I think most of us are beyond the world of Rolodex, but there is something nice about having all the physical contact info at your finger tips. When I go to craft fairs, craft shops, meet random people, I pick up their post cards, fliers, and business cards. While I always say, “Oh yeah, I’ll get back to you about x,y,z when I get back home,” without a designated home for all that paper, it usually gets shuffled into a drawer, or even worse, the recycling bin because I’ve forgotten what it was all about in the first place.

Crafty Business: All the ins and outs of running a small, creative one woman business. In the last Crafty Business post, I talked to Kristy Hall about making progress and how feeling like you’ve done “enough” can be elusive. I mentioned my progress report sheet and linked to the pdf. Today I’m going to tell [...]

This week I commented on using progress reports on Twitter and Kirsty Hall made a few remarks that sparked my curiosity. She had a lot of great things to say on the topic of feeling a sense of accomplishment as a self employed creative person and I thought I would share our conversion with you for today’s Crafty Business Post. She gives a lot of great references and resources for running a creative online business and I think you will enjoy it.Make sure to check out her website which is completely packed with great articles on being a dynamo online.

Are you interested in being a part of Craft Leftovers Monthly or sharing your work on the blog? Well, I just spruced up the contributor page with all the details. Learn about upcoming themes, deadlines, compensation and all that other fun stuff.

I wanted to share with you a few of the great projects in the July issue of Craft Leftovers Monthly. I know you will just love them and it’s quite the deal: just $9 for 8 patterns + 1 recipe for a frozen delight + an interview with Lee Meredith + an article on dealing with scraps in my studio + a few of my favorite online tutorials and patterns + a crafty wordfind.

Last week I talked about what the zine contains, Monday covered how I come up with content each month. And today I’m going to go over the nuts and bolts of how these ideas make their way onto the printed page and get to your mailbox. Writing and Editing After I have all my lists, [...]

Last week I showed you the content concepts and the general ideas behind Craft Leftovers Monthly–recycled, ad free, paid guests, patterns, goofy articles, illustrations and photos. Today I’m sharing with you how general ideas become specific patterns and articles. How does random inspiration from the blogs I read and doodles in my sketchbook become a 36 page zine each and every month?

Each time I’m wrapping up Craft Leftovers Monthly, I’m pleasantly surprised to realize, “Hey, this is my job.” Thanks so much for making this possible by subscribing and letting me visit your mailbox each month. I want to share with you what Craft Leftovers Monthly is all about and how it comes together each month.

It’s been an exciting week of imposing more order on what has been a pretty disorderly existence. For instance I realized that other than Craft Leftovers Monthly, I have not added a new thing to the shop in over 2 months. Yikes! No wonder sales are down, that among many other reasons–fewer posts, less creative [...]

Back in February I posted about how I was saying “maybe” to everything as a way to retrain that unfortunate “yes” reflex. I had some really good points, especially about how when I over commit I’m not doing anyone a favor. If I’m so over booked, I can’t follow through. After saying “maybe” and a [...]