Getting over myself

Lately I have been reading many blogs about starting your own business and how to be successful on Etsy. One of the most common threads throughout is that you are your own worst enemy.


I have realized that I am the one holding my business back. My efforts have been less that desirable to succeed in Etsy endeavor. Instead of sitting in my office working on my marketing, listings etc for my shop, I have my butt planted in front of the television with the distraction of reality TV interrupting my work.


I only get to work on my etsy shop on my days off. I need to start taking advantage of the time that I have to myself. My house is empty most of the day which is a perfect environment to get some blogging etc done.


As an effort to grow my business I am going to "get over myself" and set up shop on my two days off from work. Dedicated and enthusiasm renewed I am ready to work toward my goals!

A. Nieman Crochet: Goals for 2009

A. Nieman Crochet

Goals for 2009

1. Get Organized: I would like to have all my yarn organized in a way that I know where any color/ type is located. I would like to have all my tools together and all my shipping supplies together. This will entail me going through all my supplies, from fabric and yarn to tools. They will have to be sorted by categories that are easy for me to remember. I will need to do this early in the year before I start on any new projects.
2. Set up a calendar for finishing projects that I have already started. Some of those projects would include: wash clothes and dish rags, purses, and granny square afghans. This calendar will also include the dates I would like to have my seasonal items done, ie Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July, and Halloween.
3. Write a Business Plan: Now this goal will include a lot of research on how to set up a small business. I do not expect to have a business set up by the end of the year. Because of my financial situation setting up this business will take some time and I am fully aware of that. After my research I hope to be able to set a date.
4. Research ideas for marketing my business. I will look into things such as advertising, craft shows, promotional products, and craft parties. Once I have established a plan for these markets, I will establish a schedule for trial of each.
5. Bookkeeping: I will keep up on all bookkeeping for the entire year of 2009. This will give me an idea of how much I spend and make. It will help me price my products more effectively.

This year A. Nieman Crochet will no longer be just a hobby. It will be a venture that I take seriously and into which I put my full effort and dedication. I am extremely excited about 2009 and hope to make this my best year yet!

Time to be Realistic

This year I would like to do things different than the past couple years. Instead of just talking about making goals for the new year I am actually going to write them down.

After being let go from my last job I have done a lot of think about what makes me happy and what does not. I am happy when I am creating, I am happy when I am selling, I am happy when I am organizing. I am not happy when I am bored, I am not happy being someones work horse and I am not happy in a office all day.

Being aware of these things is helping me learn who I am and what I want to do for a living. As I enter the new year I am unemployed. I am searching for someways to pay the bills. I want to be happy in what I am doing but I do not want to be unemployed forever trying to find that. This is why I have done quite a bit of thinking.

I have come to he conclusion that I would be happiest owning my own business, being my own boss. This is not something that I can do right now. I cannot jump right into this, it will take time for me to get organized and to write a proper business plan.

I think my biggest problem was that I wanted everything right now. I wanted the perfect job, the perfect schedule, the perfect pay. That is not practical, at all. Now I know these things will take time. I know that I have to stick with it and I have to keep confident in what I am doing.

In the next couple of posts I will outline my business goals and my personal goals. I would like to actually make a calendar for the whole year of my sales and promotions so that I can be as organized as possible. The key this year is organization and follow through.

Getting Ready for the New Year

After everything that has happened over the past few days and months I have decided to get serious about my crochet and design business. While I am looking for a new job I am going to be organizing myself in a way that I can pay off my loans and credit cards and start saving money in order to start my own business.

This will take me some time to achieve but with some persistence and a lot of organization I will achieve my goal. In the next week I plan to come up with a list of things that I will need to get done in order to make this vision possible.

I have already started by downloading a free version of Quick Books. I will be using this for all my book keeping now, personal and business. This way I can see everything I am spending and everything I owe. Starting from today I will be as organized as I should be in order to operate a business.

The next step is to do a full inventory of my Etsy Shop. I will be having a sale after Christmas to decrease this inventory and after the sale I will close my shop and have a full count of all items for 2009.

During this process I will have to look for a new job to support myself in the mean time. Quite honestly I am tired of looking for a job and am going to try to find something that may not be the most rewarding, but will pay the bills.

In the next couple days look for more post on my full list of things to complete, my business plan and hopefully my new job!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

It Has Been a Long Year

Over the past year and couple months a lot has happened in my life. Last August I graduated college, moved to Akron and started working at Dillard's. During my time at Dillard's I was searching for a better job with more money and /or possible in my field, interior design.

Along the way I had interviews with furniture stores like Ethan Allen, Arhaus and Value City but I did not have enough sales experience for them despite my training in design. I had an interview and was actually hired by an architect part time, but two days later he called me to let me know he had thought about it and decided he couldn't hire me because of money. He did not want to hire me and then have to let me go a month or two later because he could not afford me anymore.

