Daily Walk

Sun-Times? Quit

Hot Mama? Hired

Jen’s Internal Conversation?  OHHHH S#!&, I’m beginning to free fall!!!

I’ll admit to being more than a tad anxious with my career switch decision.  I know it is healthy to feel fear when starting a new endeavor – it puts some “fire under my butt” so to speak.  

One way to stop feeling discombobulated and organized? Get it out of your head and into a list.

  1. Create eBay store to keep extra funds coming in and help build audience.  Store has been created: mosley_lifestyle.  Now need to list items
  2. Create Etsy store to sell handmade items.
  3. Place wordpress plug-in for e-commerce on my site MosleyLifestyle.com
  4. Incorporate Mosley Lifestyle
  5. Find artisinal style fairs that I will be attending beginning in the summer – Anyone have good suggestions?  I will be looking at Renegade style fairs.
  6. Visit a local Small Business Association location
  7. Probably the most important: build my inventory

Then I have a whole new list of personal steps

  1. Take care of insurance 
  2. Figure out how to keep my 401k secure – do I keep it at Prudential? Can I keep contributing privately?
  3. Make a schedule that is healthy – today I walked Angel (my dog) in the morning and that felt nice.  Maybe a daily walk?  I’ve had a lot of personal time while commuting to the Sun-Times and I would like to keep some of that going that works for me and my family.
  4. Cancel non-necessary expenses.  No more expensive health club, no more 2 newspapers coming to my doorstep (which will I pick – Sun-Times or Tribune?), no more Massage Envy.
  5. Apply for college assistance, and research grants/scholarships.

I think that’s enough for a Sunday Morning!  Have a great day everyone.Image

School Update 013113

So hooray for Clothing Construction Class!!!

I’m thoroughly enjoying everything about my class.  My teacher passes out wildly useful bits of information like smarties on Halloween.  For example, did you know that it is preferable to cut a piece from a pattern after you iron on interfacing rather than prior?  Or, use tracing paper and a tracing wheel to accurately and quickly transfer pattern directions/designs.

When I go to class I’m very focused on what I’m doing.  My classmates…..not so much.  One classmate – I’ll call her Jo – is a strange bird.  For example,

  • I believe she has blonde hair but dyes it black (always an interesting root grow out)
  • Goes to COSplay events…If you don’t know what it is, you’re missing a very interesting sub-culture.
  • Carries around a handmade-1 foot-red felt dinosaur in a noose.  Yes….you read this right.

Oddly, I actually like her quite a bit, but yesterday, her work ethic, along with everyone else’s, kind of sputtered out.  Mine did not.  I’ve discovered what I thought to be true, and that is I love sewing.  I love making things.  And I love that I have 3 hours where all I have to worry about is focusing on one thing.

I’ve always thought that people would appreciate college and class more after they’ve gone through the corporate world.  When you understand what it’s like to have deadlines, the stress of meeting revenue and expense budgets, wondering if you will be the next person laid off, hoping you won’t have to lay one of your employees off.  After all of that….you realize that sitting in a classroom is a luxury.  Not to be squandered on texting and conversations about Starbucks and the color pink!  I only hope that they catch up, but since they haven’t yet….

It leads me to my next point.  My teacher, who owns a dress shop, will be helping me with adjusting patterns to measurements by using muslin…a skill above and beyond what she is teaching the other students.  Sometimes persistence pays off!  Gotta love it when you get a deal for your money.

Lao Tzu

My dreams were anxious this weekend – each morning I woke up with a feeling of gloom over me. Then i read this on pinterest New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings- lao tzu Here are some of the precursors needed to travel to the new beginning rather than linger in the painful ending…. A. open an etsy store and/or stand alone ecommerce site. B. Write down the store’s business plan and post it on a site like kick starter. C. Strategize and create inventory D. Get a job in the retail industry, near the house. Tonight is another clothing construction class. I neared to fill you guys in on it later-there has been many snags and slight drama! I made the skirt you see below over the weekend (not related to class project). Has zipper, darts, and button closure. I really enjoyed making it, and learned what I’d do differently in the future.

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Back from blog hiatus

So I had a brief hiatus due to a family gathering in Lake Geneva.  Had a great time, but became lax on my blogging. 

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However! That doesn’t mean I haven’t been moving.  On Sunday I went to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston.  Ann, my clothing construction teacher, met us there to walk through the fabrics and etiquette.  I walked away with fabric and notions for all three projects in class -sticking to a navy/grey palette.

The designer room has fabrics that come from design houses – it’s inspirational to pick through them. For the first time, i started touching fabric imagining how I’d design with it

The rest of Sunday had me prepping my fabric.  Truthfully, I never realized the fabric should be washed prior to sewing, but it makes sense in hindsight (wish I practiced that prior to some of my home projects) – the little things I’m learning in this class are invaluable.

Can’t wait to see the fabric my classmates picked!  My guess is that at least one picked neon.

Small Business Info from Lesley

A wonderful friend to have when you’re starting out is Lesley Ochoa at www.weeksoffun.com.

The below is all resources she’s found from research!  I’ve bought the Etsy Shop for Dummies book and am starting to comb through it.  

Not only that, but she made me an AWESOME necklace, those who see me at work have seen it often.  I will take a nice pic in the future and post.

Enjoy!

This book was helpful – a step by step guide but also tells you stuff to think about/do:
 
Here are some links/info I have in my own project list (haven’t’ checked them all out: 
 
·         Research if I need to get a license to sell
·         Steps to setting up biz (legal): do this: http://www.sba.gov/content/follow-these-10-steps-starting-business
·         Running a corporation
o   http://www.atotalwaste.com/money/scorp.html (this has the minutes)
·         Online business law (review) : http://www.sba.gov/content/online-business-law
·         Starting an online business (got this from SBA): http://www.oncallgeeks.com/
·         Women’s businesses resources: http://www.sba.gov/content/womens-business-resources
 
Taxes & Banking
 
·         Sales tax –
§  Register with the state of Illinois: https://mytax.illinois.gov/_/#1
o   **Charge 9.25%*** (Source = https://www.revenue.state.il.us/app/trii/index.html)
·         Create corporate bank account and get company credit card and checks.  Need EIN.
 
 
 
 
 
 Chicago Etsy Shops for Networking