A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CRAFTER (AND TEMPORARY KITTEN FOSTERER)

Hi everyone

Those of you who drop in on Wednesday know that my mid-week blog post is not always focused on crafting, but this week it is.  The main reason is so that I can take part in Week 2 of Caroleecrafts Blogging Thursday event.  My post will be published at the normal time (or around the normal time) on Wednesday and on Thursday morning, I will link to the Thursday Blogging event and visit the other blogs taking part.

Because of being involved in a large job at the moment, I don't have anything completed to post on here today, so I thought a day in the life of a crafter (as in me) would be my post.

My 'Crafting Day' is always a mix of things.  In my mind I produce a plan to accomplish a lot of work, but my plans don't always come to fruition.  However, once up and about my day will begin with a large cup of coffee and breakfast for my two cats (plus, at the moment, the kittens I am fostering).  While consuming my coffee and some Rich Tea biscuits (great with coffee) I answer emails that have come in late the previous evening or during the night.  I also check Twitter and Facebook to see if anything needs answering, but also to 'chat' with two local Tweeters I have become friendly with over the last few months.  During the day I will drop in and out of Twitter, answer any private messages that have arrived, reply to tweets that are for me, re-tweet any posts that I feel need a wider audience and also re-tweet the guest blog post from last Friday, and I regularly check my emails.

Once the early morning 'chores' are out of the way, I begin work.  Up to August 2011 I was a wage slave, often working around 35 hours spread over three days.  The beauty of being self-employed is that, yes I may do long hours, but I can choose when to do them and I enjoy what I do.  I get up very early and will begin work early - I find I am more productive in those first few hours than at any other time during the day.  Old habits die hard.  I can, and frequently do, work during the evening while watching the television - however, most of the time I couldn't tell you what I have watched because I often find I haven't really watched anything!

I would love to say I am an organised crafter, but I am not.  I start work on something and very often move onto something else that has caught my imagination.  I find that unless I am working on an order, I am a butterfly crafter - flitting from one 'make' to another.  In a way, I need the structure that working for someone else brings to a working day.  At times during the day, I will stop crafting to do some research on the Internet for ideas, suppliers, other blogs to read, new resources to buy or, even better, freebies such as decoupage downloads.  Very often this leads to me getting side-tracked by something that catches my eye (occasionally nothing to do with crafting).

Yesterday was slightly different to the norm as a friend of mine, Linda, is starting up in business selling her jams and chutneys, as well as wedding and Christmas cakes, and having been there, done that and worn the T-shirt, it was great to be able to give her some advice on what she needs to do to get up and running.  (Actually when you look at it in a list it is quite frightening, and I wonder why we all rush madly into it.)  She is helping me at my first event on 22 September - the bride and groom I am making wedding stationery for have invited me to their church service, which is right in the middle of my first event but not too far from the event venue, thank goodness.  This will be a good opportunity for Linda to see first-hand what managing a stall is like, plus she can promote her business while she is there.

Today included a long telephone conversation with the bride I am producing wedding stationery for.  We have finalised the Order of Service and discussed potential layouts for the Table Plan.  I have really enjoyed this particular commission and you can see a photograph of the Wedding Invitation here.  This is a side of my business that I want to expand and my hairdresser (off to see her tomorrow) has kindly said she will help the promotion by handing out my wedding business card to her clients.

My plan for the rest of today is to start work on a range of Christmas cards I have been planning for a while.  I can't get any further on the Orders of Service until this evening, so I can leave those for a while without feeling too guilty.

As you can see, there is no such thing as a normal or ordinary day when you are a self-employed crafter - but isn't that the best part?  Doing something you really enjoy and doing it when you want to.

I hope you have enjoyed my post - I am looking forward to reading the other blog posts tomorrow of those crafters taking part in Caroline's UK Handmade Blogging Thursday.

Jill