Friday, February 28, 2014

Rebranding

I took several classes recently on Creative Live (seriously, if you haven't checked out this site yet, please do!) My latest favorite was Pricing and Sales with Julia Keeler. Julia is a newborn photographer in a small town near Portland, and I was blown away by every second of this class.She taught not only taught about pricing, she talked about the total customer experience that makes you worth a higher price tag. She brought emotions in to her sessions and sales, all while keeping it in a positive light. If I can be half the photographer she is someday, I will feel very blessed indeed.

I have written down several baby steps I would like to take in revamping my own business. The first is working on rebranding. One key point she talked about is that you need to make your brand reflect you, instead of trying to make it what your clients might "want." I learned how my clients want me, and the more I capture what I am passionate about and I love, the more my brand will be built.

I started with a logo search on Etsy and ended up finding several excellent choices in marketing sets. I narrowed it down to a few choices, and while I would have much preferred to have an exclusive marketing set, the budget only allowed for an inexpensive revamp. As long as no one else in my area uses the same logo, I think I will be just fine. In truth, I LOVE THIS.



I chose a color scheme that can be neutral for boys or girls as I have decided to mostly focus on babies, children, and families, as well as still teaching knitters how to photograph their knits on the podcast. I still plan on photographing seniors occasionally, but since my own photography got started by me capturing moments of my kiddos, I thought it would be great to really hone in on this particular passion in my brand.

I will be working on my website extensively in the near future to make it match the brand, so stay tuned for updates! Blessings!

What do you think of the new brand? Have you ever had that ah-ha moment for your business?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Episode 8 - Fiber Festival Fun!

Hey everyone! Sorry this one is a bit scattered, I recorded VERY late at night after working in the basement for a few hours. I have a TON more I wanted to talk about when I am not so tired, so I'm glad to say I will work on organizing that content for the next episode. Enjoy! **Correction, the cones of yarn from Brown Sheep retail for $32, not $30!!** **The sweater I am going to knit is also called Anne's Sweater, not Anne's Cardigan. Wow, I was tired!**  **Yet another correction, the Knotty Girls won the Podcaster Throwdown. The numbers I had been looking at were old. Congratulations, Knotty Girls!!**


Ravelry: EmilyStraw and Knitting Butterflies group
My Blog: Knitting Butterflies
Instagram: butterflyem4


The Ravellenics are over. I did the Barley hat over and over again to make hats for Halos of Hope. I made a total f 10, reaching my silver goal.

I worked on my Skew socks and have a few more hours worth of work to finish.

My mom's Super Secret Sweater project was going right along, until I figured out I measured my guage wrong and need to frog the whole thing and start over. I am planning on incorporating the Vignette pattern.


Photo courtesy of The Loopy Ewe

My current #nerdalong project is Hermione's Everyday Socks in Loopy Legends Cheryl's Michigan Sunrise.


Winners of the Ravellenics Giveaway: Numbers chosen "live" from the entries on the Ravellenics contest thread.

BlueChinaDoll wins the Oh, Loops! Platinum sock base in the Lavender Infused Green Tea colorway:


 wins the skein of Opal Hundertwassers in colorway 956 (photo courtesy of hotyarns.com)



Countdown to 30

This episode I contemplate getting a tattoo for my 30th birthday.


Basement Tales

We made a TON of progress on our basement over the last few weeks, hopefully we will be done over the next month or two. (PS - I totally forgot to mention that the fireplace got stone this weekend! My brother in law is amazing! I will mention it next time) :)





Events

This weekend I attended the 4H Fiber Fun Festival in my hometown, invited by Joanna Johnson. We got to see our first sheep shearing, meet Peggy from the Brown Sheep Company, and met Karen from Aniroonz and purchased lots of beautiful yarn. **Correction, the cones of yarn from Brown Sheep retail for $32, not $30!!** I plan on using the cone to knit my Anne's Sweater from Green Gables Knits and the yarn from Aniroonz to knit the Sheepwagon Shawl (both by Joanna, can you tell I'm a fan of her patterns?)





Thursday, February 6, 2014

Business Photo Shoot

One of my favorite businesses in town is Kolowski Chiropractic and Wellness. Dr. Lauren and Dr. David are wonderful and help keep our community healthy through diet and chiropractic care. I felt very blessed indeed when they asked me to come take portraits for their office! Here are a few of my favorites.










The Basement As Of....

sometime last week. We bit the bullet and decided to hire out the rest of the drywall finishing. We figured that if we are going to move in ANY time soon we needed to just get this step DONE and over with. Here is where we were at before the nice man with the big drywall knives came over:

Playroom is about halfway done with sanding and mudding. 

The other side of the playroom. Sorry for the weird angle, I was trying to fit in as much good stuff as I could and not make you stare at the concrete floor.

Here's the bathroom, not anywhere new. The nice drywaller has added TONS of mud in here and it looks much better than this now.

The living room - getting closer all the time! We now have an entertainment center/shelving unit that I painted white on the outside and dark green/blue on the inside (it will look better when it's all finished). We also built a bench on the other side of the fireplace that opens up for storage and will have a cushion on it for additional seating. This room is currently a mess because everything that was in the playroom is stacked up in here to allow the nice drywaller room to work.

We are thinking we will get to paint more this weekend and even more next weekend, depending on how crazy the weekend is. We are moving, slowly but surely!