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My personal Goals for 2016

12/30/2015

I've given you my business goals, but that isn't the only aspect of my life that I make goals for! Just in case you are wondering what I aim for outside the business realm, here are 20 goals for me. (Apparently 20 was the perfect number this year?)

Personal goals for 2016:

Use all of our gift cards
Finish our wedding quilt
Sew 2 things just for me
Complete the entire bikini body workout (12 weeks!)
Run a 10k race
Go to New York City
Karaoke
Read 10 (non-audio or e-) books
Take care of me first (say no to other people sometimes)
Go on a bike tour
Run Steve’s run and then go to the dunes
Work 2 days from home by the end of the year
Read the Dave Ramsey financial book
Get a real Christmas tree
Have a garden
Make bagels
Run a 5k in 21 minutes
Go to a concert
Knit/crotchet something
Go to a new state or national park

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Let's up the ante: Goals for 2016!!!

12/30/2015

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Recently, I have become a goal setting freak!
I used to be horrible at thinking about the future. I had no idea what I wanted, or what would make me happy. But now I have realized that it is hard to be happy when you don’t know what makes you happy. The more you know yourself, and what makes you satisfied, the easier it is to achieve it.

So, every so often, I like to sit down and really think about what I am doing, where I am going, and what I think will make me happy in the long run.
What is it I should work towards. I’m not saying that it is easy, or that my mind doesn’t constantly change about what I think I should do, but I find that thinking about it helps. And setting goals helps. Setting yourself deadlines, or a set period to do something in is a good way to see if you care enough to get it done. Not everything will get done, and that is OK. A year is a long enough time that if I don’t get to something in a year, I can seriously take a look at it and ask myself if I realllly do want to achieve it, and if I do, then what stopped me from achieving it.

Part of reaching goals is knowing yourself and knowing how you work.
I am an obliger (for those of you who read/listen to Grethen Rubin) which means that other people are key to keeping me accountable. Telling someone my goals, or writing them down both make my choices much more real to me. And that means I work harder to reach them.

Business goals for 2016:

Blog at least once a month – I should be able to write 12 times in a year, right??
Create and release 4 downloadable sewing patterns – Sewing patterns are the direction I want to take my company, but they are so much work!! So I think that 4 is a reasonable number to release in one year. That way I (theoretically) have 3 months to think up, design, pattern, test, re-pattern, scan in, computerize, write a tutorial for, and test a new release…
Teach a class for the Indy Trade School – I have taken a few classes through the Trade School Indianapolis, and I think it is an awesome concept! I want to support them, and also I know that I have a lot of sewing knowledge that I can pass on to other people.
Grow my email list, and email a newsletter once a month – Want to help me with my email list? Click Here to join!
Take a photography class – Now that I have a nicer camera to use for my business photography, I need to make sure I’m getting all I can out of it! I would like to find a class specifically for my Nikon D3200. If anyone knows where I can take one, or wants to offer me a lesson, let me know!
Take a refresher course in pattern grading – If I’m going to sell clothing patterns, I need a refresher on how best to create the different sizes for each pattern. It has been too many years since I took that class….
Have my own photo shoot, using other people to model my work – Yes, I am a convenient model to use for my business because –hey!- I’m right there. But it is not easy to get a good photo when you can’t see what your subject looks like! I will need volunteers, so if anyone is interested, let me know!
Have a public craft night event – I want to create a little crafting community, where we can meet other people, and swap stories, inspiration, and advice! And I want it to be in person! I would love to have it once a month, and I’m brainstorming places to have this Makers Meeting (suggestions are welcome!)
Sell one thing each month, even the slow months! – Every seller finds that there are certain times of the year that are particularly slow in the sales department, and my Etsy shop is no exception. Now that I have an entire year under my belt, I have a better sense of the ebb and flow of sales. Now, I want to work on those weak months of the year, and build them up!
By the end of the year, be working two days a week for Goheen LLC – This is a pretty straightforward goal, but one that will be scary to implement. The best scenario would be to start paying myself to make up for the difference in income. But it may be that in order to create that income, I will need the extra day of work first. We will have to wait and see.
Be a vendor at 2 craft shows – This past year I dipped a toe into the craft show world, but in 2016 I want to at least put a whole leg in. The plan is to get into slightly larger shows this year, and be able to keep up my inventory for them. If you have suggestions for shows, please let me know!
Get on the Etsy Conversations Podcast – This is a great podcast that I listen to, where the host, Ijeoma, interviews both new and experienced Etsy shop owners. I realize that I don’t actually have control over this goal. But I do have control over whether I volunteer to be on the podcast!
Do an SEO overhaul, and try out Marmalead – Search Engine Optimization is a big part of having an online business, but it is something that I haven’t really dived into deeply yet. That needs to change in order for my business to grow! Maramlead is a new tool that I've heard about that helps specifically with Etsy SEO, so I need to try it out!
Sell at least 100 items overall, and at least 12 patterns – This is about a 30% increase in sales for the year, and a random number for my new pattern venture. I think it is doable!
Contact 5 blogs/influencers/stores to help market my company – Making connections, putting myself out there, telling people about my business: all things I have trouble with.
Make new business cards – I’m out of business cards! And, I need ones with my new website anyway.
Re-evaluate pricing, as if I’m paying myself – This is a biggie! If I’m going to transition into creating a sustainable self-employed business, I need to be realistic about my prices. I tend to price my items too low when I first introduce them, because I want them to be affordable. But I need to price items to cover ALL my costs: the materials, my time (at a reasonable, sustainable rate!), my shipping supplies, all the fees that I pay to list and sell an item, my overhead like tools, internet, and work-space. And THEN, if I want to be able to sell through local stores, that price needs to be doubled, because a retailer typically takes a 50% cut.
Get shipping streamlined – I’m at the point in my business where getting bulk supplies, and a shipping scale at home sound like a good idea. I just need to research, and also reorganize my space to fit all the supplies!
Self promote! – I tend to shy away from telling people that I own my own business. I guess I have a bit of impostor syndrome going on. I feel like my company is so small and so new that to say “I own my own company” or “I’m a creative business owner” almost gives the wrong impression. But those are true statements, and I need to be more confident in what I am doing, and be more confident telling people about it! So, when people ask me what I do, I’m going to try to answer with “I work for myself!” instead of the vague “I sew...” that I normally give.
List or renew one Etsy item every week. – I’m going to try to keep it consistent! It is a good habit to get into, and will make sure that I’m keeping my shop filled out enough to continue bringing in revenue.

