Hi everyone!

It's been an amazing couple of weeks at Mad As HQ! I've started a new course about better branding for business so expect to see even bigger changes coming on the website, facebook page and other net presences (I've also been told that there are ways to link and cross post my content!)

I've been working with my gorgeous photographer, Crystal, to better represent my creations. It's been a gargantuan effort on her part to photograph and then edit over two hundred pieces. The backgrounds that she's using keep the piece as the main focus and they are represented in their glorious beauty.

Of course, this means that I will need to sit down and get very serious about uploading, writing product descriptions, and starting to make things available to purchase online (which is both scary and exciting).

Mostly I've been focusing on cleaning out and stock taking in the storage shed, let me be the first to say that I have too much yarn. Seriously. I may have a yarn hoarding habit at this point. Every second box or random bag I opened to sort was more yarn! Of course, this has been great for my stocktake, everything is being entered into spreadsheets and pricing is being written down when receipts are available, I can literally figure out per meter how much each ball of yarn is worth and I've been brainstorming ideas to use up the excess.

In the next two weeks I'm aiming to have a draft copy of my business plan up on the site for the curious to have a read through, and I'll do a much longer piece (With Photos) of the sorting of the craft spaces. That may become a few parts that covers the conversion of chaos to... well less chaos with better structure for finding things.

That's all from me this week!

​Keep on crafting!

I am uber annoyed that it took me so long to get back to Weebly!

Taking a long story and making it less long, I was heartily convinced that making my own website from scratch was the way to go. 

I got Hosting, I bought domain names, I looked at and purchased different templates and programs to install onto wordpress, I downloaded and started learning how to use wordpress.

Ultimately I was convinced that wordpress was the "functioning like an adult" equivalent of having a website. What ended up happening instead was me, frustrated and crying at the back end of a build system that I had no idea how to use to it's full potential. It gave me a PLETHORA of options and I got more caught up in the "What can I do with all of these plugins" and did not focus on the rather more important "what content should I include to interact with my customers and potential clients".

Recreating the wheel was incredibly time consuming and kept me from actually doing anything useful like proper blog posts, easily uploading pictures to show off my latest creations and curating a shop where you can directly buy things from me!

Thankfully I woke up and have come back to a MUCH easier (and Nicole proof) way of doing things, and now, as they say in House Atradies, "the content will flow" (or something like that).

Love to you all,

​Nicole

It's a brand new blog and I have honestly go no idea what I want to do with it as of yet.

What DOES one write in a Business/Craft blog! How will I structure my posts? Will I some how make everything about how awesome Mad As Designs is?

Will I update and show off sneak peeks of the work I'm doing?

Will I write from conventions and complain about the price of the food?

Could I possibly video myself in a craft store.... 

So many ideas!

Just wait and see, there might even be a tutorial or six.... And Freebies! I LOVE freebies.

oxoxoxo
Nicole