Recommended Reads
Blogging for Bliss: Crafting Your Own Online Journal: A Guide for Crafters, Artists & Creatives of all Kinds
by Tara Frey
New to blogging? Or wonder what it's all about? Blogging for Bliss is an eye-opening, take-you-by-the-hand book that introduces you to the ins and outs of creative blogging. Each chapter focuses on an area of blogging: why blog, tools, how to, software, and making it pretty.
Especially helpful are the examples sited throughout each chapter which demonstrate how creative bloggers handled a particular aspect or challenge on their blog. At the end of each chapter we're introduced to some creative bloggers and learn where to find their blog, when they started, what they blog about, and anything they were to change about their blog if they had to do it all over again. The creative bloggers featured are very generous with their information and tell all.
Aside from learning about creative bloggers and what each one focuses on, it was interesting to read about the different software choices (most are free!), and how easy it is to start blogging. There's also a brief discussion on revenue sources for bloggers if you're interested.
This is a quick read (156 pages) full of tips, beautiful photos, advice, and inspiration. A great first step into the world of creative blogging.
Organizing Your Craft Space
by Jo Packham
This book is such a breath of fresh (creative) air! You know that feeling when you walk into your favorite craft store and imagine all the possibilities? Well this is that book!
Each page is full of wonderful, whimsical, fun examples of how artists from quilters, scrapbookers, and painters to tassel-makers, beaders and yes, mosaicists have organized their craft spaces....all in gorgeous full-color photos!
Not only is each artists' work amazing but they've come up with truly creative ways to display their materials and solve storage challenges. Anything goes and they make it work....beautifully!
Soul Proprietor: 101 Lessons from a Lifestyle Entrepreneur
by Jane Pollak
This is an easy-reading, great advice sort of book. I've read it twice and will read it again later this year just to refresh my memory.
The sub-title says it best, "101 Lessons from a Lifestyle Entrepreneur." The author, Jane Pollak is a successful business owner -- she started off painting eggs of all things. Although it may not sound very exciting, she managed to make a great living at it. She found a niche, or rather fell into a niche. She built that business little-by-little and grew it into something completely different -- public speaking.
As she grew her business she learned lessons along the way. Some were about her particular craft which could be applied to any craftsman, and some were business related. But it's her humor and reaction to events and challenges that particularly interested me. When making decisions she learned early on to listen to her soul. She found that to run her business and exist in her family's life and friends', she needed to find that happy place in the middle.