198 magnets later... Craft show prep

Mixed Vintage supply by materialgirlworld

Wow.

Next to me I've got a bag of 198 painted magnets. And I haven't even done the marker yet.

Overall, it took me around 5 14-hour days to complete as many magnets. Creating a line made things go faster - one colour first, then the other one and so on. Still, every day I've spent around an hour and a half in free time. I think my bum's become one with this bed and I miss my gym critically.

Now that the main part of my stock is done I'm feeling a bit calmer. I've got a day to:

• Paint my greeting cards.
• Try out my display set up.
• Paint our Ammadin shirts.
• Buy last minute stuff - flowers, lunch, invoice book.

I'm hoping that it won't rain but I can't say I'd be surprised. Lets pray that the weather won't thin out the customer base. I'd be very excited about my first show if I weren't as tired. Time to go back to painting outlines.

P.S. 2 out of 200 didn't pass my quality test. Very happy!

Giveaways: A strategy for promoting?

'Winner Medal Ribbons' by thimblewinder

All of us love giveaways. As someone who's entered a few giveaways I thought I knew just about enough to make one of mine work.

My first decision was to dedicate a specific blog to my giveaways: The Magnet Giveaway. That way I'd keep things simple and all traffic towards my giveaway separate from Whim Blogging. With hindsight it was both a good and a bad thing:

• The good bit: I knew exactly how many people came over for a giveaway.
• The bad part: This traffic remains limited to giveaway posts and does not have access to Whim Blogging where my other content is generated.

On the other hand, the nature of this blog has changed significantly. I am happy to keep it as my business diary and customers who come over won't find any advertising photos and stories (too many of those blogs all over the Internet, really). Therefore, potential customers from the giveaway wouldn't visit Whim Blogging anyway.

I've decided to allow two entries per person - one through Facebook likes and share, and one through other platform shares. Most of the participants did both.

• My Facebook likes increased with 15.
• My Facebook reach peaked at 738 people during the first week of the giveaway.

I've also gathered a few e-mails. I don't have a newsletter, so I couldn't use them as of now. What I did, though, was send a 20% discount code to everyone who took part. So far no revenue has been generated from giveaway participants. Oh, yes, the winner didn't leave any contact details - hence, tomorrow the second one will become grand winner and a new third winner will be chosen.

A good tool for promotion? Maybe. A good tool for getting new buyers? Not so much. I was conscious of the freebie audience a giveaway attracts. How this turns out at the end - there's still some time to see.

2012: Here I go again.

'I get what I want' pencils by The Carbon Crusader

Well, the whim-blogging concept didn't work out too well it seems. It's been a year since I've written anything. It has also been a year since I've done anything for my tiny business. A shame.

If you work full-time you know how everyday life can make you plod along. We wake up, shower, go to work, work-work-work, go to the gym, go back home, watch two movies and sleep. And the whole thing isn't as bad as it sounds really. You just don't notice how time flies by.

Until something small happens - like somebody at work pissing you off. That's when you look around to notice how you've settled into a routine and forgotten about the dream stuff. It happened to me. I realized I've done nothing about my business because I was fine where I was. But things can always be better. So I picked up my business activities again.

This time I'm set on succeeding. If it takes me months, if it taps into my personal account (I actually have a business account although it'd be empty if I didn't fund some stuff myself). I've started doing the following things:

• New products for my Etsy shop
• New shop at  http://meylah.com/ammadin
• A stall at a local village fete
• An Ittybiz course called The Emergency turnaround clinic
• Marketing incentives

So far it's all in construction mode. This blog will serve me as a diary to reflect on how things are developing. Hopefully, the results will come soon enough.

Whim #3: Continued.

Hello!

Reporting from my first ever tofu cooking experience! (Yes, each ! equals one bit of happiness :D ) The thing you're seeing is a modified recipe I found at a Bulgarian forum. I've changed quantity and bits of the ingredients, but the base is the same - mushrooms, red onion, tofu.

