It has been so busy and the lead up to Christmas is fun and exciting. I have been very pre-occupied with adapting the business side of things that I have neglected my blog updates.

I have decided to widen my market  to a general gift store. I love finding new ideas and trying out new crafts. Friend's became aware of my baby bouquets and then requested other gifts for people of different ages and occasions. I created some fun edible boxes and bouquets. I have had so much fun doing it, that I expanded. I am spending far more money at this stage creating and coming up with new ideas rather than making money, however as it has been so long since I have had a hobby that I love so much I am just going to keep going and see where it takes me. I do have my concerns, but I try to squash them as soon as they arise.

So I have been busy creating a new website, new business stationary etc and new creations. I am amazed I can do all of this while maintaining a full-time job and stay sane as a single mother too. My time with my daughter is never interupted and I always start my hobby when bedtime stories and bathtime etc has been done. My housework has gone down the drain and I stick to the bare minimum for my sanity as I love organisation and order.

Please take a look at my new edible creations I have come up with so far. I have started advertising on free business listing sites and doing as much marketting that I know of on a limited budget as well. My newest venture that I must concentrate on is my entry into the Semaphore Street Fair.

It is my first ever public sale effort and I am both scared and excited at the same time. I will be able to show my products off and gain valuable feedback from passersby. Of course I will post pictures and let you know how it all pans out. I am going ahead with it with a positive state of mind and I will feel the fear but do it anyway.

Until next time,

Ciao for now.

Please feel free to copy this pillow box template and resize to your choosing.

A suggestion would be to copy the template onto the back of some decorative paper.

I have copied this template lightly onto velum paper and they have made really great gift boxes for jewellery, money etc.

The story so far...

My business is under one month old. I have managed to get it up to website stage, create my baby gift items ready for sale and all other aspects of start up. Now What??? I need to get people aware of the product so firstly I wrote to all my friends and advised them to take a look and then pass on the details through to everybody that they know. This went well and I received great feedback. To date 10 items have sold and now I have hit a bit of a slump.

I know absolutely nothing about starting my own business. Everything I have learned I have learned through the internet, business advice sites and so on. I am naturally craft minded so the creative side of the business is so much fun for me. Marketting though. Are you for real? Where do I start? 

Correct me if I am wrong (please), but logically to me I am to start from the inside out. I should get it known locally and then spread out. Of course, that is in hindsight. I didn't quite do it that way. After making it known to those I know, I jumped straight into the internet search engine world. Again totally alien to me. How in the world can I get my site known amongst billions of sites listed. So far I have listed it with as many search engines as time will allow me and I have listed my site in ADSENSE with ninemsn. So far not a great deal of business has been gained using this method.

I work full time and time is quite precious to me, but my desire to be my own boss and be able to pick my daughter up from school far outweighs the worry of where I am going to find this thing called time. I don't start anything at home until my daughter is in bed and from there I bust my @*#% until it is also time for me to retire.

As I love doing crafty things, working at night isn't as bad as I am making out. I love it and the thought of my goal keeps me going. I will continually drop back in to keep the progress posts alive. Feedback would be highly regarded.

I will also leave posts of all the great things I find on the internet. My main topics will be craft, arts, business etc. Of course as I am not sure what I am doing, the whole direction of my blog may take on a course of it's own. One trip that I am happy to take in the quest for further business knowledge.

To all those business starters like myself Good Luck and wishing you all the best. If you have a story of your own feel free to post it to me. I'd love to learn from people's mistakes and successes.

I will leave you for now with a little taste of blogs to come. Please take a look at my DIY section where I will post craft ideas that I love.

Until I post again, Regards

Lisa XXX