New music. Partly inspired by a book (Mindset, by Carol Dweck) and partly inspired by this picture
It started out as this
And I think it ended up sounding like a weird mix of these 2 songs
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
Come As You Are
New music. Partly inspired by a book (Mindset, by Carol Dweck) and partly inspired by this picture
Monday, June 23, 2014
Go Wild Spraypainted Tshirts
Here they are! https://www.etsy.com/listing/190299136/go-wild-barcode-spray-painted-unisex
And I made a website so you can check them out before you buy one :) http://gowildtshirts.wix.com/original
And here are my tumblr, flickr, and pinterest so you can stalk them/me more!
And I made a website so you can check them out before you buy one :) http://gowildtshirts.wix.com/original
And here are my tumblr, flickr, and pinterest so you can stalk them/me more!
Monday, June 16, 2014
Social Media Takeover
Good news! The Etsy shop is finally online!
Now I'm crossing my fingers that the spraypainted tshirts actually sell. To use online, I tried to take cool pictures (that ended up all looking more or less the same) and failed a little bit but oh well. Light painting at 5 am is still a fun time.
Do you have a favorite? I really couldn't decide. I hated all of them equally.
I have more good news! Because I am ridiculously lazy, I was spending a typical summer day on the couch watching TV. An ad came on for wix.com that lets you create a free website. I was a little bit skeptical but it actually is free and also so easy that I designed the whole thing overnight, plus it's mobile friendly. It gives a little more background about the Go Wild TShirts that I'm selling on Etsy and it has links to all my social media accounts. So if you have free time, maybe you should head over to
...I love you...
The plan is to post all over social media so the people that I know in person or follow or share similar tastes and interests with can find my shop on Etsy easily. Since I am still trying (unsuccessfully) to become employed, I have too much free time and I decided to put this to good use by reading up on SEO, visibility, web analytics, and all that stuff with big words I couldn't define if you asked me. This has so far amounted to a grand total of zero sales, but we'll see.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Fountain Photography
My last post kind of sucked. It was A LOT of text and no pictures, so here's a story: One time I thought it would be a really cool idea to jump into a freezing cold and moldy fountain. And then I took pictures!
(Actually, credit belongs to my friend who took them for me, I just edited)
Etsy Struggles
Lately it seems that I have fallen off the face of the earth. I promise this is justified. I've been trying to set up my shop on Etsy, BUT, that has not gone as planned. I will describe in detail the struggle this has been since it's so pathetic it's funny. And it might factor into future decisions to start an "easy online business"... NO. just... no.
Ok. Where to start...
WARNING: I am about to go on a very long rant. Stop reading now!!!
1) First, I thought I had this quick, simple idea to make some money on Etsy sooo I looked into buying my basic supplies and found that they were cheapest online. That seemed fine but I didn't have a credit card. No problem, I'd make one. Wait. I went to the bank and they said I have to be 21. (Other people have since told me that's not true, but I swear that's what the guy told me*) Fine I'd ask my mom. Of course that took awhile before I had the card in my hands in front of the computer and it wasn't until checkout that I realized the shipping was going to cost me almost as much as my entire bulk order. Crisis #1: mostly averted.
2) Next, I had to battle with the production aspect of my brilliant business venture which, to be honest, I really had not thought through yet at this point. Let's just say that it involved a lot of spraypaint and that I was living in a college dorm in a very cold area of the country. Obviously that went well.
3) So far, I really wasn't doing too badly. I got a few of my friends to model for me and I'm a decent photographer so that went off without a hitch for the most part (it did start raining during one photoshoot). That got me all fired up to plaster every social media platform I know of with the pictures, although before I got to do that, I'd have to actually set up the Etsy shop to link to or else my homemade advertising would be pointless. Little did I realize how complicated that could actually be, starting with shipping expenses. I had no clue what to expect. I went to a UPS store to find out and they told me around $8 if I was lucky and probably actually closer to $15. Well... dammit. That was more expensive than my product. Then I had a stroke of genius. I tried asking the same question at the post office and YAY apparently it would ship for a flat fee of $5.20 or something.**
4) With a lot of luck, I had gotten through the first two parts: Name Your Shop and List Items before I reached a point that gave me goosebumps and made my blood run cold: Get Paid. That sounds great right? Except that would've entailed having to give my bank account numbers and stuff (which I definitely did not know) and more importantly, I hate banking. I don't understand it and I'm scared of it so I generally try to keep my distance. This was a terrifying moment on my long and winding path to Etsy success. Admittedly, I was a little deterred, but I'd already made stuff and spent money to buy it (I hate spending money almost as much as I hate banking) so I couldn't just quit. New plan! I found out about an old bank account I'd had when I was younger and apparently it still had a little bit of money in it! Easy solution? No. It was a custodial account, meaning it was my money and yet I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't take it out, transfer it, close the account, nothing. I left the bank in tears. (I would have anyway though, banking is stressful.) Wait, in retrospect that was a dumb move. I came back two weeks later, my mom still had not touched my custodial account (I had asked if she could close it and give me my money), and opened a new account. (Which I could've done two weeks earlier if I had my head screwed on straight) To my knowledge, the custodial account still exists with all the money I owned at age 10 sitting in it.
