At the moment I am in the planning phase for my own, small craft based business.  Ever since I was a small child, I was not only good at creating things, but I was also very entrepreneurial.  I remember having family garage sales where I would go across the road to pick flowers, then try to sell them to everybody who walked in for 20 cents each.  When I was in primary school, I started making beaded jewelry to sell to my friends and by the time I was 13, I was selling my designs to local businesses.  As much as I enjoyed making each piece, it was time consuming and the profit didn’t really cover the cost or the love I gave each creation.

When it comes to setting up a small business, it is not just about the product it’s self, but the planning behind it.  Do you know how much it will cost to make your product?  What about the time spent making it?  And what about packaging and promotion?  How will people know it exists?  And then there is building an inventory, maintaining it and keeping records of sales… You can start to see how many people can easily get overwhelmed.

Here are a few tips that I am using myself while in my pre-planning phase:

1. Plan your Product: How much will is cost to make your product and how long will each item take to make?  What materials will you use and where will you get them from?  Depending on where you live, buying your materials locally may actually cost you more than you think.  Try searching online for wholesalers, or even browse through eBay – every cent you can save in production means more in your pocket later on.
2. Come up with a Price: We would all love to create something and sell it for a fortune, but unfortunately that isn’t always the way it works.  Take a look around at other products similar to yours and see what they are priced at.  Is it a price you would be willing to pay?  Do they sell a lot at that price and are they worth the price?  Not only that, you need to take into consideration how much it has cost you to make.  My personal rule of thumb is to take the production cost and multiply that by 300% before I make a firm pricing decision.  Keep in mind as well that if you are selling on your items to other businesses for resale, that they too will be putting their own price on your product, usually around 100%.
3. Product Packaging & Presentation: How you present your product can make a big impact on it’s success.  Packaging can either draw the potential customers attention, or make them cringe.  Try to come up with something that not only compliments your product and looks professional, but also does not cost you a fortune.  There are many sites online that provide cheap, or even FREE business card or postcard printing which you can utilise in your product presentation.  It also gives you the chance to add other details, such as a website where customers can view and order more goods.  Alternately, you could always print your own.
4. Marketing you Product: Getting people to know about your product is ofter the hardest part of a business, but thanks to the Internet, there are many options for you to get yourself known.  Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are are great examples.  Creating your own website is also a fantastic way of show casing your items and also allows customers to purchase goods from you, no matter where they are in the World.

These are only a few starting points to keep in mind while planning.  Over the next few weeks I will be posting a couple more articles that will be useful, from setting up a web page to traffic and promotion.  So if you are not already subscribed to my blog, be sure to do so.

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I love Photoshop.  While I may not be a pro at designing the newest and coolest ad campaign, I do enjoy playing around with it, manipulating my photos and art to come up with something amazing.  But the first time I used Photoshop, I was overwhelmed by the possibilities.  Not knowing where to start, I would search the Internet for tutorials and Photography Forums so I could learn everything from scratch.  Below is a tutorial I have created showing you how to make your own brushes.  Brushes can be used from everything to drawing, textures and even creating a company logo.  By using these simple steps and some imagination, you will be creating your own custom brushes in no time.  I have also included a free brush set for you to download, enjoy!

1. Open a New Document at 72 dpi.  What ever size image you create will be the default size for the brush, but as with other brushes, you can scale this up or down when you are using it.

2. Draw or place the image you wish to use in your canvas.  For this tutorial, I will be creating a brush set using images of bones.  When creating brushes, it’s best to use black and white for your images so if you are using something that is in colour as I am, go to Image -> Adjustment -> Desaturate.  I have also gone into Image -> Adjustments -> Levels to get my image exactly as I want for my brush.

3. Once you are happy with your image, go to Edit -> Define Brush Preset. Type in the title for your new brush and click Save.

4. You can now use your new brush by clicking on the Brush Tool and selecting it from the drop down menu at the top.

5. If you are creating several brushes for a set, you can save them by going to the drop down menu in your Brush Tool, clicking the small arrow in the top right hand corner and selecting Save Brushes.

To download your FREE Bones Brush Set, CLICK HERE.

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After a long week at work, today I finally had a day off.  I am the sort of person that has a thousand ideas a day and looks forward to “Me Time” where I can make the most of them.  But the busy week has taken it’s toll on me and I have barley ventured from the couch, doing little more than flicking through random websites, avoiding actually doing anything to benefit myself.  I have fallen into a lazy slump where my mind tells me, “It’s ok, you’ll have time tomorrow” – but who really does have time tomorrow?

Laziness would have to be on the the most common human traits, whether it be by choice or circumstance.  Laziness is a curse which can be hard to break, but not impossible.  So how can one break it?  We all have hopes, dreams and goals which we spend endless hours fantasising over, thinking, “If only.”  But when we play out these scenarios in our heads, it is almost always the end result and not the path that leads to it.  This is a big problem I constantly find I have as I seem to dream so grand that when I try, I fail because I tend to miss out the details, those important steps I must take to reach my goals.  Disappointment sets in, then the laziness becomes the excuse.  If only I could motivate myself just enough to start planning, to figure out those first baby steps to reach my destination.

When we motivate ourselves, we achieve much more.  Even on days like today where I feel pysically and mentally drained, even the smallest amount of motivation can go a long way – but it is that first push that is often the hardest.  How can we give ourselves that little shove?  We need to change our state of mind.

