Saturday, January 30, 2010

Crafting Book Finds

One of my weaknesses is books.  No wonder I jump at the chance to go to Barnes and Nobles  when I go up to Ft. Wayne here in Indiana.  I am constantly looking for books on organizing my crafting space and also ones about  how to make crafting a successful business. Recently I found three books that I found to be very useful:  Organizing Your Craft Space by Jo  Packham, The Savvy Crafter's Guide to Success by Sandra McCall, and Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey.

The first, Organizing Your Craft Space is a very thoughtful book, meaning many things to consider when putting together an efficient area to do what you like to do.  Making it a space that stimulates creativity and thinking about where to put everything are the two major focuses.  Jo introduces the reader to seven artists and has them give their take on creating a space for creativity, while knowing where to find that one thing you need to complete a project. Here is the book cover....a very inspiring look at organization.  I got ideas just looking at the cover.

Lots of ideas just here on the bookcover, but having those opinions by the seven artists makes this book a very good resource for your own studio.

The second book I found was one that I really needed help with, The Savvy Crafter's Guide to Success by Sandra McCall.  I started crafting in March of 2009 and so did so without much thought to the ideas of recording sales and purchases on spreadsheets along with other ideas to consider like; organizing your workspace (as above with the other book), teaching your craft, being a writer, selling your art, choosing our venue, finding outlets to sell, the business-end of things and taking care of paperwork.  Artists' bios are included in the book. A resource guide is in the back, and it is indexed. Example forms are even a part of the book to give you ideas of how to "take care of the business part of crafting".  Here is the cover of the book.

It will be a great resource for me to refer to as I pursue my own crafting business.

The last book is one I felt I needed for my blogging.  Not that I don't think my blogs are okay, but suggestions really don't hurt anyone.  So I also purchased Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey.  She has done a great job of discussing considerations for what, how, and where to blog on the internet.  The chapters include; Why Blog for Bliss, Tools of the Trade, Learning the Ropes, Beauty and the Blog, Traffic School (about visitors to your blog), Finding Business in Bliss (promoting your business through the blogging), and If Emily Post(ed) (manners, behind the scenes, language translation, pictures, pet peeves, and continuing the creative circle)
Accompanying all the great text are beautiful photographs and actually she talks about trading in her old camera for one that allows for exquisite photos on her own site.  Tara gives example blog pages by many that she follows telling what they blog about and also telling who those bloggers follow, giving the URL so you, too, can checkout other blogs to see what others are doing and whether you might want to follow them.

I love to write and have a daily journal I keep.  I must get that urge from my grandmother Abby, who kept  a daily journal for many years.  My aunt Bonnie was the lucky one who ended up with the journals when my grandmother passed away.  Aunt Bonnie was sweet enough to give me the journal for the year I was born.  It so wonderful to read what went on during that time period and how the family lived, what they did for entertainment (they loved going to movies), and their work.  Grandma didn't really discuss emotions, which  I think would have been interesting. But it is a great historic documentation of her life frome the early 1940's to the '90's.  I miss her so much.  We were such buddies.  I think much of my crafting came from her as well.  Every holiday celebrated at her house was a fun time.  She always asked me to come over about a week before and help her create table decorations an other decorations.  Being an art person, I loved it all.

So,  did you grow up with family member who influenced you? I'd love to hear about it!

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