On Wearing Many Hats, Money & Working Solo

As a artist/crafter/small business owner/blogger, I work alone. It sounds kinds of nice, not answering to anyone, but overall, being an island is extremely exhausting.

Everything I need, from product concept, to design, to production/printing, to finishing, to packaging, to marketing...it's all just me. I'm lucky because internet access makes all of that a LOT easier than it was 20 some-odd years ago, but it's still a lot for one person to handle.

Social media is a wonderful tool. We can save money on advertising by being our own advertising! Saving money sounds great and all, but what you don't realize is how much harder your have to work to get people to notice you while keeping your own production up and costs low. Free time is pretty much non-exsistant when you're a one-person production and yet, I always feel like I should be doing more!

When someone does a lot of things the old saying is they "wear a lot of hats." I have a face for sunglasses, but hats? They never look right on me.

Silliness aside, I wear a LOT of hats. This is a little sample of my weekday schedule, it's been intense, but it's been paying off. I'm seeing a lot more page views and sales!

Current Big Project At Work

1. First there is my main job, which is an hour away from home, where I am the only employee, and I work 9-5 Mon-Fri (9-4 on Fridays right now in the summer with our new summer hours. Thank goodness.) I am a graphic designer and digital printing consultant, but being the only employee in the facility, I do everything from filing, to answering phones, to production, to being tech support and personal assistant handling their messages and stuff not pertaining to business. When we're slow it's manageable, but when we're busy it's exhausting in and of itself.
   
   
   Then I have...
   

Media Kit MADNESS

Lookin' all kinds of professional! Not like a food crazed sleepless zombie at all!

Look at me being all professional looking and junk!

So my numbers aren't super impressive, yet, but they're not bad considering I started the official blog in January of 2014. For roughly 2 years of hustling, this isn't too shabby.

Check out the backside after the cut!

Fancy Backgrounds & Life Update/Rambling

Bye bye stark white, hello FULL color backgrounds!

Yesterday was a really productive day for me! I was able to list my new Louise and TWEWY stickers on Etsy but instead of my usual stark white backdrop, I made fancy ones!

Well "made" isn't quite accurate. All I did was go to Pixabay and print out some free stock images of graffiti and cheeseburgers on some tabloid paper, but it made my stuff look so awesome!

This one really makes me want to doodle some burgers of my own!

If I had more time I would have made my own, but with everything else I have going on...

• Packing for the Summer Fancy Food Show in NY this weekend (I leave Sat., return Wed.) 
• Writing Food Reviews to queue up for the blog so it isn't stagnant while I'm away 
• Making and shipping out Etsy orders
• Listing NEW Etsy and Redbubble items
• Filming, editing and queueing up YouTube videos (2 a week! Gotta keep that up) 
• Washing, drying and folding 2 (long overdue) loads of laundry
• Doing minor PR work for all the stuff I do online to generate interest and get views/sales
• AND I have a few really big deals going on behind the scenes with some companies that I can't quite tell you guys about yet for both my art and my food blogging ventures.
• All that, PLUS my 9-5 day job that is a 40+ min drive there and another 40+ min back every day...

So yeah, I did NOT have the time to doodle any burgers or DIY my own graffiti wall for backdrops last night, but that is what stock images are for!! 

The end results look awesome, and I even printed out a couple to enhance my latest Sometimes Foodie post! 

My life feels pretty hectic at the moment, but everything's coming' up Milhouse awesome! This is really great and a few doors are opening for me thanks to all the stuff I do after-hours online, and I need to give it my all to keep this up! 

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Selfie - My First Self Portrait (WIP)

All these years and I've never done a self portrait. That's like skipping How to Be An Artist 101!

To be honest, figure work isn't one of my strong points. I have a very poor sense of anatomy, and even though my college was great conceptually, they didn't teach the fundamentals of drawing, portraiture, or figure work in any medium. I just drew what I saw, which has worked for me until now, but I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and do something kind of therapeutic and self-exploring.

Story Time: Don't Feel Obligated to Accept EVERY JOB

This one is a bit of a downer and mostly me venting about a nightmare job of mine I should have walked away from a long time ago. Let this be a precautionary tale to those of you starting freelance.

