Stickers Stickers Stickers

I've entered the world of creating planner stickers! My goal is to add one Sticker Kit to my shop (www.stickimix.etsy.com) every other Saturday starting Nov. 5 (Not Oct 22 like I thought, oops.)

Weekly Sticker Kits (usually 8 pages of stickers) are based on a theme and/or color palette, like this one called "Busy bees":

My theoretical production schedule looks like this:

• Animals in Scarves kit is created Oct 1-15th.
  "Sneak Peek" preview posted on Instagram October 22.
  Sticker kit posted for sale in etsy shop on Nov. 5th
• Winter Bonsai created Oct. 16th-29th.
  Instagram preview Nov. 12.
  Sticker kit posted for sale in etsy shop on Nov. 19th.
• Hot Cocoa & Candy Canes created Oct 30th-Nov 12th.
  Instagram Nov. 21 (*Possible "Black Friday" coupon for pre-orders?)
  Sticker kit posted for sale in etsy shop on Dec. 3

Today my goal was to complete one of the "Background" (or "Full") boxes.
Here's my rabbit in hat and scarf:

Still struggling to loosen up and capture more of a "hand drawn" feel on Photoshop and add some subtle texture to the background.
Something more like these:

FYL #103 Kevin's Guitar Tutorial Website

Have you listened to the latest episode of the Flip Your Life Podcast?
https://flippedlifestyle.com/podcast103/

Very excited that Kevin is not very far along in his online business at all, (just look at his website, you'll see what I mean: www.relaxandlearnguitar.com) so the advice is quite applicable to where we are.

Big overall take-aways for me since I'll eventually be starting tutorial style videos as well:

• "It doesn’t matter how good your lessons are if no one sees them."
•  "Your only mission is to get enough [free] content out there to be found."
• Use one thing everywhere. (Example: Make a video for Youtube, use same video in blog, use same video on social media, etc.)
• In the beginning let content be organically found by researching keyword searches/tags (no point in spending money on paid ads to drive traffic to only one or two products for sale).

In my case, unfortunately, another week has gone by in which I haven't done a lick of work on my eBook. I could sit here and write about regrets, and plans for doing better, but perhaps I should just go work on it now, huh?

Dinner Prep for the Week to Save Time

Meals have been chaotic and unhealthy at best this last week or two. Hoping that a plan and preparation list will get things back on track as well as leave me and Sally with more time in the evenings to work on business things instead of chopping vegetables and washing a pile of dishes every evening.

Vicki mentioned dinners taking up a lot of time as well, so here's a look at what I'm doing in case you want to try something similar. :)
This morning it took me one hour to plan the meals for the week, gather the recipes, and organize the ingredients for the week. I plan to spend another 2 hours preparing marinades, salad dressings, chopping vegetables and packing them up in containers for the week.

Menu:
Sunday
Korean Lettuce Wraps with Asian slaw
and Kimchee

Monday
Garden Salad

Tuesday
Indian Curry with riced cauliflower

Wednesday
Carne Asada Salads

Thursday
Mongolian Chicken Stir Fry
with riced cauliflower

Friday
Garden Salad with grilled chicken

Saturday
Chicken Marsala with roasted rosemary sweet potatoes and steamed carrots


Prep List:
CAULIFLOWER
·       ½ head, riced (Tue)
·       ½ head, riced (Thur)
CABBAGE
·       1 head shredded, Sun
·       ½ head shredded, (Thurs)
 

Time Lapse Drawing Videos

Learning to do time lapse videos in Windows Movie Maker with my weekday one-hour drawings of Pokémon.

Movie Maker is extremely limited in its editing capabilities, but it gets the job done fairly quickly which is a plus!

Recording Everything

I listened to Flip Your Life podcast #100 with guest Pat Flynn. He was talking about how he does a podcast with his son that isn't posted online, but he records it anyway.

Applying to that to my own efforts, I'm finally putting my screen recording software to use. Any time I do a drawing or design on computer, I record it without any sound. I may never use it, but if I needed it, it's nice to know it's there.

