Education

When I started this business one of my goals, like most things in my life, was to uphold a level of quality that I expect in the products and services that I seek out myself. This comes from a lifetime of being an overachiever and always having to do “just a little better” than the last time. This can be a double-edged sword as you can tweak and tinker until you’re blue in the face but eventually, the product needs to ship. Here I am going to share with you some of the goals I set for myself when it comes to the quality of my products and the consistency of my process but still get things out the door.

I came up with the idea to create this series when I was looking back on the past two and a half years as a small business owner, thinking “What are the things that I wish someone had told me about starting a business.” Creating is a full-time job in and of itself and running a business is like adding another full-time job on top of it. Hopefully, this series will help guide you through some of the preliminary steps. Full transparency: if I recommend any products I will include affiliate links so, if you decide to buy any of them, I will get a small kickback. Don’t fret, though, that has not swayed my opinion and every one of the products I recommend is something I fully endorse because I use it myself.

Sometimes the best way to get an audience is to put yourself out there. Pop-up markets are a great way to do this as they are generally a low cost of entry, most cities and towns have several community organizations that run them, and, if you find the right one, they are a great way to connect with an audience. Today I’ll be going over some of the things I wish I had known before my first market.

The biggest barrier to being a maker is tools. There are so many tools that can make your life easier but obtaining them can be both cost and space prohibitive. We do all our work in a small garage. Our workspace is shared with gardening tools, camping equipment, bicycles, and automotive tools. Renting a space …

One of the questions I often get is about how I get hand burn pieces using images on the computer. When I tell people it is using a laser printer, I’m not going to lie, I get quite a few puzzled looks. It is not intuitive how you can go from a digital image to …

This weekend is Pride so Zona is busy getting product ready.  That means you get a special treat today.  She’s left me, Brian, in charge of the blog.  Silly Girl…. Unlike our lovely Zona, I am not an artist. That is to say not an artist in the1 traditional sense. But we here at BZ …