And this:
....
Is the beginning of a whole new journey for me. Sure, I have some polymer clay, but it's so expensive I have to use it very wisely. Being able to make my own "cold porcelain clay" means I can have clay on hand at all times for sculpting, because it costs close to nothing to make your own. Also, it air dries, so no baking is required, and when it sets, it looks like porcelain.
I found out about this while doing research into doll making. I don't want to make fabric raggedy Anne dolls, but nice dolls. Like porcelain dolls. And various other sculptures as well.
I've fallen in love with Blythe dolls as of late. I still have yet to get my first porcelain or Blythe doll to begin my collection. They are very expensive! And I still intend to collect them, Blythe dolls primarily, and some porcelain dolls as well. I guess I just felt like it was time to start collecting something other than coin banks (which I'm never going to stop collecting, but I'm insanely picky about what coin banks I'll allow into my space, and most of the time, I won't see one I love for several years.)
I spent hours looking at Blythe dolls today, bookmarking the ones I want for my collection. I recently started a part time job, so an expensive new hobby is in order. It will help keep me motivated. My bills and extensive shopping list aren't always enough to keep me going. Neither is the fact that I need to start saving money, my bank account only has a dollar in it, and if my car doesn't get to the shop soon, it will meet the true death. Sometimes I just think fuck it I don't care I'll just be poor, I need my freedom! But as my boyfriend has reminded me time and again (not that it helps very much), "Feet on the floor and head in the clouds" Or is it, "Head in the clouds and feet on the floor"? Semantics. Whatever. He's supportive no matter what I choose to do, and I've chosen to take a job to help with the bills and have shopping money. As soon as I get my first paycheck, I'm going to treat myself to a manicure. I really love the round and pointy acrylic nails that are in style right now. Even my MOM gets her nails did. I deserve it, so I'm going to treat myself.
Today was my day off from work. I had canceled my Shopify account in frustration, so I reopened it, and took the time to familiarize myself with it enough to utilize it and make the most of the things it can offer me. It took a very long time to manually add all the things I already have in my Etsy shop onto my Shopify account, but it was worth it. I can now Tweet my inventory items from Shopify, and they appear on Twitter with a "Buy it now" option so my followers can just click to buy. Shopify also transfers my inventory to my Facebook Small Business Page (DeniseDoesCouture) with a buy it now option on each individual listing, but Etsy also provides my Facebook Small Biz page with a "Shop Now" button placed over my cover photo, and to the right of my profile picture (which is an avatar, for business branding purposes), and this button redirects to my Etsy store. It's nice to give customers options, I think.
Another thing Shopify offers me is that they automatically load my products onto a board called "Products" on my Pinterest Biz account. These pins are all purchasable by clicking the "Buy it" button. It looks like this:
Pretty cool huh? Also, I have my own Shopify online store, and I can also sell in person.
The only thing I haven't gotten to utilize yet, though I wanted to, is the customizable buy it now button. Basically I choose one of my products, and an embed code is created, and once embedded somewhere, it shows a picture of the item, a litte preview, price info, and a click-to-buy option. I couldn't get it to work on my wordpress.com account, and then I realized that if I want to do e-commerce things like that, I need to be using wordpress.org, not wordpress.com (which is confusing as fuck anyway, so good riddance I guess). I didn't try using this feature on Tumblr because I was exhausted with the internet after the whole Wordpress.com fiasco.
If a wordpress.org account is free and will allow e-commerce (supposedly it does) then I'll sign up for an account, because that's more exposure, another opportunity to brand my biz, and another avenue through which I can connect to prospective customers.
I just want to set everything up so my marketing can almost run on auto pilot, for the most part. I don't want to spend hours of my day troubleshooting computer things!
I finished three new paintings today and made a very basic sewing design pattern for some throw pillows I've been wanting to make. Finished half a scarf. Not bad I guess, I only wish there were more hours in a day. I don't want to be in bed right now, pretending to sleep, blogging through an app on my phone. There's so much I want to do, I can't even fall asleep.
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