Bohtieque Design

I’m thinking robots

I’ve been having a hard time getting off the robot kick lately.  First, there were some sketches on the butcher paper my little man and I were using for drawing practice.  Then, there were some doodles in the margins of my lesson plans…and then I just gave up and decided to actually DO something with them.  So, I’ve got robot labels (circle and shipping, thank you), card sets and as of last night, notepads.

The notepads are a work in progress, though.

I love how neat and well-stacked everyone else’s look when I see them in tutorials online–mine do not, so I guess I’ll be making some more practice runs to get them right…plus upgrade the paper. Instead of having nice, even, perfectly-aligned stacks, I have nice, uneven, handmade looking stacks.  Not that handmade is bad, of course…it’s just not exactly what I’m going for, you know?

Anyway, I’ll do another set this week sometime and see how that goes.

Until then, I need to get labels printed and then I need to keep working on that website I started.  With school in session and yearbook deadlines and proofs shooting at me from everywhere, I’m not exactly moving forward on that in lightning speed, but it will happen–really (or so I keep telling myself).  There was a reason I set my goal of finishing at March!

Wiping the Slate Clean

Happy New Year!

I like to think that every day is special and every day is a chance to celebrate what’s good in the world around me. I’m not terribly holiday-centric, I guess you’d call it. That means I don’t plan a special meal or buy sparkly hats and noisemakers for New Year’s Eve, instead opting to take it easy, relaxing in front of the TV with a Diet Coke, my laptop and my sweetie.

Although I should have made some brandy slush to drink with that Diet Coke, but that’s beside the point.

This also means that normally I don’t plan much for resolutions, as I’m a realist:  I have ISSUES with resolutions.  Take the simple plan I made a few years ago: take a photo once a day, every day for 365 days.  Considering I’m in love with my camera, you’d think that would be easy.  Nope–I lasted into February.

My weight loss resolutions from high school, college and most of my 20′s?  Riiiight.  Those lasted about three days.

See? No follow-through.

Still, there are things I’d like to get finished this quarter for Bohtieque, and they need to get done so that I can make some forward progress.

1.  Choose an option for my website and hire someone else to complete it.  I get a few puzzled comments here and there when I mention that I’m hoping to outsource this project, but the truth is that I hate the technical aspect of putting together a website. It’s not just about getting the look right– it’s about finding someone with the experience and knowledge to do it right.

I like Etsy, of course.  I have a BigCartel store, too. Neither seems quite right, yet, though.  I’d like to have less limitations on what it is I can do and how I can list my products, and I know how confusing it is for some to have to add that extra sheet listing at Etsy when they’d rather just be able to select a higher quantity on the listing they’d like to order.

2.  Create a media kit. This is something I should have done eons ago, but I’ve been waiting for the perfect time–a time when I’m not in the middle of some sort of seasonal rush at Bohtieque or at school, a time when I can get the photos JUST right, a time when I feel like it. I’m going to tell you something–I’ll never really feel like it and the photos will never be good enough, but I’m just going to have to do it.

Part of cleaning up these gargantuan tasks, which fall pretty squarely into the marketing, non-design aspect of Bohtieque, is also sweeping out the cobwebs.  I need to decide what web shops I should keep open and which I should close, and I need to do a better job on this blog.

SO, in honor of the new year and my new goals, I’ve started with almost a clean slate here.  Instead of logging in and seeing that it’s been twenty-billion days since the last time I’ve posted, I’ve deleted almost everything.  I’m starting over, and I want to love blogging again, and I want it to inspire me again.

I hope we ALL find something to inspire us this new year.  Best of luck–and I’ll see you around. I promise.