I want to talk to you today about the upcoming launch of ARTrepreneur, happening on April 4th! You remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was one of two Book Club Babes chosen to be part of a new entrepreneurial membership site? Well, this is it, and it's launching in just a few days!

The brains (and beauty!) behind this amazing site is April Bowles-Olin. She was looking for small creative business advice and expertise. She spent a whole lot of time scrounging around and pulling together all the bits of information she eventually found, but was frustrated at how much time it took. She thought it would be a great idea to pull all that information into one site. That way, people who were just starting a small business, or who were growing their businesses would be able to get all their information from one source. What a great idea!

Every month there will be new information on the site, new experts to speak with, new business owners to connect with. So what's included?

• fabulous interviews with experts - 3 new interviews each month on a variety of subjects on running a business, each interview will be accompanied by worksheets and tip sheets so you can actually start putting the great advice into place - the interviews will be podcasts so you can listen to them anytime
• rockin' classes - 2 new classes each month on a variety of subjects, for example, how to make your blog a super success - the classes will be recorded so you can follow along at any time
• hotdiggety direct access to a professional photographer - we all know that photos can make or break an online shop - make sure your shop shine - 2 new tutorials each month, plus Q&A time with April Bern
• supercool online shop critiques - 2 shops will be critiqued each month by Mayi Carles - all the critiques will be posted in the membership site so we can learn from all of them - there will be tons of great advice from Mayi - she's an Etsy superstar!
• and don't forget the bodacious Book Club Babes! Meagan and I will lead weekly discussions on the business books we will all read together (1 book every 2 months) - we help you apply the great advice we're reading about to your business - I know I'll definitely be applying it to mine! Worksheets will be included to help you make your studies even more spectacular.
• amazing all-access pass to the membership forums - that means direct access to other business owners, resources, and experts
• lovely Life Is Messy Work Planners by Mayi Carles - fabulous work and life planners to keep you at the top of your game!
• gorgeous giveaways! Each month, April will give away great prizes to lucky members, prizes YOU WANT as a business owner - like Danielle Laporte's Fire Starter Sessions? or Kelly Rae's Flying Lessons? Yeah, you wanna make sure you're a member.
• AND an amazing 100% money-back guarantee - seriously, if you aren't happy for any reason within a month, you'll be refunded that month's fees! You can't lose!

You also have the option of becoming an affliate. What is that? It means that if you recommend the site to someone and they sign up, you get a commission! Not only do you just talk about a service that you think is amazing, you could potentially be paid for it! Seriously, all good businesses do this - it's just good business (for example, my AWESOMETASTIC realtor, Helene, is sending me to the spa, simply because I recommended her to a friend who bought a house with her. Um, yeah, I'm going to keep recommending her - plus she just seriously knows her stuff). So, yeah, I'm an affiliate for ARTrepreneur, but I think you know me enough by now to know that I would never EVER recommend anything I didn't think was worthwhile. I love you guys, I want you to succeed in everything you do, and I know this site will help if you are or want to be an creative entrepreneur.

Here's a sneak peak video. I highly recommend you check it out! You can also go here to get more details!

Goals and Wishes Moleskin Journal from Bubby and Bean on Etsy

In preparation for my shop opening and initial business growth, I set about setting some goals for the month of March. Even though I'm fairly new to proper goal-setting, I've always been a list-maker, so I thought this would be pretty easy stuff. But now, as I'm reviewing my goals (and my list-making habit) I'm thinking I need a refresher in this category.

My lists have usually been full of randon to-do items that were rattling around in my head - the only way to get them out of my head was to write them out. For example, any number of lists of mine include:

• buy eggs
• exercise
• prepare for friends coming for dinner
• make shopping list for dinner
• think of ideas for back garden
• paint office

So, as you can see, there are a number of random thoughts in my head that I need to get out. It's not a really good list - there are things on there I can't check off easily - such as exercise, which is an ongoing command, not simply "exercise today"; or think of ideas for back garden, since I always get inspiration for gardens, I'll always have new ideas, so when would I cross that one off?; or paint office - it would be better as its own list with subheadings for all the little tasks involved that would move that bigger item forward (ie, take out furniture, fills nail holes in walls, sand and clean walls, paint trim, etc...).

