I Bid You Adieu with some Crafty Book Giveaways!

Well friends, it's been over 2 months since I've written a blog post. There's been a lot of change going on in my little corner of the crafty world. My priorities have shifted quite a bit as of late, and it has taken me time to get used to it. Basically, I've decided to focus all my creative energy on Kuhmillion, my lingerie business, to really try to build it and make it into a full-time gig for my husband & I. In fact, we've been working our designing (mine) & programming (his) fingers to the bone lately giving our website a complete overhaul, which we hope to launch later this week. Kuhmillion 2.0 is going to be amazing, and we're really excited about it! We both have bigtime entrepreneurial dreams and schemes that we just can't give up. But there are only so many hours in the day, so much energy in our bodies, and so much stress we can handle healthily. Splitting my time between three small businesses just wasn't working out very well (imagine that!). Something had to give. Know the feeling?

So, in the past few months I've withdrawn my partnership in The WonderCraft and put Beth Hempton Art & Toys on the back burner (my Etsy shop will remain open, and I still have stuff at a few shops in town, but I won't be developing any new products or pursuing new consignment or wholesale accounts for the time being). There's been quite a bit of guilt involved over my many unfinished projects and unrealized ideas, and a lot of "what now?" confusion coupled with twinges of feeling like a failure... but I think I've come to peace with all of that.

Also, to save up money and pay down debt in preparation for the hubs & I both being gainfully self-employed someday, I went back to work. I'm a part-time hostess and shop girl at a lovely local cafe, which I'm enjoying, but it's been a big adjustment after working from home and being my own boss for over 2 years. And oh yeah, I also joined a recreational roller derby league (which is totally awesome!), so I'm skating 3 or 4 times a week now.

So, needless to say, all of these new developments have left me little time or energy for blogging. I'm bidding a fond farewell to Crafty Mishmash. I'll leave it online, but don't expect any new posts (for now, at least). But, before I go, I have something for all of you dear readers - fabulous craft books!

Several weeks (months?) ago, the great folks at Kodansha Publishing sent me copies of two of their fun & creative titles: Felt Friends from Japan and Crane Origami. I was too overwhelmed at the time to do this giveaway, so some of the timely impact has been lost, but I figured it was better late than never. These are both great books, and all you have to do is leave a comment telling me which book you would like and you'll be entered in a drawing to win it!

Felt Friends (pictured above) is a simply adorable book, with clear instructions for making tons of cute toys and accessories. The book has lots of useful diagrams and full-color photos of finished projects. I've got 2 copies for the taking, ya interested?

About the crane origami book, Laura from Kodansha says,

"There's a legend in Japan that says that if 1,000 origami paper cranes are folded, a person's wish will come true. Over the years, The Thousand Cranes ("Senbazuru") have become the symbol for peace, hope, and recovery from illness. Today, in the face of monumental hardship and loss following the earthquake and tsunami, people around the world are folding cranes as a sign of support for Japan's thousands of victims."

Isn't that a beautiful vision? Would you like to learn how to fold paper cranes to show your support for Japan? I've got 5 copies of this book to give away!

Remember, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me which book you would like and you'll be entered in a drawing to win it! Easy-peasy! Thanks so much for reading my blog.
<3<3<3
UPDATED 5/18/11:
Congrats to the following winners; I'll be emailing you!
Felt Friends: Aimee & Deborah
Crane Origami: Meredith, Amelia, Jen C, Jen F, Beth A

Someday Projects are now Sunday Projects

I've started a new thing in my work room that I'm calling my "Sunday basket." The idea is that I will keep an ongoing project in this basket: sewing, painting, a photo album - anything that I am working on purely for myself. Or it could be a gift for someone else, but it is most definitely just for fun & not for my business. The projects that are stowed in the basket will be my Sunday projects. I can spend all day on Sundays working on them if I want to - I'm giving myself permission to do that, and promising myself that I will refrain from doing anything work-related on Sundays. I can work on them whenever I feel like it of course, but knowing how busy my weeks are, I probably won't. But at least by saving Sundays for these personal projects I can realize some of those projects I keep telling myself I'll get around to "someday." Someday is today!!!!!!!

