Sunday, September 30, 2012

Updated Version of the Magnetic Chore Chart

I've recently updated the Distressed Beautiful Magnetic Chore Chart. Now the magnets have pictures of chores on them, and the kit will arrive ready to go! Customers no longer have to customize their chores on their own with the template I created. Now I do the work for you! Children that are old enough to help, but are still too young to read can now easily use it. Parents that want to set up a money/reward system can easily tell children that each chore completed will be "x" amount of money, depending on age. Check it out here, at Distressed Beautiful.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Dream BIG

I just wanted to take a minute and put this day on "paper". This morning I woke up to a email from a producer of the Marilyn Denis Show in Toronto, Canada. They requested that I send them a Magnetic Chore Chart from my shop to be used in a segment on their show, taping this coming Tuesday! Wow! Did I mention they have a quarter of a million viewers and are going to list the link to my Etsy shop on their website?!

I was literally reading the email out loud to my husband, over the sound of the shower. It was THAT exciting. Really, you never know what a day will bring. My day has been non-stop crazy. Since I just had knee surgery less than a week ago, I sold all of my stock of chore charts and hadn't made more yet. Of course!

Off to Lowe's we went, and in between building the chore chart I was answering emails to the producer. While spray paint was drying I was doing school lessons with the kids. I even bought a fast drying epoxy to use so that I wouldn't have to wait the normal drying time for E6000. It had to be shipped out today to get there by Monday.

I usually send kits unfinished, so the customer can print the chore circle file from home, edited to fit their household needs. I didn't have time for mod podge to dry and not be sticky in shipment, so I took the circles off of MY personal chore chart, the one that started it all. Ha ha.

On top of all of that, today was our two hour meeting at our charter school with our teacher. I managed to feed the kids lunch while I packaged the shipment. I skipped lunch. I skipped breakfast because I was too excited to eat, and getting ready to go to Lowe's.

Now it's 5:00. I'm starving, it's out of my hands, my feet are up, my knee is iced, my bank account is a little bit lighter, and FedEx is $106.00 richer (Overnight International Shipping costs more than groceries for a week!).

I have no control of anything anymore and I kind of like that. I've done all I can do. I scrambled to make it happen, and it's on its' way. I've never really brought it up, but when I was working to open my Etsy shop I wanted SO bad to give up a few times. Thankfully I just kept going, even with the challenges that have come. I can't believe what I would have missed out on (even if my chore chart doesn't show up on television) had I not followed my dream. I am a self-professed daydream believer, people! That is almost never  not often a good quality to have! They are called dreams for a reason. They are not everyday things. It can hurt your pride to share dreams, mostly because they don't often become reality. We feel silly. We feel stupid. We think it could never happen.

It's not silly. It's not stupid. It can happen. Here is what I am slowly learning... sometimes you have to put yourself out there and work hard to accomplish something big. It might be something you've always wanted to do, but you think it's impossible so you don't try.

Try.

Thank you to my friends and family that encouraged me not to give up, even when I felt like I was going to fail and just end up with a giant yard sale. ;) Dream BIG! You never know what opportunity will come knocking tomorrow!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Etsy to begin GIFT CARDS!

Etsy announced some exciting news this week, they will be launching GIFT CARDS very soon! This means you'll be able to purchase a gift card directly from Etsy, that can be e-emailed directly to the recipient, or printed out by you to give by hand. How cool is that?! I for one, would LOVE an Etsy gift card! Right now, they haven't given a date, just that they will be available this fall! This could make your Christmas list reaaally easy to shop for!