Lifes Like That

So I’m completely ready to start a quilt. I cleared out my craft room, found all my supplies and this past weekend bought all the fabric I will need to create my first quilt in almost four years. I can’t wait to get started and will start on this quilt this afternoon after I’ve written up some articles on malpractice insurance that I’ve promised an employer. At this moment I’d really rather be quilting but for now these articles bring in the paycheck so I have to stay focused and complete the paying jobs before I begin on a job where I might get some income from eventually. So…. after I’ve got a bit of this quilt made I’ll come back on in and posts some pics of my progress. Again, I can’t wait to get started!

So I have decided that one way I can make money is by making quilts and selling them. When I did this type of venture a few years ago I made some pretty good money with it and had fun as well. So I’ve decided to try to start this project back up again. Yesterday I spent the day cleaning out my craft room and now today I have been sorting through all my craft supplies to see what I have and what I will need. Then this weekend my husband has promised to take me out fabric shopping. So I’m hoping by Monday I will be back into the quilting fever. I’ll keep you all posted and when I have a few quilts made I’ll take pics and upload photos. I’m getting quite excited and can’t wait to start!

Earlier this week I decided to try to revamp my home crafting business. I have quite a few homemade items in stock so decided that maybe by advertising my things like my Black diamond earrings and necklaces I could possibly catch a few sales. Well I am happy to report that I was kind of successful. I was able to sell two sets of jewelry so I actually made a bit of cash this week. So this has given me the motivation to make more and advertise more. Hopefully I’ll see more successes like this in the future.

In less than two weeks my kids will be back in school. This is going to leave me with a lot of free time on my hands (sort of). So I have decided to resurrect my home crafting business. With them home I’m really not able to get a whole lot accomplished, but when it’s just me here I think I really can make a go out of this. After their in school I plan on re-doing my crafting room, make a ton of crafts and set up a brand new website to show case and sell them. Honestly I can’t wait! I’m hoping to be able to get a small start on it before they go back to school, but if not, two weeks really isn’t a long time to wait.

Well I think some of my patience has finally paid off. As you all know, I have been actively searching for ways to earn a little extra income off the Internet. I have discussed (in a previous post) that I have been looking about getting into transcription. And yes, I am still looking at this option, but I have found something else as well.

Yesterday I e-mailed a guy who was looking for an article writer. Well, since I’ve had experience in this field, I decided that if the money was right then maybe I could do this while I’m getting myself set up in the transcription field. Well, I’m happy to report that I got the job and have already gotten my first assignment. As in anything on the Internet, I’ll have to see how it goes. But right now it looks pretty promising.

I’ll be sure to let you all know how I make out with this little venture.

So you have probably noticed that I don’t post in here as much as I used to. Well, there is a reason for this. It’s because I’ve been doing other things lately. I have decided that I want to take my Internet life in a different direction. I have decided that I’m going to try my hand at general transcription. To do this job properly, I have to have two pieces of equipment. One is headphones (which I now have) and the other piece of equipment would be a foot pedal. Well these things cost money so I have been doing a little work over at mechanical turk to try to earn the money for this foot pedal. Although the typing that I have been doing doesn’t add up to much, I figure every cent helps to go toward my purchase of this piece of equipment.

So, if you don’t see me around much over the next couple of months, now you know why. I am working on something else to be able to work at my dream job.

For a little over a month now I have been doing a lot of research on what it would take to get involved with an online transcription career. Let me tell you that I am amazed at all the work, research and practice that goes into this type of career. I thought it would be just as easy as just typing what people are saying, but that definitely isn’t the case. Transcription is more than just typing and listening. I have been doing this research slowly and carefully because I would really like to determine if this is something I can do or will want to do in the future. There are so many things that a transcriptionist needs to take into account. You need to be aware of any conversion rate optimization areas, typing speed, different styles of grammar and spelling as well as what type of equipment you would need to get the job done professionally as well as quickly.

After doing a lot of research in this area, I have decided that this is probably something that I’m going to do. This type of career is right up my alley and to get paid for it as well is just icing on the cake.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, then you are well aware of the fact that one of my favorite hobbies is making crafts. In fact, I make so many that I have decided to create a small home crafting business to try to earn a little income off my creations. They don’t look like Oscar de la Renta products mind ya, but I try to do my best work and have been told that my work is quite nice. But for some reason I haven’t been able to sell a whole lot.

Yes, I have tried the Etsy store and I have even set up a blog which was designed just to try to sell my products. Since these efforts haven’t really paid off, I have decided that I need to go in a different direction. So in the very near future you will see a change in my “homemade crafts” link. Instead of having the address to my Etsy site listed or even the blog url listed, I have decided to take some fresh new pictures and upload them onto that link. I will eventually list the prices and the contact information as well. Hopefully this change will enable me to attract more buyers and maybe the year 2009 will be the year I get my home crafting business up and running.

Well I guess it’s official. My little home business of trying to sell crafts really hasn’t worked out all that well. I guess that’s why people call what we do a hobby and not a job. But don’t worry, I’m not really upset about it. I’ll still continue to do what I love and if I sell any then that’s just great. But if I don’t, that’s OK too. It just takes some of the stress off from continuously trying to sell things. Now I can go back to just making crafts for the pure pleasure of it. I would have loved to make a go out of it, but…it’s not the end of the world if I don’t. So I think I’m going to put off trying to get a home business up and running and just enjoy the time I have to create crafts. You never know what the future may hold so maybe I’ll try it again sometime in the future.

Well it seems to me like the more you make, the more you spend. For the past year and a half I have gone without a regular paycheck and it didn’t seem to hurt the family’s finances all that much. Now that I’m back to work and earning a regular paycheck it seems like my paycheck is always pretty much gone before I have gotten it. Tomorrow I get another paycheck and yes by the time I’m done it’s all going to be all gone. I have to go out and purchase my son a cap to finish up his Halloween costume, I have to pay both the kids student fees and I need to pay my daughter’s violin fee as well. Oh well. That’s why I went back to work. To help out with the household expenses.