There are hundred of ways that this can be done from motivational eBooks, meditation and even alcohol & drugs.  But the simplest way is through music.  Music has the ability to calm and sooth, lift the spirits, release the anger and transport us to magical places within out hearts and minds.  We have all experiences that long and dreary day that seems to go on forever until that one song comes on the radio, that one song that lifts us up and takes us away from it all.  Music can transform us and our minds.

After sitting here in silence for about two hours, trying unsuccessfully to write a blog post on anything, I decided to put on the iPod and let the shuffle function do it’s magic.  Within no time (and having the house to myself) I was dancing badly around the living room doing thrash air guitar and singing like a lunatic.  I was having fun, I was getting motivated to actually DO something.  And while none of my goals and dream are likely to come true today, I can do something to work towards them.  I am going to start with a list of everything I would like to achieve by the end of the year, both big and small, realistic and fantastical.  Because once I have my list, I will have the backbones to start planning out all the little steps to get there.  Every journey needs to start somewhere and today, I am starting one of my own.

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Here is a recipe for the perfect Rosemary & Garlic Roast Chicken.  You will need:

Stuffing
Powdered Chicken Stock – 2-3 T-Sp
Garlic 2-3 Cloves
Rosemary Sprigs – 2-3
Bread Slices – 2-3
Hot Water – Approx 1/3 Cup

Chicken
Whole Chicken
Garlic Cloves – 2-4
Rosemary Springs – 2-4
Butter – Approx 100 – 150 grams

When cooking I myself hardly ever use exact quantities.  I’m used to judging it on taste, quantity or consistency, so the amounts above are approximate.  You may wish to change them depending on taste.

Stuffing

In a bowel, place chicken stock, crushed garlic cloves and rosemary leaves.  Rip up 2 pieces of bread and pour over just enough hot water to saturate the bread.  Mash up with a fork until combined.  If mixture seems too soggy, rip up third piece of bread and mash through.

Chicken

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree Celsius.  Cooking time for your chicken will depend on it’s weight.  The general rule is to cook your chicken for 30 minutes per 500g.  So if you are cooking a 2kg chicken (as I was), you would cook it for 2 hours.

To prepare your chicken, unwrap and place in a deep baking dish.  Stuff the cavity with the stuffing mixture.  Using a spoon, carefully insert it underneath the skin of the breast and using the spoon and use it to separate the skin from the meat without tearing it.  By doing this you are creating a “pocket” to flavour the chicken further.  Stuff this pocket with chunks of butter, crushed garlic cloves and rosemary leaves.  As the chicken cooks, the flavours will soak further into the meat and the butter will crisp up the skin.

Cover with foil, and place into the oven.  Keep the chicken covered for all but the last half hour of cooking, checking every 20-30 minutes to baste the meat with the juices from the pan.  Serve with vegetables of your choice.

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I have to admit it – I am addicted to Twitter, and have been on a bit of a quest to find more ways in which to boost my Twitter Following. While I may not have hundred of thousands of followers (yet), I was still pretty happy to finally reach 1000. I have stumbled upon numerous sites, some of course better than others, that seem to work rather well. My favourite at the moment would have to be Twiends. Twiends is a free to use credit based system where you gain credits by following other users. Credits in your account are then used so that you too gain followers. You may also purchase credits in order to save you time, but it is not necessary to do so in oder to use the site. Another two features that I like is that there is no auto-tweeting to your account and you can also choose to receive an email when your credits run out. I myself have been using this site for about 4 – 5 days per week for the last fortnight and have so far received 630 followers. It may not be thousand like I said, but it has given me an easy Twitter-Spam-Free boost to my following.

You can find and follow me on Twitter HERE

If you are still looking for more ways to increase your Twitter following, then be sure to read my other blog posts:

How to get MORE Twitter Followers – Part 1

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I’ve been trying to find various ways in which to increase my Twitter following. There are so many blogs and websites out there that have their own ideas, mainly using the whole “Follow me and I’ll Follow you” concept, which is good but rather tiresome and borring for your already existing followers to read over and over again. I did find this site which seems to work rather well. It is a Twitter Train. Basically, you enter your details and it automatically adds you to the list after adding the existing users to the people you are following. From there, all you need to do is get a few friends to do the same and that is it. It’s simple to use and no fuss. CLICK HERE to give it a go.

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It has been a while since I’ve had the chance to write an entry, but I’ve been having problems with my computer.  It’s only a  little laptop which may not be anything fancy – not to mention it was only something to last me until I could get something good, but I still miss it and it’s convenience.  So not much of a post this time round but I did want to share an iTunes Tutorial I did a while back on how to add album art to songs.  I know that there are a few ways to do it, but this is the way I learnt and still use.  I hope this is useful to someone out there.  Please leave feed back if you  like and be  sure to subscribe to my blog  by clicking my feed button or by subscribing via email.

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I have been a YouTube partner now for about a year and even though each month my video views and revenue increases, I thought I would do a little bit of net surfing to see if there were any websites out there that could help boost my views even further. Of course there are many social networking sites which can help, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter – along with a heap of software programs as well.  But I did stumble upon this site today which seems rather good and simple to use.

View Tube Train works by you copy and pasting the link to the video you wish to promote into their website.  You then earn points for your link by watching other videos.  1 point is awarded and added to your video for every second of video footage you watch.  I just set my computer to mute and have been running it in the background while doing all my other bits and pieces.  It hasn’t produced massive results, but it has up’d my views on some of my newer videos.

To give it a go, CLICK HERE

Thanks for subscribing to my blog, The Shadows of my Mind. To get your FREE MP3 download, "Deep Sleep Meditation", CLICK HERE

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