A group of dentists are making a directory for their 500+ member organization. The job comes to my print-shop-day-job, but we can't do the file creation part of it (they have ancient computers and no InDesign) so my boss sends them my way and suggests I freelance it to keep the job close as well as "help me out" with extra income. I'm saving for my own house so I do need the money so I talk to the clients. 

The client said they will provide an excel sheet with data about the members. I need to use that 500+ directory of data to make a book divided into three sections. 

1. Directory organized alphabetically by members' LAST NAMES
2. Directory of members organized by the COUNTY their practice is in
3. Directory of members organized by their SPECIALIZATION in the field 

I give them my hourly rate and let them know what I need to complete the job. They assure me they've done this before and that it'll be sent over very soon. 

I have better computers than my day job, and I’ve done data merging like this in InDesign before, it’s 500+ members, but it should be a simple data merge and a little tweaking here and there to get the layout to flow correctly. Should be easy enough, right?

I'm sick, but I've still got life goals.

I’m so sick right now, I can’t remember the last time I was this sick. Is this the flu? This sucks, but I still have hopes that 2016 will be the year I finally get my life together.

Things I want to do in 2016

• focus on my Etsy shop & online shops to earn more side-income
• update my personal website
• Update my food blog to it’s own URL (already purchased) & increase ad revenue & traffic
• Get my food blog back in order (car accident got my update schedule all messed up)
• Start uploading 2 YouTube videos a week
• Start recording more art and craft style videos
• Go back to updating my art blog every single day
• Figure out all this car accident stuff to get my savings back in order
• Start talking to the bank about what it’ll take to buy my own house (Even if paying it off will take forever and I’ll be old and gray when it’s entirely mine.)
• Keep focusing on my mental health & focus on getting over my past abusive relationships.

Will I get all of that done this year? Maybe not, but if I accomplish even half of these, I’ll consider that a success.

My body is one giant bruise

I just got back from New York and boy, are my arms tired. Seriously, I feel like my body is one giant bruise, but the show was absolutely amazing! I've been updating my tumblr and instagram accounts with some of my antics and adventures, because they are easier to update from my mobile than this blog, but full write ups are on the way!

In the meantime, here are some photo-bullet-points from my trip!

Day 153: Stop Sleeping! Work More!

So I went to work, ran errands on the way home, made myself dinner and a lunch for tomorrow, and them completely passed out. It was so cold today! It was 50 degrees F, and it's June! I blame the weather. I was so cold in my room I grabbed a blanket from my bed, and I was out like a light. Urg.

So I did a quick rush-y doodle to fill out my current sketchbook page, reminding me not to sleep, wrote up my food review, and now it's almost 4AM. On a work night. I swear I have my life together, but my sleep schedule is absolutely fucked.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Some WIP stuff for Otakon 2015

Otakon is almost here. I am freaking out!

There's still so much I want to make and do! I already have all my in-stock-stickers cut out and ready to go, I have my two sailor moon mini sheets done, I'm starting on some little notepad designs, and I am making more jewelry.

It’s fun getting back into polymer clay jewelry and charms. I made more mini fruit tart studs, some little doughnut studs, and I’m making my Princess Jelly Fish print into a few underwater themed buttons.

Day 142: Not a drawing...but

My grandmother passed away. Everything is really surreal, and even though this isn't really a drawing or doodle, it's still artistic, so I'm going to count it.

I made these custom memorial cards for my mother, uncle, and grandfather to mail out to their friends and distant family. My grandpa wanted something simple, so we stuck with a black and white theme. I wish I could have it done with raised printing, but there's really no time.

I also made more polymer clay stuff for Otakon/Etsy tonight. If that counts.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Day 111: So much pain for a small-ish injury

I drew my left hand since I draw right handed.

So today was just one of those days. I left my car windows partially down overnight during a storm, I fell down the basement steps carrying laundry, and to top things off, I sliced my right pointer finger open right at the tip near my nail.

My CPU fan has been really noisy, so I shut down and tried to clean it out and see what was going on, but my computer set up is really compacted. I must have hit the power button on my keyboard with something when I was shifting things around and my PC turned on, fan turned on, and bye bye finger tip.

