all things girls can tell

hopping away

sometimes it's easy to get distracted by all of the side effects - i accidentally get caught up in why views are down or there haven't been as many followers or why is this selling and that just sits there. and that's when i try to stand up, pay less attention and get back to work.

it's so easy to let all the little "measures of success" totally cripple you. or at least me. i forget one of my favorite things to remember: work makes work. the best thing i can do is to make myself hop away from the computer, stop obsessing over analytics and go make fabulous new things. because if you're not putting anything new out there, there won't be anything for people to find. the only thing that will continuously sustain any audience is good, solid, consistent content.

and so on that note, i'm setting aside my laptop for just a bit to work on burning new screens, taking new photos and making some more amazing things for you all to discover. soon. i promise. xo!

doing boring better

last week, i was eating cereal one morning, mindlessly flipping through local supermarket circulars and came across the flyer above for the new grocery section in my local target, my little heart went all aflutter.

why? well, frankly, it's fun. it makes actually really terrible food (that's a whole other blog post, really) look aesthetically appealing and thoughtful. they could have easily used that template that every other supermarket seems to use (ie, the one below) and called it a day. but they took the opportunity to make an impression.

what boring, mundane things do you have to generate for your business that you haven't seen as an opportunity to make your own yet?

treating it as such.

one of the most important things i've done this year for my business is treating like a business. and it really seems like the more seriously i take showing up and getting things done, and done well, the more rewards there have been. it's lead me to a couple realizations:

if you believe you're running a real business, other people will, too.

you can only be as successful as you'll believe that you can be.

now, you should know by now that i'm not some fancy-talking, blowing-sunshine-up-your panties, daily affirmation type person (which reminds me, i want to pick up a copy of barbara ehrenreich's newest book - bright sided: how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined america. it sounds super interesting) who thinks all you have to do to accomplish things is will them so. however, i have become exceedingly convinced that if you don't think you can succeed, that will indeed hold you back. if you can't imagine making a living doing what you love, how will it ever happen? the very truth of it is that if you don't honestly believe you're going to be successful, no one else will, either.

(i suppose this is called confidence.)

and that, bloggity friends, is most of the reason why sometimes i like to dress up like i work in the fanciest of offices (dare i say a la mad men?) even just to work in the studio by myself, editing photos, answering emails and packing up orders. it makes me feel like i'm at a real job (which in turns makes what i do actually a real job. yes?)

superawesome craft show idea

doing craft shows alone sucks, so when kelly and i realized our stuff worked really well together at shows, we were pretty psyched. a couple weeks ago when kelly and i were doing a mock set up for crafty bastards in my studio a few weeks ago, we were trying to figure out what we could do for a banner for each of our little brands. kelly had the brilliant idea of using online fabric printing company spoonflower.com (which i had always thought just did smaller scale, more repetitive patterned fabric) to print our banners.

so the banners you see hanging in our crafty bastards booth (above) are the spoonflower results. they were super affordable and, even though they look really different, they were a great way to provide a little consistency within our little booth space.  and i figured i'd share this tip with you! since making a great banner, logistically, can get a little tricky. enjoy!

separation for sanity's sake - two great interviews

while it may seem easy to people who don't have the pleasure of running their own creative business to say "how hard can it be to just stop working for xyz number of hours a week?". honestly, setting things down and taking a little time off can be incredibly difficult.

in their recent interview on poppytalk (a fantastically curated marketplace which i'm super flattered to be part of for the next month!) lucy of berkley illustration really hit the nail on the head in articulating what makes it tough tomaintain enough separation or balance to preserve sanity. you probably know berkley illustration - purveyors of unbelievably quaint portraits of animals in fine garments. i've been impressed that they work together as a husband and wife duo (without strangling one another - to me that seems quite the feat), and, of course, i'm always on the lookout for advice on balancing work and, well, not-work. it's a great interview - go check it out!

on the one-person-amazingness front, i absolutely love the illustrations of kate bingaman-burt (you may recognize the amazing work she's done in her obsessive consumption project, which was a hero blog here not long ago!) here's an interview she did recently with readymade magazine about how effing awesome her job is. 

why have i linked these two interviews here today? i guess as a little reminder that no matter how awesome what you do is, work is just work, and there's so much more to life than work. even if you're 200% in love with what you do, keeping work vs. not work straight is completely important.

make your life easier: postling.

since i like you (yes, you) i'll let you in on a little secret: i use postling.comto manage just about all my online accounts, especially girlscantell related-ness. and if you're running a business, especially a small business, in particular a business that has (or wants!) an online presence (which, really, is just about every small business), then here's an invaluable tip: you should be using postling.

what is this postling? well, it's a website whose aim is to make keeping all those newfangled social media tools straight. if you're tired of balancing at least one facebook account, twitter, your blog, probably some other blog, a flickr account and who knows what else, try postling.