5) Armed with a shiny new debit card and a new set of routing and account numbers to memorize, I ran to my computer to once and for all to open my shop! Still... no. Initially, everything seemed to go as planned (except the first time when I think I typed the numbers in wrong and it rejected me) until the page where I had to give my PayPal account or decide to use checks. Considering the fact that I hadn't ordered checks because they were like $11 or something ridiculous, that left me with one choice- which meant it wasn't really a choice. Begrudgingly, I made a PayPal account. Or at least attempted. For some reason, it kept directing me to the UK version and then asking me for my county. I'd click on the US flag and it would send me back to the homepage. I did this dance for like 10 minutes. It eventually let me create a US account where my state was listed and although this was delightful news, it then asked me to confirm my bank account. I could do this online or in 2-3 days (in person) but there's this one little thing that I have neglected to mention so far: I don't drive. Or, I try my very best not to. I'm bad at it and I don't like it. Usually I wait for someone to give me a ride but this delays things (which is a big part of the reason the whole Etsy affair was such a struggle) and 2-3 days is not a reasonable expectation. I'd have to confront my fears of online banking... this brings me to crisis #
6) which was when I decided I needed to vent about all my entrepreneurial obstacles. I had a million tabs open while Etsy and PayPal and the bank and blogger were all waiting for their turn to get my attention and my computer was running slowly because of it. I cautiously typed in the url of the online banking site and clicked ok to the user agreements that I hadn't read. I got out all the banking information for the thousandth time in the last few hours and prepared to type in meaningless digits. Poised for action, I was caught off guard when the screen suddenly changed:
UNIVERSE, I HEAR YOU. I would quit except I already put money into this half-baked idea. I clicked back to the Etsy tab and it was asking me to confirm my PayPal by email address. On a whim, I typed it in. It worked. What. Why.
That's the story.
*Also I know that I kind of skipped over mentioning that I do have a debit card, but before any of the struggles began, I was about to just type in the numbers and use that before my mom freaked out and said that was risky since it's attached to my bank account with my life savings. True, I have a tendency to complicate life and maybe I could have just used my own debit card here but then this sad tragic account of my inability to handle real life would not be as entertaining because then my life would have been easy. I may have unneccessarily complicated matters for myself by not taking the same risk of using the debit card here.
**In this summary of events, the timeline is pretty different. Between the UPS store incident and the Post Office miracle, there were actually a few months. The moment that I had the [really stupid] idea to open an Etsy shop to the moment that it [fiiiiiiiinally] opened actually spanned from Thanksgiving to June.
Here's the link to Etsy!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/190299136/go-wild-barcode-spray-painted-tshirts?
Ok. Where to start...
WARNING: I am about to go on a very long rant. Stop reading now!!!
1) First, I thought I had this quick, simple idea to make some money on Etsy sooo I looked into buying my basic supplies and found that they were cheapest online. That seemed fine but I didn't have a credit card. No problem, I'd make one. Wait. I went to the bank and they said I have to be 21. (Other people have since told me that's not true, but I swear that's what the guy told me*) Fine I'd ask my mom. Of course that took awhile before I had the card in my hands in front of the computer and it wasn't until checkout that I realized the shipping was going to cost me almost as much as my entire bulk order. Crisis #1: mostly averted.
2) Next, I had to battle with the production aspect of my brilliant business venture which, to be honest, I really had not thought through yet at this point. Let's just say that it involved a lot of spraypaint and that I was living in a college dorm in a very cold area of the country. Obviously that went well.