So, when I made myself a list of goals for March for the business, I used my haphazard list knowledge to do it. Needless to say, there were some pretty lofty goals on that list, along with some really easy quick-checker-offers. I didn't realize how crazy my list was until now. It's getting to be the end of the month, the shop is up and running, and I wanted to review the goals I had obtained and figure out which I would have to revise before putting them on a list for next month.

In order to help you in your own goal setting, I'm going to expose myself here, and list my March goals for you. Please don't laugh too hard, my suffering can be used to help you too :)

• products: (20 tea towels, 8 aprons, 20 pillows, 80 coasters, 16 placemats, 16 napkins, 4 tablerunners)
• product descriptions and tags for all of the above
• 5 sales by the end of the month
• connect personally with 2 people who inspire me
• create outline for one new product or service (such as tutorials or worksheets)
• learn to use video so I can post video blog posts
• rewrite about page
• take new photo for about page
• create New Around Here? page
• get shop up an running
• reward myself for reaching goals!

OK, so which goals did I actually achieve?

• I did make 20 tea towels (3 of which have already sold, thank you very much!!), but only 3 aprons, 3 pillows, 8 coasters, and 0 placemats, napkins, and tablerunners. Seriously, 80 coasters? What was I thinking!
• I did write all the product descriptions and tags for everything I posted, but not for "all of the above" - so I'm not even sure if this goal is met or not.
• I've had 3 sales so far, so I only need 2 more by Thursday to meet this goal!!
• I did connect personally with 2 people who inspire me - April from Blacksburg Belle, and Stephanie from Unfinished Sewing Projects. I'm now part of April's ARTrepreneur membership site which helps creative entrepreneurs build successful businesses, and I'm working on a tutorial for Stephanie's great site. I'm also doing some advertising on two other sites which I'll announce in April.
• I haven't yet created an outline for a new service. As I'm working on Stephanie's tutorial, however, I'm getting an inkling of an idea - does this count? I'm not sure.
• I did not yet learn how to use video. My husband showed me very quickly one night, but I didn't take notes and now I have to get instructions all over again.
• I did write the about page, and I did take a new photo for that page!
• I did get the shop up and running!
• I did celebrate!!!!

Ok... not too bad. So, what have I learned here? If I'm working on other things such as relationship-building or a lot of writing (posts and product descriptions), my productivity for making actual items for the shop goes down. Now that the shop is up, I will have more time to make things to go into it. Speaking of productivity, I need to take the amount of time that each item takes to make, and multiply it by how many I want to make and see if this number is actually realistic. I also learned that it's more efficient to only learn things once, not twice. If I had properly sat down with my husband, and really focused on learning how to use the video camera and recording software, had taken notes, and really listened, it would take me less time to learn and implement than it does to learn it twice. And finally, I need to set myself up for more success. There are a couple of things on the list that I'm not even sure if I can check them off or not! It would be better to write the items in a way that is a definite Yes or No.

Are you a good goal-setter or list-maker? Let me know about a recent experience. Perhaps we can have a end-of-the-month celebration together of all things we did accomplish.

This is the screened-in porch from our last house, out in the country. As spring is in the air, I'm missing this space a lot. I spent hours in here every day, reading, napping, or on the computer. My husband and I ate most meals in here, and we would talk and talk late into the night in here. We'd watch the fireflies in the summer, and watch birds on the trees nearby. It had to be screened in as our house was surrounded by cedars, and therefore mosquitos. But it was nice to have a bit of separation from the great outdoors - it felt connected to the land, but private enough that it was our own little oasis. This space, for me, was not only somewhere to get a lot of creative inspiration, but was also where I recouperated - a place to rest and recharge so that the creative energy would flow once again. It'll be nice once we have a space like this at our new house back in the city, hopefully soon.