Ingredients:
~400gr tofu
1 red onion
~ 150 - 200gr mushrooms
3 soup spoons oil
1 soup spoon oregano
Heinz' Barbeque  Sauce
Red, black pepper and salt

How to make the most awesome first tofu dish ever:

Drain the tofu as much as you can. I couldn't really drain mine, I bought Cauldron's but I think it might've been less than firm, so I just dried it as much as I could without breaking the thing into mouse bites. Slice and dress it in BBQ sauce and leave it for later.

Pour the oil and a spoon of red pepper into a pan. Chop the onion and the mushrooms and then throw them in the pan as well. Heat the pan at 5 (out of 6, I wanted the mushrooms juicy, adjust according to your stove) and stir with a wooden spoon. Then add the oregano and black pepper, I'd be generous with the oregano and moderate with the black pepper. When you're almost happy with the mushrooms (didn't take long, 4-5 mins) add the coated tofu. Stir for ~3-4 minutes. Add salt.

Goes mighty well with pita bread and I'd imagine with some lemon which I forgot to buy today. The whole thing is delicious and resembles stirred eggs in texture but doesn't have the heavy stirred-egg taste I'm particularly not fond of. Takes ~20 minutes for the slow ones like me and serves two (killer for all the student couples out there).

I'll be cooking some Bean burgers with steamed broccoli and carrots later on, lets hope it's as good as this one!

Your happy future-to-be vegetarian,

Bill

Whim #3: Going veggie.

Well, I hope this one sticks with me!

I've been thinking of it for a long time now - just a quick flashy thought every now and then, so it wasn't really unexpected. I become attached to food too easily (tell that to the two carrots, two garlics and the (sadly already dead) basil plant I treated like a dog). So, given that Bulgaria lacks the Free-range meat segment, I am gradually quitting meat and starting to eat.. soy.

I have a history of quitting things - I haven't had a soft drink for a year and a half and didn't eat McDonald's for a year until I started working there and even then I've gradually minimized the meat I eat when going out (mmm, tasty meat-less Quarter cheese!). So, I'm only a bit intimidated by this whole thing and the fact that I'll probably have to cook most of it myself. I've planned a month-long transition starting from tomorrow as my first truly veggie day - for breakfast the usual porridge, lunch would be tofu with mushrooms and onion and for dinner we'll have veggie burgers with broccoli, carrots and tomatoes.

Luckily, my boyfriend's willing to try this out with me, so I can stay focused and not have to cook two things at a time. I don't ever cook, so that by itself will still be a challenge :D I'm sticking to eggs and milk though, but will try soy milk eventually. I'm not quite sure how to bring this to my parents, we still have an unresolved argument about my stubborn denial of leather shoes and meat-less me will probably be a baby-Armageddon in their world. But I'll procrastinate for as long as I can before telling them.

Well, I'll try and write more regularly and share how all goes! Wish me luck!

Bill

Whim #2: Shoes (It's a rant, beware.)

Nike iD Women's AirMogan

Well,

I've always had a thing for shoes. Not surprising, you'd say, you're a girl. But no, it's not like that! I only buy an average of one pair of nice sports shoes each year so it's a big deal for me what I actually get. Last year I had a pair of discounted Pumas (so discounted I doubt they were ever officially Puma) but they've turned old and nagged my tendon to death. So I had to change them, luckily for my whim-personality.

Now I've been working at McDonald's for half a year already and I've seen 90% of the town's teenagers. Some of them had these awesome shoes, ankle high, skater soles, absolutely dreamy! They turned out to be Nike and after pretending to look for cheaper versions I decided to get ones as well.

At that point I found out you can customize them! They joy of shoe-ly heaven! They do have quite a lot of options, but I'm not into colourful accessories, so after a few days I designed myself a pair with a yellow-black colour scheme. The side had a textile panel with flowers and I even typed my own shoe-logo. So far, so good, I was in love with the design image!

Although I don't wear any yellow, this one was so subtle and calm I decided to go with it anyway. Laces seemed pretty similar to the sole and lining so I didn't really suspect any major differences. I now had to wait a month to get my lovely new shoes! I was quite excited as the delivery day approached. I stalked FedEx vans and cried an apocalyptic Nooooooo! when one passed our street and went away. But then it came back and the man came out with my little treasure box. Imagine the excitement!

