A Whole New World

Last Thursday I went to work as an outreach worker for the Joanna project (www.joannaleeds.org) this morning I woke up as a self employed crafter.

It was so easy last week, and the weeks prior to finishing work, thinking at the plans I had, the work I would do. In reality I woke up at 8am (forgot to stop the alarm for last weeks work) had a bit of a snooze, played on my DS, watched Jeremy Kyle, around 11am I realised I was not naturally motivated enough to put everything in place. Shit (excuse the French) Actually, why do we always blame the French for our bad language?

So, 11.30am, finally made myself a coffee, turned off TV, put radio on instead and am in my new office (actually, just on the sofa with the laptop) and here we go.

Today’s plans seemed simple when I was sat in the shiny office last week. Start the blog, list stuff on Folksy, Etsy & Ebay, Concentrate more on twitter and facebook, keep website up to date... I think I might get through some of the list in reality.

So, at the start of my venture I have one bit of advice...

Don’t over plan, and don’t fret if you don’t get your to-do list done.

Yesterday I was at a new market. Well I say market; it’s actually an innovated farmer who has convinced a pub to let him set up in the car park once a month. Four stalls in all, technically five stalls consist of a market in Leeds, so the rent was cheap.

It was an early start as usual, 6.30am, normally not a problem but I haven’t done any stalls for a few weeks and have got out of the habit of the early Sunday morning.

But even with the cheap rent people are not buying. Crochet novelties are getting interest but people are not paying up. I’m thinking of turning my stall into a museum of curiosities instead and charging customers to look.

Sue, my partner in crime (will tell you about Sue some other time) says it was a very quiet day. It was frosty and perhaps people were having a late morning because of the cold. I though have now fully learnt the meaning of ‘cold to the bone’.

Despite the cold, standing, putting up stalls at 8am, customers not buying, I love the market stalls. The people are amazingly friendly and supportive. Optimists through and through.