The Importance of Working Ahead


Pictured: Two bracelets and a pendant made for Fusion Beads March 3017 30 Day Bead Challenge – one bracelet is leather with lace, a key, and steampunk gear charms, the second is a deerskin piece with loom beading, the pendant necklace a conglomerate of beads upon a wire armature. (#makeitwearitshareit)

March has already been a busy month and it’s not even a week in. Thinking about that yesterday I was pretty much blown away. Tomorrow’s beading challenge is actually the loom work, but it usually takes me forever to finish anything on the loom so I started ahead… and it’s going to be finished tomorrow.

In a couple weeks I will be attending Paganicon and the next weekend I am off to Chicago, which means this month has been a good reminder of the importance of working ahead. I have a couple beading challenge days I will be doing before the day they are actually scheduled to be completed in preparation… and I’ve started planning for Music in Mears, Grand Old Day, and Kellogg Craft Brew Overlook.

I also need to take a day to photograph things for Etsy. There are five weeks this month instead of four and I’ll need things to list. I was good in January, and okay in February, and I want to keep it up. Again, we’ll see in June how I really did… which happens to be when all those aforementioned events happen!

I attended a floral design event/conference on Sunday, and parts of it were actually very relevant to the work I am doing on my own business. The presenter, Holly Heider Chapple, is a self-made woman and touched on how she went about building things– happy accidents and planned adventures– and how one needs to change with the times or be left behind.

Having a solid contract and clear boundaries were also good reminders for me. I am not currently overwhelmed by custom work, but have had points where it came close, and will hopefully have them again in the future. Planning for that now and thinking about it now will help avoid feeling as if I might want to give up.

The other part will be what Holly Chapple said many times: her passion has lead her through and being unable to imagine doing anything else. I truly understand that, both for the art I create for my business and the art I create with flowers. I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

Join me again on Thursday for a review of the diamond punches I bought months ago and finally used to make the Steampunk bracelet featured in the photo!

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