New Business Launch! Introducing Spark Creative...

Today I get to share some exciting news, I shared some sneak peeks at Stitches of something I was working on, a brand new business (running alongside my existing businesses!) with a good friend of mine Diane Rooney - I'm very pleased to tell you about the launch of Spark Creative!

Spark Creative was the merging of our ideas, Di and I had a lunch last year and we got to talking about business and our plans for the year ahead. Di asked me if I would write some content for a new business idea she was working on and I asked her for some help with one of mine, as we started talking, we realised we were basically starting the same business but with different approaches. As we discussed it more, we realised that the strengths in our differences could make a joint venture much more exciting than the two separate ventures we had planned, we merged our ideas, plans and visions together to create Spark Creative!

Spark Creative is an online resource for those of you who have, or are starting, a creative business. We'll be giving you inspiration, business tips, resources and all the things we wished we had known when we started out, including all of the mistakes so we can hopefully help you avoid the same ones and take the first steps to igniting your dream life!

We will be bringing you more information over the coming weeks and you'll start to see information on all of the exciting things we have in store, keep an eye on our new website, blog and Facebook page, or sign up for our email newsletter, for all the news as it happens as well as some great business inspiration and resources.

Thank you for dropping by and sharing in our excitement!
Sarah x

Getting Organised

Yesterday and Today I spent trying to get myself organised, I'm working on so many projects for so many different areas that I was surrounded by different piles of paper - letters, sketches, emails, proposals, drafts, colour swatches, ideas scribbled on scraps of paper, product specs, lists, reference pictures, you name it, I've got it!!! So I spent a few hours with this book:

 

The Creative Entrepreneur: A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real

Working through step by step, getting all my ideas on paper, deciding what is important, what isn't as important, what I can cut out of my overloaded schedule and what I need to pay more attention to! The armed with multi-coloured files and folders, labels, notebooks and pens (I do love stationery! LOL), I got myself completely organised. I run all the updates on my pooter, backed everything up, sorted all the scraps of paper, filed all of my sketches and ideas then I sat down with a big pad and a sharpie and started mind maps for all the different things I wanted to do and how to start etc... I must say after I finished I felt a huge weight had been lifted!! It's like suddenly being given a map after walking round in circles for ages. All I have left to do is gluing all of my magazine cuttings into a journal which I might do tonight.

A few things that came out of it all surprised me, I was surprised by what actually wasn't as important as I thought and what I really really wanted wasn't what I necessarily thought it would be!

I also started organising my inspiration file on my pooter, my blogs in google reader and have unfollowed some people on twitter who were no longer totally relevant to me (I always feel horrible unfollowing incase someone thinks they done something wrong, but half of my feed was things not relevant to me anymore)

I think I gave OH the spring cleaning bug because he started tidying and organising the house as I was working, now it feels like the cobwebs have been blown off and I can move forward *sigh*

Now I'm back to the drawing board (literally) working on some new product designs :o)

Sarah x

A Lazy (ish) Sunday

Started the day working on my Creative Entrepreneur journal, my little sister bought me the Creative Entreprenuer book for my birthday and I have been working on my journal for the last few weeks following the exercises in the book, I have to say I've had some quite surprising results but its nice to get everuything on paper and really does give you a clear road map of where you're going and what you want to achieve!

I tried to make OH a pie for Sunday dinner, it looked yummy but didn't taste quite as I had expected unfortunately, I'm not the greatest cook on the world* (*understatement of the year) but my pie is usually OK! I'm losing the few cooking skills I did possess! Ah well, I barely do it anyway so I don't spose it matters that much and he enjoyed it - quote "I quite like it when it's all soggy" bwahahahahhaha!

And I did go to the trouble of fashioning our initials and a heart out of the remaining pastry - that makes up for it lacking a bit in the taste department right?

This afternoon I uploaded a few more downloads to Craftsuprint, they havent't been verified as of right now but you should be able to see them soon! I'm off to doodle a few things for my own site now. I also tested some colours for a limited edition set of sprays coming to the website soon, so look out for those!! I also need to work on some things for the other things I have going on in the background although I will be doing that from the comfort of the sofa snuggled up with OH and fuzzybutt :o)

Luckily I treated myself to a chocolate cherry cake from M&S yesterday so some of that with some Sainsburys Chantilly vanilla cream has made up for my pie attempt!

I'm on the hunt for another book to read after finishing Eat, Pray, Love (thank you to whoever recommended that one!) so any recommendations please??

Sarah x