Oh the Cuteness!

We're fully funded and the shop is open! Visit us at www.blacksquirrelberkeley.com! This is the concept drawing I created for The Black Squirrel. The shop is going to be amazing! Hello friends! What a crazy year this has been! But finally, as of yesterday, my big dream has a chance of becoming a reality! We launched our Indiegogo campaign to fund the creation of a brick and mortar and online fabric, yarn, and craft supply boutique in Oakland, CA! We're off to a great start but we need lots of help getting the word out about it. This is the concept drawing of my ideal storefront. I built this campaign over the past year with practically no resources, except all my lovely crafty friends. Likewise, I have no money to put into advertising, but I'm not worried about that because the crafting community has always been such a tight knit and loving one! If you've been a follower of Oh the Cuteness and enjoyed our free patterns and DIYs then you'll be happy to ...

I've been thinking a lot about my business situation lately, and I think I need some advice... Being semi-self employed and freelancing instead of having a usual 9-5 job has a lot of rewards, a bit of peril, and a definite learning curve. Even though I've kept this blog up for 6 years, and my etsy shop for 5, I feel like I still have a lot to learn. This has always just been a fun little side job, an outlet for my creativity really, but now it needs to be something more substantial. Having more time to focus on it now, I have seen it grow so quickly in a short period of time that I know I can make it into exactly what I need if I get over a couple key personal hurdles. My biggest "blind spot", if you will, is in the realm of advertising. I'm a pretty shy person by nature really, and I've always just left it to etsy to advertise my shop, and blogger to get people to my blog. I've never been the kind of person to try very hard to stand out, and I need to c...