All right stop, collaborate and listen.

Note to self:  Don't read Frankie magazine before bed ever again.  Until the next time you do.

It's not a great start to the new week when you haven't slept at all and only managed around four hours the night before.  But this is something that I experience more often than not.  It's exhausting, obviously, and it's extremely disruptive to life.  But I try to make the best of it, because it's in this restlessness that I have time to think (too much time!) about what I want for Marmalade, and what I need to do to achieve it.

  
Here is what kept me awake last night:

It all started with Frankie.  I love/hate this magazine.  I was flipping through my May/June issue, alternating between oohing and awwing at the many talented creatives from various industries and as usual cursing myself for not being as good as them.  I got into bed and turned out my light but my eyes wouldn't close.  Ideas started buzzing through my brain.  The new website I want to design; I should get onto that.  I can see it in my head, and I love it.  It's exactly what it should have been all this time.  But what good is a shiny new website with a shiny new look without shiny new designs?  I should get onto that too. They can't remain a collection of notes and thumbnail sketches.  Duh, it's much easier to sell a product that exists, stupid. 

What else?  Oh yeah, there are of course the supplies I bought months ago to begin making jewellery.  Why in the frilly heck do I think of designs for these at 4 a.m?  Just lucky I guess.  Wall art; my ideas keep changing for this.  Do I want to sell them with frames or just as posters?  Is it even worthwhile going ahead with both the jewellery and the wall art or should I just focus for the moment on invitations?

Then I start wondering if and when I'll get around to opening an Etsy shop,  purchase a new back up printer/scanner, or become more active with my marketing.  

It's enough to lose sleep over...oh wait, I already have.

So it's about 8 a.m. on a Monday and my brain is already foggy, the excitement of all the ideas I want to implement is draining along with my energy and hand/eye coordination.  Awesome start to the week.  I may have to have a "business nap."

Deb.

Episode IV: A New Blog

The last three weeks have been a mixed bag of frustration, anger, crappy designs and small victories.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew by removing every single product from my e-store, Marmalade Event Stationery with grand plans of updating everything with a fresh new look.  In my mind this was going to be a piece of cake.  Designs would flow and the site would be updated every day with glorious new stationery, wall art and jewellery that would have customers placing mega orders.  But now I have no products at all and to add to the fun times my server is down today.  Great for business!

I have lots of design ideas, that's not the problem.  Sometimes what ends up before you on the screen looks nothing like what you picture in your head.  A lot of times it's just plain awful and needs to be shelved.  A swing and a miss.  Then there are the rare gems that take you by surprise and what you arrive at is nothing like you imagined, instead it's so much better than your original idea.  A home run!  I haven't had many of these in recent weeks and it is disheartening.  

Nobody aspires to be average or mediocre.  We want to leave behind something in this world that says we were here and just look at what we achieved.   I'll keep on persevering because I have big dreams for this business and I know where I want it to go.  I just need to get things back on course.

And of course not do anything stupid like empty a website of every product.


May the font be with you.

Deb