And then I opened the box. Before me stood one of the ugliest AirMogans I've seen. It was quite disappointing although I didn't want to let it show in front of my partner. I had waited a month and paid the largest sum I've ever paid for a pair of skateboard shoes and got what? I almost want to skip explaining because of that pressing awful feeling in my chest. It will sound stupid to me in two days, but right now I feel let down and I can't help being sad for a stupid pair of shoes.

Moving forward to the explanation. These are my shoes.

First, the picture makes them look better. The real colours are:

• Pale plastic-y yellow on the flower-printed fabric. The one you get on cheap plastic picnic cups.
• Really rich yellow on the laces and sole.
• Pale mustard-ish yellow for the lining. As if you've washed them a couple times too many.

Second, the printed fabric isn't really as subtle, it has as much bright fat flowery things on it as it does yellow background.It isn't flat, instead it is swollen between the stitches. Cool.

Third, I even got earrings of similar colour as in the picture, to go with the shoes. Now they only go with the ugly textile thing I'll paint black once I get some paint.

Fourth, shape is different. I hate wide ankle-openings to my guts, that's why I didn't buy shoes for 30£, but for twice as much and more instead. I hope it will go down a bit once I wear them. 

It's a shame, really, these shoes could have been godly. I will wear them and I'll say to myself "Yes, girl, these are comfortable" and when the time comes to buy new shoes I'll be happy to leave them for walking the dog in the muddy mountain.

Anyway, sorry about the rant, the whole thing's heavy on my heart right now.

If you ever purchase shoes online, consider the following:

• Try a pair in store to find the right size.
• Do not rely on colours on your screen.
• Better safe than sorry. Although you might love them, even if you have the tiniest suspicion, it might be better to buy shoes the old-fashioned way.

I'll end on that note,

Bill

Whim #1: Why it took so long.

John - the daffodil we saved three days ago from the street.

Hello :)

After a long, long pause I've decided to resume blogging but with a new and exciting concept behind my writing! But let us go back in time and hear the whole little story.

I decided to create this blog because I wanted to leave an imprint on the map of the world-wide web. I didn't really see what others have been doing (stupid business move), so I wrote and wrote, thinking how awesome and fresh my scheme was. It wasn't ("Duh, Capt. Obvious!").

Then I started following some blogs, then more of them, then so many that I can't possibly keep up with all of them daily. And it became quite clear that some of them were way better than mine, more entertaining, better looking, more often followed. And it discouraged me a little, you know that type of discouragement - "I know they deserve what they have, why can't I do it?" - that crawls up your nerves until you want to beat the crap out of your blog or school papers. So I did, I didn't want to keep doing something I didn't like. It sounds irresponsible, but, hey, I've got a job, I don't need anything else to make me feel down (no offence, job).

I can't say you've missed much interesting stuff in my life since. Another university year, some magnets, some writing, some minor excitements, hours and hours on Etsy, nothing special, but still things that make me happy. 

And then, less than a month ago a most awesome person complimented the blog as it was and said I should've kept going. And I decided I would. Yes, that's how the Whim World works. However, I didn't really want to keep doing the same unsatisfying thing. Instead, I will now keep my blog true to myself even if no business guru would ever say it's useful or SEO-effective.

And here comes Whim #1 - Whim blogging! I will post whenever I feel like posting about whatever I feel like posting! I don't mean this in a teen pseudo-rebellion sense, but in a wholesomely self-loving one. My goal is to entertain you and make you feel happy, but that would be impossible if I am miserable. I remember the hard times I had keeping up the positive tone during the last few weeks of my previous blogging spree and I don't really want to go through them again. Blogs should feel natural to their owners.

And that's why it took so long. I thought I had to write this post, but I didn't really feel like it. And I procrastinated. But, no more!

I don't know what my next post will be about, but you should give me the benefit of the doubt.

Until then take your time with life, 

Bill :)