20 Goals.
It is a lot, but I have 366 days to accomplish them (yay for leap years!). I'm not saying it will be easy, but that is why I have written them out here for you to see. So that you can help keep me accountable!

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A Year in Review

12/19/2015

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One of my favorite things to do in December is to take a look back at the past year, and think about all the things that I’ve experienced and all the goals I have (or have not) accomplished. Sometimes an overall look at my year serves to help me appreciate everything that happened. Some of the small setbacks I had may turn out to have had silver linings when I look back with a little distance. And it always amazes me to see how far I can come in a single year. How much can change.

Here are a few of the goals I wrote down last December (both personal and business goals), and what became of them:

Work part time for myself by the end of the year. This is the big one. I really wanted to get more serious about working on my business, and giving myself more time during the week to do it was a really good way to kick start that goal. At the same time though, this is a scary leap for me, even with just one day a week. Financially, working for myself means that we are taking a hit. Goheen LLC does not pay me yet, because I put all the money I make back into the business right now. But, despite my anxiety about finances, I definitely accomplished this! Within 2015, I have gone from a job that I really wasn’t happy at, to two part time jobs that I loved, to now one part time job and one self employed day!

Go on a vacation. My husband and I took a road trip out west, where we got our first look at the Grand Canyon, and immediately fell in love with it. We drove out to Colorado, and then Arizona, and it is honestly the best vacation I have ever had in my life. Driving the whole way and back in a week meant that it wasn’t really a relaxing vacation, but it was a huge adventure! We hiked on Mt. Humphrey, went caving, hiked partway down the Grand Canyon, visited the Mesa Verde, and explored Flagstaff and Sedona. We have already decided we need to go back and hike all the way to the bottom of the canyon. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen!

Sell 12 items on Etsy. The grand opening for my shop was October 31 of 2014. So when I decided to set goals in December I wasn’t really sure what was reasonable. That, combined with my natural inclination to set my goals low (to make sure I have a chance of success of course!), led me to set a goal of selling 12 items in 2015. One for each month I figured. I smashed that number, selling 52 items on Etsy this year, for a total of 72 items overall. My Etsy shop was a huge success by my (obviously low) standards! That being said, my one per month plan didn’t actually work out. I struggled (as many other Etsy sellers do) with selling during some of the summer months. So there is obviously room for improvement next year. Being able to get sales semi-consistently will be a huge benefit when I solely work for myself.

Run a race longer than a 5K. I have been struggling to overcome patella femoral pain (my knees), and I have at long last seen a little improvement. I’ve been hurting for a couple years now, and at the beginning of this year, I made it a goal to finish a race longer than a 5k. (this is way down from my original life goal of running 26.2 miles before I was 26.2 years old) About halfway through the year, I crossed out the “longer than” part, and decided it would be a win if I could just finish a 5k. A few months after that, I gave up on that goal altogether. But, after 5 doctors, and three different physical therapists, I have stumbled upon a chiropractor who is helping me get back to running. I can now manage to run 3 miles, 3 times a week, and I even ran the Drumstick Dash this year, which is 4.5 miles. This sounds so trivial to my former self, a few years ago. But now, after not being able to run for two years, this feels like the biggest accomplishment in the world.