My last opportunity was when I was offered a job as an administrative assistant at The Ohio College of Massotherapy. I had not had much experience in this position but I thought I could learn, as I consider myself a fast learner. Unfortunately my boss did not. After 30 days he decided to let me go. It came as a big shock to me. I thought I was starting to get a hang of things and that with 60 more day left in my probational period I could be very good at this job. But sadly i didn't get that chance.

So now I have some time on my hands. I have been wanting to work more on my crocheting but I cannot support myself on crocheting alone. I wish I could but this economy does not bode well for starting a business.

It is weird knowing that tomorrow is Monday and I will not be going to work nor will I be working the next day or the day after. I will have more time to get my Christmas presents wrapped and more time to spend with my family. I am thankful that I will have them this season but it is hard with the timing. If he had waited a couple weeks I could have at least started looking for a job when people are hiring. No one seems to be concentrating on hiring right now especially the week of Christmas. So now it is a waiting game until after the Holidays and everything gets back to business as usual.

Well I hope I have not completely ruined your holiday mood, but I needed to get some of this off my chest and blogging is a great way for me to do so.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Holidays and a Happy New Year!

New Job

It has definitely been a while since I have last written and a lot has happened. I finally got a new job. I am work as an administrative assistant for the Ohio College of Massotherapy( Massage Therapy). So far I am enjoying myself. It is a lot more work than Dillard's. The schedule is better. I finally have weekends off. The only draw back is that it is another step away from design.

As I started this job I thought it would be a way to make more money, pay off my loans, and learn more about a business. I do find myself missing design and wishing I could pay off my debt enough to really start my own business.

Etsy is doing well for me in the later part of the year. My sales have tripled since last year and I am ready for more.

Right now my current project is my bf's scarf. It is taking me a little longer than I had hoped, but it should be done soon.

One I get settled with my new job and schedule I hope to dedicate more time to Etsy and my crocheting, design and photography.

Forgotten Projects Part 3

Today I went upstairs to my desk and couldn't find it! It was hidden under a pile of papers and ( for lack of a better word) crap. Since I have been out of school I have not spent an extensive amount of time at my desk. I do a great deal of my Etsy work from our laptop on the couch in front of the television after work. The only time I really spend time on my upstairs computer is on my days off, half of which I have other events planned and don't get to clean my office like I should.

As a part of this Forgotten Projects series I want re-organize my projects. Through my initial search of unfinished project I realized that my storage/ closet is a complete mess. I do not take care of it on a daily basis like I should.

So, today's topic will focus in on what is preventing me from keeping my projects, yarn and business organized.

1. I never put things away. I have a real problem of taking a box of yarn out, taking the skein that I need and then not replacing the box to where it belongs. I do the same thing with my clothes, my makeup and a variety of other things. I need to work on taking the time to return things to their rightful place before the clutter gets out of hand.

2. The stack of to be filed. I often do not file my important papers right away like I should. They pile up and up on my desk until I am forced to do something about it. I need to work on filing items as soon as I can. It only takes a couple more seconds to do so in the first place instead of an hour to do so later.

3. Growing tired of a project. Everyone will get tired of certain projects. I get frustrated with projects quite often and I tend to just roll them in a ball and trow them in the corner. I need to figure out a way to label, organize and keep projects so I can easily come back to them.

4. Using my Calendar. I have never been able to use a planner or a calendar to save my life. Every school year I would buy one and start out wonderfully, writing all my assignments an test dates. Then half way through the month I give up. My boyfriend gave me his old palm pilot a couple years back. I used it a lot at first. Now it just sits on my desk. I don't think Ive touched it since I graduated. I just now found Google calendar and I am try to use it as much as I can.

These are my top four reasons for my being so unorganized. I am sure there are more but these are the ones I am going to start working on. By my next post I hope to have my Google project calendar up and running so you can follow my progress on each project.

Good Bye Gift Shoppe

I have been renting a booth at The River City Gift Shoppe in Copley, Ohio for the past 6 months and have found it less than profitable. I have decided that I cannot afford to pay rent for something that is not proving to be beneficial to my business. I thought that maybe I would have more luck if people could seem my items in person but that was not the case.

I think it doesn't help that the economy is not the greatest. Even at Dillard's I am seeing the affects. We are the slowest we have ever been during an extra 30% off sale. Usually we have quite a bit of traffic in the store during this sale but that has not been the case this time.

I hope that taking everything out of the gift shop and putting it online I will be able to make up for the loss in profit. I at least want to break even this summer. I have quite a bit of small items in the shop and will probably be adding a couple of pages to my Etsy shop. It's going to be a lot of work getting all of these things online but I think it will be better then having them sit in a booth.

I should be adding the pictures to my blog as I post them on the site. I'm doing a lot more advertising now and marketing. I am really putting some effort into this. Even more than before. I think not only is my business maturing but I am as well.