Not to be graphic, but the very tip of my finger was pretty much sliced off by the fan blades, but not completely. Kind of like a flip-cap on a tube of toothpaste. I didn't even know it cut me at first, it hurt, but I re-shut down and went back to tinkering when I saw blood flowing down my arm. Oh well. I flipped the skin back, applied pressure, cleaned it, and now I have the world clunkiest bandage for such a tiny injury because it's in such a weird location and I have long nails. It's really sore and it stings, but I'm right handed, and I need to type. Hopefully it'll heal up quickly.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ DA ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

A Busy Day with my Puffy Puppy

Yesterday was the dog park, today a pet blog launch. Someone is a spoiled puff. #pomsofinstagram #jackjack #dogs #poisonandantidote #petsofinstagram #Pomeranian #foxandfeline

A photo posted by M. Smith (@poison_and_antidote) on Apr 19, 2015 at 11:41am PDT

I am so worn out. I should have gotten more work done this weekend for Otakon, but I ended up spending a lot of time with my dog, which was really nice. So I'd say it was worth the slacking off.

Yesterday I took him to the dog park because it was absolutely gorgeous outside. I slathered myself in sunblock to protect my pale recluse-like skin from the sun, but I managed to get burned anyway. Oh well, at least I'll have some color once it all heals.

So we spent two hours running around at the dog park and going for a walk, and then today we were invited to the Fox & Feline blog launch party.

Day 63: Headache

I'm having another really bad headache today, which is rare, but when I get them they're really intense. I decided to try and make a little comic about it, since comics are something I'm not used to doing, and I'm happy with how it turned out visually, but honestly, this is something I worry about all the time.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ DA ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

New Video: Pet Tag

I was shooting a video about stickers, but a spoiled little fluff-puff had to make it all about him. So I thought I"d make this video for fun, even though he changed his mind about halfway through.

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ DA ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥ redbubble ♥

Day 6: Jackal-Berry-Pom-Pom

.005 Micron and Mechanical Pencil

For day 6 I drew a quick bust-style sketch of my dog, Jack Jack! He's a Pomeranian, although he's way bigger than typical Poms, and it's hard to tell, but this sketch is super tiny. Maybe at the end of this week I'll post a scan of the whole sketchbook page to give you a better idea of size. (I'm currently doing crappy cellphone pics for these posts because they are so quick and easy to put up.)

♥ etsy ♥ storenvy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥ Society6 ♥

Sorry for the lack of posts lately

Cutest (and fluffiest) scholar ever!

I know every blogger says this, but things have been really crazy for me lately.

Costumes, podcasts, and pumpkins under the cut!

It Doubled in size Overnight!

Holy crap! This little pumpkin seedling doubled in size overnight! It's already outgrown it's tiny plastic Target pot, so I'll be picking up a larger one (and a bit of fertilizer) on my way home from work tomorrow. Other than growing my own green onions for cooking, it's been a LONG time since I've grown anything, so this seems like it's growing super fast. Is this normal?

I wonder how easy it would be to grown other veggies indoors during the winter. It seems like an interesting idea, but for now I don't have the room for an indoor or outdoor garden. Gah, I'm a plant mommy! I hope this little guy doesn't droop overnight, I'll get it a new pot ASAP.

♥ etsy ♥ store envy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥

Accidentally Growing Pumpkins?

So there's this mini-aisle at Target that's filled with the most random silly stuff. (I'm sure a lot of you Target go-ers know what I'm talking about.) I think of it as the $5.00 and under stocking stuffer and gift aisle, but it has little themed items year round, so it isn't holiday exclusive. I'm addicted to that random aisle.

Inktober - October 6th

I decided to jump into Inktober (late, but better late than never), so here's my first little drawing. It's a little Halloween themed doodle on a scrap of paper, about 3" x 4.75. "I decided to be festive and doodle a little cat with some cliche witch-y items.

It was fun to doodle a little something. I hope I'm able to keep this up for the rest of the month!
(Also today is my birthday. I'm officially one year older. I tend to freak out and get really depressed on my birthday, but so far I am handling this year really well.)

Wow, I said "little" a record number of times in this post...

♥ etsy ♥ store envy ♥ facebook ♥ deviantart ♥ sometimes foodie ♥

Sign Designs from my Day Job!

This one was my favorite

Working as a graphic designer in a print shop isn't very glamorous, I rarely get the chance to be creative, so when I get a bit of freedom, I like to have a bit of fun with it. I got the chance to make a few lawn signs for the business, and here's what I came up with.