Boy, is it a mental trip though! No less than 10 times in a one hour drawing session I thought "Ack! I can't let anyone see that I fumbled around so long drawing this arm!" or "Ugh, I should just start over..."

I think if recording becomes a habit, that anxious perfectionist voice should get quieter over time and some real work can get done without interruption. :)

Listened to Flip Your Life #99

I can't find where Betsy mentioned this one podcast #99, but I know she did. I just listened to it and found it motivational.

I really like the way the Sams' do things. One of these days I want to get involved with their community.

I'm currently working on my Garage Sales Signs text. I probably fuss too much by reading and rereading what I've done (perfectionism and inexperience). Still, its moving in the direction I want. It's ACTING upon SOMETHING.

I'm still not sure about the marketing of this information but feel I need to start by committing the words to paper.

Will somebody give me feedback?

I'm at the point where I want to create an ebook... or at least some kind of product which is digitally transmitted online.  I need to think this over and I'd like your help...



LOU (to self): Q: What do you know that can be packaged into a digital product full of information people might actually purchase?

LOU (to self):  A: Well, my history in billboards goes back to 1975 - forty one years.

LOU (to self): Q: So, what did you learn during those years?

LOU (to self):  A:  I learned about the BEST COLOR COMBINATIONS for legibility and how important it is to keep your message REALLY, REALLY SIMPLE.-- and the reason certain fonts work well while others don't.

LOU (to self):  Q:  Who might be interested in what you know?

LOU (to self):  A:  This might sound funny, but people who hold garage sales might want to know what I know.  If I taught them how to create better signs they might see more people coming to their sales!  I could show them how to do it cheaply.

Or possibly, small business owners who need a little guidance in packaging their businesses or using signs to advertise.

   I know three simple tricks which could guide them in planning and producing better signs and end up directing more people straight to their garage sale.

Feedback?

Yes

It was approved.

The logo will now move into the handpainted sign phase.

Could this be the last logo?

Enthusiasm began to wane... when I 'd worked diligently on a hand lettered logo which was rejected by the client in favor of something I considered much less desirable.  *Sigh* This was almost two weeks ago.

The one I'd focused upon was worked to a pretty high level of "perfection" (or so I thought). It was appreciated -- but not as much as a different one I was hoping would only set my prefered one off as BETTER BY COMPARISON. Isn't that funny? Wow!!

Oh well...

Here's where the design went this week. Any thoughts?

Learning from Mistakes

I thought I'd try creating a group on Facebook for 12 Panel Comics, even though I don't want to open it to the members until the event starts on August 1.

For some reason, Facebook requires you to add at least one person during the creation of the group. A gal in Sacramento, who I've known for the last 15 years or so, had already joined the 12PC email list, and we're friends on Facebook, so I used her as the first member.

Big mistake.

Immediately she invited 5 other people before asking me, some of which, hadn't joined the email list which was supposed to be a prerequisite since I already stated that on the website. The reason I had chosen to make it a prerequisite was that I was thinking of charging a nominal fee to be in the private group in the future.

When I told her this, her opinion was that no one would pay to be in a Facebook group and that I should be selling the templates for comic pages instead.

*sigh*

While I'm sure that's a valid business strategy, it's not the business strategy that I want to pursue, and being told that my plans won't work isn't the greatest feeling when I already battle doubt over my ideas for online income every single day.

In addition to that, I didn't realize that the comic she wants to work on is likely to have mature content since it's about a hired assassin. One of the people she invited to the Facebook group also has 18&up content in his comic. I had mistakenly assumed that everyone would be making family friendly comics like me.

Somewhat ironically, she had started her own Facebook group for artists 2-3 years ago and a huge online drama/fight broke out over the freedom vs censorship of mature content that eventually led to the closing of the group. *groan* Not what I want to deal with in my own groups.

I'm now considering not having any groups at all... the original goal was to build something that was completely self-regulated and to grow my email list from it, not having to manage submissions and argue over what's considered proper content.

Live and learn.