What I've been working on all summer

If you follow me on social media, you probably saw my post about rebranding all the way back in May. Now it's August. What have I been up to all summer?

Firstly, I commissioned a new logo from a friend of mine who is a graphic designer. My old logo for Kate's Crochets was sort of close to what I wanted, but I made that one in ten minutes using clipart and it was definitely far from perfect. The new logo from my friend is crisp, a little whimsical, and in my favorite color scheme! It's perfect:

She made a header to match! It doesn't quite work here on Blogger with the layout I've set up (for now!), but you can see it in action over on my Facebook page. 

The crocheted background that you see is the same fabric as the header image here on the blog: it's a shawl I've been working on a little at a time for months! It's not a pattern I plan to sell, but boy is it beautiful!

Also in May, I got myself legitimate. I am now registered for a Sole Proprietorship (aka "Doing Business As") with the state of Michigan for Charm and Strange Crochet! I had to get a document notarized and everything. Once that was done, I opened up a business checking & savings account with my credit union.

Next on my list was making a sample of everything I sell. You can't have a presence on Etsy without photos, and you can't have photos without product! So I got to work on making one (or two) of everything in my inventory. I have a friend with a photography business, and we're working on getting our schedules to line up so that we can get some great professional photos of everything. I hope to have the Etsy listings revamped by the fall, but my wedding in September might push that into mid-late fall rather than early fall. Check everything out below for a sneak peek!

What else? A big thing that's made getting everything made and set up a little slower is that I'm working on a film called One Reckless Weekend. I got my college degree from Michigan State University in Media Arts and Technology with my focus being on film production. I've known since I was in high school that I want to work in the film industry in some form - but I didn't want to move to LA or NYC, and now I also don't want to move to Atlanta. So I spent the greater part of my 20s focusing on "backup plan" jobs which never really suited me. I could write a whole long blog post about that part of my journey, but we'll skip ahead to I am SUPER excited to be working on One Reckless Weekend! I am wearing two hats on this film: script supervisor and director of the behind the scenes featurette. Which means that I am involved in the pre-production planning meetings as well as being on set once filming starts - so that's a big time commitment. For now, I'm putting the movie first and working on fully launching Charm & Strange on my days off. 

So what are my next steps? I'm in the early stages of getting my products into physical stores. There are two markets near me that rent out space to local makers and artists that are very promising as they both have a lot of foot traffic, even outside of the holiday season. I'm not ready to attend festivals and craft shows yet as I don't have enough inventory made, and I'm certainly not going to try to cram one in between the movie and my wedding. Will I be ready for a holiday season maker's fair? Hopefully! But I'm not exactly planning on it just yet. I sort of feel like I should set an early spring, or perhaps an indoor mid-winter, show as my goal for getting in to the craft fair world.

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