I figured I would take time out of my busy schedule of juggling 3 jobs to do a craft for my youngest daughters' class. It's time to create a pumpkin for each child to enjoy of their very own. Here's my step by step instrauctions. Enjoy!



This is the pumpkin's humble beginings!

I had the mixing bowl, scissors, masking tape, the water to mix my paper mache mix, (which I purchased at Michael's craft store to save me some time with messing up how to mix the stuff from scratch) string, a balloon and last but not least what happens to be missing in the picture a paper towel roll.

 

This is the only time that you will use your masking tape. To tape a base together for your balloon. You don't need to tape the base to the balloon because your mache solution will hold the base to your balloon very well.

I cut the paper towel roll down to create the stem for the pumpkin. I mean what pumpkin doesn't have a stem that little ones don't make a bee line for in the pumpkin patch? Here is the time that you just go to town covering your balloon. And I recommend that you give it at least 3 layers cause when you pop the balloon you have a lot of stability after your re-inforcement is removed. And it's okay to go all around the base cause this is suppose to be a pumpkin so it should stand up when kids put them on the table or floor of their chooseing.

Yes, here I did cover the entire thing and left no place for the candy to go in, but there is a method to my mind! Place your pumpkin's in front of a fan. I recommend this because as thick as these things are it will take a week or more to dry them. In front of a box fan it takes only a day to dry them.

Cut the top of the stem and here, I placed a string around the bolloon tie off and popped the balloon. I used the string to remove the balloon. Made it easier. Now that I have the empty cavity in the pumpkin I took this opportunity to fill the pumpkin with goodies. For these balloons I filled them with lots of candy, 2 different types of books and small boxes of stickers, a pencil, flashing ring and lots of little bottles of bubbles.

The string I had to make it thicker I braided it. I poked holes in the side of the stems and ran the string through to ad a handle and then I triple knoted the ends so that the handles won't come out cause we all know that kids like to swing things. And this is why it's so important to make sure that you have at least 3 layers or more on the balloons. From there I sealed the top of the stem with what I had left over from my mache mix.

This is what you should have before you paint your pumpkin. I chose regular colors for my pumpkin and even painted the stem brown and the handle green, like a vine. The paint didn't take that long to dry at all. I had a blast creating 10 pumpkins, 7 for my daughters' class and the rest for a select few neighbors and friends. If I made for everyone I would still be working on this project in my kitchen.

Getting your mind and body fit for work

As I have mentioned on the radio show I used to be a girl over 200 pounds. Today I showed up at the gym. Hadn't been there in months and yes I'm still under 200 pounds, but today I needed extra energy to work and that only comes from exercise. Some of you might say how on earth can you get energy when your tired from working out? Well I usually stay at the gym for 2 hours. I always go in and walk the track for 30-45 minutes. Afterwards I head to the weight room and work my arms, thighs and stomach. I do different exercises throughout the week when I am at the gym and try not to do the same thing every single day. After that I hit the bike for an hour. At 9 am I'm a little tired when I head home to work in my office for my job but by the time I do get home I have a lot more energy to work. My mind is refreshed because I've spend the entire time listening to my Freddie Mercury and Queen music and thinking. Thinking about how to make something better and how to best stay out of the box.
I'm a firm believer if I can find time to get to the gym I'm there and it's got to be in the morning. If you work from home like I do you know there are a lot of things in your home that are so demanding and family is the worst especially if you home school your children. But the gym is my secret getaway. I feel like it's my dirty little secret because I don't have children knocking on the office door or a mother in law demanding all the errands that you have to go run for her. And will work get done, not so much. But my dirty little secret that I'm happy about getting time for myself helps to recharge me. I can face anything when I face my body first.
So just remember to stay healthy in your job stay healthy with your body too. Even if you can only squeeze in an afternoon walk or possibly take the family for hike as a routine. If you join the YMCA they have child care and if you have teenagers they can swim, practice tennis, racket ball and all other sorts of fun stuff. It's really worth the money.