My Journey As A Scroll Saw Pattern Designer #395: What Happened to Friday? I Blinked and it Was Gone!

Yesterday kind of slipped by me and I never touched a paint brush. I am not complaining (well . . . sorta) but it was just one of those things. At lease when I put down my keyboard from my computer, which was after 11pm, I felt as if I accomplished some important things.

We all have those days where we start out intending to get ‘X’ accomplished and wind up with alphabet soup. Even though that some days I can neatly go down my list and check things off in the process, more often than not other things come up that I either didn’t realize needed to be done or for some reason or another have been moved up the list.

Time management can be one of my biggest challenges.

I spent the morning going through mail and answering messages. I do enjoy that because it allows me to personally interact with friends and colleagues and customers. I had gotten behind a bit though, as I do sometimes, and it took the better part of the morning to pare down my email box. I also had to prepare a couple of orders to send out. That just about took care of the morning.

The next thing was to go to the post office and do some errands. I came back and had lunch and it was nearly 2pm. I was going to spend the afternoon painting, but I still had to put a couple of patterns into packet form so we could update the site. I suppose that is one of the good things about having a partner – it sometimes help you keep on track and moving along doing the things you should be doing. He had been working most of the week on his next items and he finished all his pattern packets for his own new stuff. He also loaded the new products up on the site (his and mine) and was just waiting for me to finish my packets until he activated them. So the ball was in my court to keep moving on my own stuff and get those packets done. Even though I wanted to paint, I realized that this should be done first and changed gears to get it done. Now it is behind me and I feel much better. One less thing I need to think about anyway.

After dinner I wanted to get the next blog up for the class. I want to be sure that people had time to find blades and get supplies that they may need to get started and with the weekend coming up, I wanted to be sure that the information was there for them. So I spent the rest of the evening working on that.

I had mentioned that I always seem to learn something new when I teach and this has been no different. Already I have had to learn new computer stuff in order to figure out how to get the patterns I am drawing to the class participants in the easiest way. There are several options that I have, but I was trying to find the best ones to use.

I have provided the class with a scroll saw blade chart which is a guideline of several different types of blades and suggestions for using them. in the past, I emailed this to customers upon request via a link on my site. It is in a PDF format and not a JPEG, so I was unable to upload it here without it blasting on the page. I figured out how to use Google Docs and link to it on the blog so that it will be there for everyone to download if they desired. The link looks much neater in the blog too and it worked fine doing it that way. I just needed to figure out how it worked and made sure things were correct. We are updating the site soon, and I am thinking of adding a sub-page on my Free Stuff page as a place to keep all the documents, patterns and articles that I will be using in the course of the class. After all, it doesn’t hurt to bring more people to my site instead of just a server so that they can see all I have to offer there. Business-wise that would be the best thing to do.

In preparing the blog for the class, I find that there will be a lot of stuff covered. That is actually good, because we aren’t on any restrictions with time, numbers of lessons, etc. I can see this class taking several weeks to complete, but with the summer here and everyone having other things to do, that is fine. Slow and steady is the goal here. After all – I still have lots that I need to accomplish in between lessons.

I received my formal purchase order for the 72 sets of skating pond figures yesterday also. It probably sounds silly, but I was kind of excited about it. After more than a year of working on it, it finally became a reality that I would be able to wholesale it properly to the right audience. I had just ordered the custom zip bags I needed in order to package the sets when I received the purchase order via email. Now all I need to do is cut them, which will occur over the next week. It will be a big relief to send that box on its way, for sure.

So that, my friends, filled the day. Today I will continue to do some site updates and also cut some of the pond figures. Oh, and I will try to paint, too. It is raining out so there is no chance of me being distracted by the beach or anything like that. It is a quiet and gentle rain and really is kind of nice. It will make it much easier to stay focused.

If you haven’t checked out the class, here is the link to it – Scrollsaw Online Class. Even if you don’t join in and actively participate, it may be fun to just come and see.

I wish you all a happy Saturday. Have fun and be creative and make something special.

-- Contributing Editor, Creative Woodworks and Crafts, Sheila Landry Designs http://www.sheilalandrydesigns.com "Knowledge is Power"