3) So far, I really wasn't doing too badly. I got a few of my friends to model for me and I'm a decent photographer so that went off without a hitch for the most part (it did start raining during one photoshoot). That got me all fired up to plaster every social media platform I know of with the pictures, although before I got to do that, I'd have to actually set up the Etsy shop to link to or else my homemade advertising would be pointless. Little did I realize how complicated that could actually be, starting with shipping expenses. I had no clue what to expect. I went to a UPS store to find out and they told me around $8 if I was lucky and probably actually closer to $15. Well... dammit. That was more expensive than my product. Then I had a stroke of genius. I tried asking the same question at the post office and YAY apparently it would ship for a flat fee of $5.20 or something.**
4) With a lot of luck, I had gotten through the first two parts: Name Your Shop and List Items before I reached a point that gave me goosebumps and made my blood run cold: Get Paid. That sounds great right? Except that would've entailed having to give my bank account numbers and stuff (which I definitely did not know) and more importantly, I hate banking. I don't understand it and I'm scared of it so I generally try to keep my distance. This was a terrifying moment on my long and winding path to Etsy success. Admittedly, I was a little deterred, but I'd already made stuff and spent money to buy it (I hate spending money almost as much as I hate banking) so I couldn't just quit. New plan! I found out about an old bank account I'd had when I was younger and apparently it still had a little bit of money in it! Easy solution? No. It was a custodial account, meaning it was my money and yet I couldn't do anything with it. I couldn't take it out, transfer it, close the account, nothing. I left the bank in tears. (I would have anyway though, banking is stressful.) Wait, in retrospect that was a dumb move. I came back two weeks later, my mom still had not touched my custodial account (I had asked if she could close it and give me my money), and opened a new account. (Which I could've done two weeks earlier if I had my head screwed on straight) To my knowledge, the custodial account still exists with all the money I owned at age 10 sitting in it.
5) Armed with a shiny new debit card and a new set of routing and account numbers to memorize, I ran to my computer to once and for all to open my shop! Still... no. Initially, everything seemed to go as planned (except the first time when I think I typed the numbers in wrong and it rejected me) until the page where I had to give my PayPal account or decide to use checks. Considering the fact that I hadn't ordered checks because they were like $11 or something ridiculous, that left me with one choice- which meant it wasn't really a choice. Begrudgingly, I made a PayPal account. Or at least attempted. For some reason, it kept directing me to the UK version and then asking me for my county. I'd click on the US flag and it would send me back to the homepage. I did this dance for like 10 minutes. It eventually let me create a US account where my state was listed and although this was delightful news, it then asked me to confirm my bank account. I could do this online or in 2-3 days (in person) but there's this one little thing that I have neglected to mention so far: I don't drive. Or, I try my very best not to. I'm bad at it and I don't like it. Usually I wait for someone to give me a ride but this delays things (which is a big part of the reason the whole Etsy affair was such a struggle) and 2-3 days is not a reasonable expectation. I'd have to confront my fears of online banking... this brings me to crisis #
6) which was when I decided I needed to vent about all my entrepreneurial obstacles. I had a million tabs open while Etsy and PayPal and the bank and blogger were all waiting for their turn to get my attention and my computer was running slowly because of it. I cautiously typed in the url of the online banking site and clicked ok to the user agreements that I hadn't read. I got out all the banking information for the thousandth time in the last few hours and prepared to type in meaningless digits. Poised for action, I was caught off guard when the screen suddenly changed:
That's the story.
*Also I know that I kind of skipped over mentioning that I do have a debit card, but before any of the struggles began, I was about to just type in the numbers and use that before my mom freaked out and said that was risky since it's attached to my bank account with my life savings. True, I have a tendency to complicate life and maybe I could have just used my own debit card here but then this sad tragic account of my inability to handle real life would not be as entertaining because then my life would have been easy. I may have unneccessarily complicated matters for myself by not taking the same risk of using the debit card here.
**In this summary of events, the timeline is pretty different. Between the UPS store incident and the Post Office miracle, there were actually a few months. The moment that I had the [really stupid] idea to open an Etsy shop to the moment that it [fiiiiiiiinally] opened actually spanned from Thanksgiving to June.
Here's the link to Etsy!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/190299136/go-wild-barcode-spray-painted-tshirts?
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