There are tons of things I've wanted to sew for myself (I envision a whole new wardrobe of skirts, tops & dresses) & I'll even go so far as to buy the patterns & fabric, but then I have a really hard time completing them. And then there all of those cute little one-day projects I always see in my Craft newsletter, like making bags from vintage pillowcases. I have a beautiful vintage pillowcase I thrifted about a year ago for just such a project waiting patiently on the shelf of my linen closet. Lots of other stuff I've been wanting to do just for fun, too, like collage a wall of my work room or go to more art galleries & museums, but I always seem to find myself swamped with work for my various small businesses. But I'm learning lately that in order to stay happy & inspired I really need to make an effort to carve out time for these things that I want to do, even though I always have a list a mile long of the things I "should" do. So here it is, typed out & posted to the interwebs for all the world to see: I'm taking back my Sundays!

More about what's currently in my basket in a future post...

Craftrepreneurs: Rosalie Gale, Tara Gentile & Megan Auman

 I've come across some very cool, helpful resources for indie craft biz owners recently & wanted to share. I am simply in awe of the brilliant ladies behind these organizations. Hope you find them as interesting & inspiring as I have! ~Beth H   {re-posted from Get Crafty, Austin}

First up is Rosalie Gale, founder of Unanimous Craft, a tagable, sortable index of resources for crafters, artists and indie business owners. Rosalie says,

"I was inspired to build Unanimous Craft after seeing a huge list of links to different resources that The House of Mouse posted in the Etsy forums. I wanted to make a tool that our community could use to get organized and share information.

It's sort of like Yelp for the crafty community. People can submit resources (great articles on Twitter, awesome magazines, online tools, accounting spreadsheets, inspirational blogs - whatever) and the community votes on the usefulness of each listing. Then, people can curate lists of resources that fall into a common theme like: 10 things you should do when you start your indie business, 500 ways to deal with Twitter, etc."

Pretty awesome, no? Rosalie recently added The WonderCraft to the index - check it out! We are honored! And we'd totally love it if you visited our listing & rated us, so that we might place high in the Popularity Contest. : )

Next up is Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl fame. Tara has long been an involved & highly respected member of the crafting community through her work as the editor & head writer behind Scoutie Girl, "the blog with a penchant for the passionately handmade."

Now she's taking it up a notch with the launch of her awesome new Big Thinking for Small Businesses blog & a "big thinking" consulting biz. The gist of it:

"We specialize in web strategy, branding, product development, community building, and marketing to help build your small biz empire. Specifically, I work with creative entrepreneurs: those interested in building their businesses by breaking down convention and finding customers who think outside-the-box too.

To help you reach your goals, I have a wide range of products & services. Here you will find self-paced products, a la carte services, and full-fledged invasion packages to suit your needs no matter what stage your empire is in. I only ask that if you decide to work with me or buy my product, you are committed to your own success – regardless of fear, opposition, and self-doubt – as I am."

Sounds amazing; Tara really knows how to cut right to the heart of the matter for small biz owners. I've been very inspired by her writing on her blogs & just bought her "52 Weeks of Blogging Your Passion" e-book! I'm looking forward to getting re-energized about my creative work & revamping my own blog with Tara's wonderful advice.

And last, but certainly not least, Megan Auman, the genius behind Crafting an MBA. Her blog is filled with tons of great information & business advice for designers & makers. It runs the gamut from practical posts on making & manufacturing to extremely thought-provoking discussions on product development & growing your business. The blog covers everything in between & above & beyond these topics, too - it is a wealth of great information! 

You can even take part in the Crafting an MBA book club! Megan says, 

"One of my goals when starting this website was to create a community where designers and makers could come together and discuss business related books and concepts. Its partly selfish – I always find myself wanting to discuss what I’m reading with others. But I also want to help others read business books and figure out [how] to apply those principals to their own craft-based businesses."

I hope you'll check out these ladies' websites - they're all very engaging reads that inspire deep thinking about our field & offer many amazing resources for growing a small business.

Don't Miss Shop Austin This Weekend!

The Lone Star Ladies Present:

Shop Austin!

Saturday, 4/17

10am - 6pm

In addition to the AWESOME VENDORS, there will be:

Goodie Bags for the first 30 shoppers!

plus a Beauty Lounge, a Cafe, & a fun Photo Booth!

It's gonna be a blast, y'all, with some rootin'-tootin' good shoppin' from lots of talented artisans! Hope to see you there! You can get your tix online or at the door. They're $10 for adults (kids 12 & under are free), with $5 going to the Frontier arts scholarship. How cool is that?!

The silly pic above was taken at last year's show; the hubs & I had a lot of fun volunteering.