some of the neat things it does include: giving you the opportunity to simply create a post / entry / update just once and then pick and choose what places to spread it to. i love it because it's an easy to manage way to make sure i don't bombard friends on my personal facebook account with too much girlscantell promotion (let's just say people from high school and college, while they might think girlscantell is nice, shop updates aren't really why they found me there). or if i have an announcement i want to make to everyone, every where, from every profile, that's even easier - i can do it all from one clear, simple hub.

what's even better is once you have all this down and you've entered all the accounts you want to zoom out information to, you can totally pre-schedule your tweets, posts, updates and more all through postling. not going to be on the internet much this weekend? not a problem - you can pre-set fun links, news and more to post while you're gone.

then, as if that's not great enough, all the comments you receive back are all synced to one place, so you don't have to chase people down from one site to another to answer questions, interact, or comment back. 

all in all, postling might just be the best thing since... the internet?

super fun: bike philly and screenprinting at vix

this weekend was just the best.
a big, giant, warm, loud thank you! to everyone who came out to the vix emporium on saturday for my screenprinting demonstration! as part of second saturdays along baltimore avenue, i lugged an armful of silk screens, materials to print on, ink and some squeegees out to west philly (via the trolley, which is one of the most amazing, easy, convenient ways to get around the city, particularly that neck of the woods!). all afternoon, i had the great pleasure of taking printing requests, answering questions on how to create silk screens for printing,  helping people print some of their own wares and even getting to meet some lovely readers from here on my little bloggity! 

in case you were wondering, i posted a tutorial on how to screenprint at hoome earlier this year - you can find it here.  all in all, it was so much fun and really inspiring and relaxing all at the same time. yay! be sure to head out next month to second saturdays, when the vix will be hosting a glass jewelry maker - it sounds incredible!

then, on sunday, erik and some friends and i volunteered as marshalls for the third annual bike philly event. watching a couple thousand of our neighbors and friends pedal through the car-free streets of center city (from the art museum to old city and back) was completely amazing. so many tandems, kids on bikes (with or without training wheels!), and people of just all ages from all over. so, so good.

weekends like this make me so happy to live in philly right now - despite budget woes and all the annoying things about city politics, etc, there's just such an unbelievable energy in the city right now. neighborhoods feeling big revitalization efforts, people making things greener, getting things done.

(photo above by neenyd - unfortunately my camera battery died about 5 minutes into the day)

next week will always be better.

"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life." (peter gibbons, office space)

one quality you absolutely, positively must possess to stomach the ups and downs of self employment is optimism, and the never wavering belief that the next day, week, month will be even better. next week i'll get more work done, next week i'll write even more interesting blog posts, next week i'll take better product photos and next week will yield results of this hard work. 

in case there's any confusion, i do mean this in the sincerest way. every craft show i do, i assume the next one will be better. why? because each show i do, i know more than i did for the previous show. each time i list a product online, i have that many more listings under my belt to guide me.

when you get up each morning, and single-handedly run an operation with this many moving parts, the firm belief that things are better and better each day is not only helpful, it's essential.

not only does it make every day, well, bearable, but it's a fun challenge you can (and should!) give yourself. and i think it's safe to say that this a good take on things to have, no matter who you work for or what you do. 

have a great weekend! xo!

show and tell with girlscantell!

when the fabulous emily of west philly's lovely vix emporium invited me to be the featured artist for the second saturday event this month, i was delighted. the vix emporium is a gem of a shop, featuring amazing handmade work from all kinds of artists. i'll be bringing some of my screens for a printing demonstration - maybe you can even try your hand at printing your own wares!  and you will certainly be able to pick up some gifts and hand printed awesomeness.

so join me, 20 crafts vendors, kassie richardson and the vix emporium for an afternoon of handmade from 12-4pm on saturday, september 12 at 50th + baltimore in west philadelphia.

rsvp through facebook, or just stop by for a little while! xo!

introducing: cream and sugar kitchen

chris blow torches a smores cupcake. photo by tracey carullo.

a few weeks ago, my friend (and newbold neighbor) jaime invited me to join her for lunch in west philly to discuss an idea she had. since jaime's been one half of the burger-loving duo over a fries with that shake for the past year, i wasn't surprised that the great new idea was one related to deliciousness and blogging. but i also love that her idea is one that's about more than food - it's the stories of some of the best small businesses in our area and their roots.

jaime describes it as:

It's time for me to take my imaginary food business to the next level:  from coulda woulda to what can be.  With little business education or culinary training, I'm setting out to conduct extensive field research, including interviews with food entrepreneurs.

even if you don't live in philly or don't particularly care for reading about food, her new project creamandsugarkitchen is one to watch because it's about the careful, thoughtful start of pursuing a dream she's had for years, with the added bonus of collecting nuggets of wisdom from some of the wisest small business people around.

so go pay a visit to creamandsugarkitchen, plug it into your google reader and pass the link on to a friend. enjoy!