Do you have a space like this where you can regroup, recover, and get creative?

I want to say Hello! to all my new lovely readers from Blacksburg Belle and Scoutie Girl. It has been amazing to reach out and start fantastic relationships with so many creative entrepreneurs. It's amazing how much wonderful energy, inspiration, and creativity everyone has. I love that so many women are stepping into their creative power and are putting themselves out there in there in the open. It can be scary, for sure, but holy cow, does it ever feel great.

If you are thinking about becomeing an entrepreneur, or are finally listenting to your internal whispers about finding another (creative) career, then head over to check out Michelle Ward. She's the When I Grow Up Coach, and I talk about her a ton on my site. I only talk about things I love, and I definitely love her! I worked with her last summer to get my ideas of "maybe one day I'd like to maybe run sort of like a store?" into an online shop and all sorts of future goodies that you'll be seeing here at manusmade. Michelle is amazeballs, fantastic, kick-you-in-the-ass no-nonsense, goofy, and smart as the dickens. She will help you take that inkling of an idea and shape it into an amazing career. Right now she's got a contest running in honour of her one-year-entrepreneurial-anniversary - you can enter to win a Scholarship for twelve 45-minute sessions with her FOR FREE - 12 sessions! - that's a total of about $1500 worth of career coaching that you could get for FREE! Go now, seriously, go! now!

**What's a  moment without a name, you ask? It's moment where your heart sings, your senses are ignited, you can see, feel, hear, things that are sacred to you. They come from any of those textural moments in a life, be it surrounded by wooly coziness in front of a fire or the heat of the sun on your face. Join me as I celebrate these moments and textures in our lives, they don't last long.**

Floral Thank You Cards, by Studiokgraphicdesign on Etsy

Before the shop opened last Thursday, I was busy as a bee getting everything ready. The following couple of days were a blur of activity, too, but in a different way. There was my first sale! There were many many compliments from friends and family and strangers. There were strangers that became friends overnight. And there were business relationships that were formed. And to think I was nervous about putting myself out there! I don't think I truly imagined how positive, fun, and humbling an experience this would be for me.

I knew that I would be making things that I loved, and would be putting myself out there for the world to see. But I simply could not envision how loving and congratulatory the response would be from all of you. I want to send each and every one of you that has reached out to me in the past few days a personal thank you. My virtual thank you cards are in the mail to all of you!

While working with by business coach Michelle last summer, she reminded me that milestones have to be celebrated. I've never actually been that great at celebrating achievements - I'd achieve goals without really realizing (often because I hadn't written out the goals) and then keep going, forever in pursuit of some other goal I didn't know I was going towards. This time, with the shop, I made realistic goals (I'll talk more specifically about these next week), and so this weekend was the time to celebrate the fact that it was finally launched. How did I celebrate? I had a spring pedicure, I drank champagne with my husband, and I rested. Oh yeah, I also bought myself some sexy over-the-knee socks. I wore a pair while I drank champagne - how's that for doubly celebrating!!

So what's a girl to do once she's achieved a major goal? Well, this girl is going to keep going. I have several things in the works which are very exciting for me: some advertising and some tutorials that I'm working on.  It's also time to tweak the website, make it better and more community-based. It's time to revisit my Big Plan and make sure the next steps I take are building the business in the way I want it to grow. But as April says in a recent video on how to focus your creative business time, you can't expect to bring people and have them stay if you have nothing to show them. It's great to work on relationships and marketing, and it's exciting to bring a new audience to your site, but if you have nothing to offer them, they won't stick around. If I want to build relationships with people, and build a bigger community within manusmade, I'll have to give you something in return. And that, my friends, is what I will be working on in the next while.

So, thank you for all your love, and I know this is the beginning of a really beautiful relationship. Love to you all! Tania xoxo.