Do a craft fair. This is another goal that I had pretty much given up on by the end of October. At the beginning of the year, I thought that the best kind of craft fair for me to do would be a holiday one. But by the time I started looking into them, in about May, all the shows I looked into were already full! But, right around Halloween I saw an advertisement for a little local show at the Carmel Public Library which still had openings for their holiday Green Gift Shop. So, last minute I signed up for it! It was very small, but right up my alley, because it was a show just for items that were "green" in some way, just like my Etsy shop. I was a nervous wreck going into it, but my wonderful husband ending up taking a day off of work to come help and support me!

Put up 52 items in my Etsy shop. Basically, I thought that for 2015 I could list one item a week in my Etsy shop. A week is enough time to make at least a small item, photograph it, and list it in my shop. And I thought that doing it on a consistent basis might get me into a good habit, and also keep me fresh in the Etsy listings. Technically, I did reach this goal. I listed 79 items in 2015. But as far as keeping it to once a week? That definitely didn’t happen… I still like the idea of it, and I don’t think it is too ambitious of a goal. I just have to get more disciplined about my consistency!

Read 6 books this year. This is not a very high goal, I admit. But when I say read books I mean read them. Sit down with a physical book in print and read it. With all my sewing and shipping and designing, I have gone completely over to audio-books and podcasts lately. I have just gotten into a habit of constantly multitasking. (I am actually writing this post while eating lunch at work.) But I had decided that I NEEDED some non-multitasking, non-work associated down time. And reading a physical book is exactly what I needed. So yes, I read more than 6 books in the past year. (not very many more, but still more)

List a Bag in my Etsy shop/ List a piece of clothing in my Etsy shop
These two goals were just a little push I needed to get some bigger, more expensive items in my Etsy shop. It is a big time commitment, and a bit of a gamble, because there is no guarantee that these time consuming items will sell. But I do have them in my shop, and I plan to have more!

Make a Website. Obviously, this one I managed to do, because you are here at my website!

Find cheap shipping supplies. This one did not happen. I have good reason though! Kind of. The problem with finding cheap shipping supplies, is that for the most part, you have to buy it in bulk. And that poses a problem for me in two ways. First, my one bedroom apartment is… well, it's one bedroom. And between all the fabric, the sewing machines, and the finished products ready to ship, I’ve kind of run out of room! I don’t know if I have space for bulk boxes and envelopes. The second problem is that my items vary so widely, that I need several sizes of shipping supplies. Especially if people order multiples. What I use to ship 1 headband, vs 1 bag vs 3 pillows at once is quite a range. So that means even more space…. But, I know that I need to figure something out. I am getting to the point where bulk buying doesn’t seem so far fetched anymore, as far as numbers go. Now I just need to reorganize my space to fit it all…

Overall, when I look back at this list, I'm pretty happy with what I have accomplished over the last year. It always amazes me how far you can come in the span of just one year. But even more-so when I look at this list I start to think about what I want to accomplish in 2016!

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How to use a PDF Pattern

12/4/2015

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What is a PDF pattern? How do I use it? These are good questions! Downloadable PDF patterns can be intimidating to those of us who have never used them before. But once you know what to expect, they are a breeze!

Nowadays, you don't have to go to the craft store and pick from a narrow selection of patterns to suit your needs. There is a wide world of patterns from indie pattern makers available online. They can be downloaded immediately, printed at home, and pieced together by you!

PDF stands for Portable Document Format, and simply means that it should open on anyone's computer without changing format. When you buy a pattern (or use a free one) you will have to download the file to your computer, and open it in your PDF reader. Then you are ready to print.

When you print your PDF pattern, make sure that you set your printer guidelines to “actual size” so that your computer doesn’t change the size of the image. Also, make sure that you are printing on the correct size of paper. Most patterns will be compatible with both US Letter and A4 but be sure to check.

The first step in printing your pattern is to print just the first page. This first page has a test square on it, so that you can make sure your images are going to print at the right size. Measure to make sure it is accurate, and then print the rest of the pattern pages.

My patterns will include a picture like this in the instructions. It is an overview of where all the pages go. This is what we are aiming for when your pattern is all put together. Refer back to this picture if you aren’t sure you got it right. Use this picture and the numbered and lettered diamonds on the edges to make sure that your pages are laid out correctly. A1 will match with A1 and so on.

Now, we will start putting the pages together. Take both the pages with A1’s on them, cut the extra side of the first paper off, and then tape it on top of the second page so that the diamond, and all the pattern lines match. Now do the same for the rest of the pages!