Monday Update of the Plastic Beads

Well, it's Monday, and as promised, here is my first official Monday update!

The past couple of weeks I've been taking my beads, pendants, and figurines to Farmer's Market, mostly to help fill the void on our table caused by the rough summer weather and dwindling garden. I noticed that there's a lot of kids at market desperately looking for something to buy, but their handfuls of quarters weren't enough to afford anything I made. So, that in mind, I stopped by the store on the way home from market and picked up some plastic beads, elastic cord, and a new pair of scissors. (The other two pairs of scissors I'd been using had been in my family since 1995 and were not snipping the way they used to.) Since Thursday night, I've been having a blast with--of all things--plastic beads! I haven't counted for a couple of days, but I probably have close to 100 children's bracelets constructed by now, and I even made a nifty displace box for them using an old beerflat and some colorful cardstock. Will I make my money back from this endeavor? Probably not at our local farmer's market, but to my surprise, I've gotten some interest in what I've been doing online, and I may start offering packets of children's jewelry on Etsy soon.

The bracelets in their customp-made display box.


A selection of some of my finished bracelets

On a non-arts-and-crafts-note, I have to vent.

The other night, while the hubby and I were watching a movie, we heard barking outside our front door. Normally that means my neighbors have turned their menace of a dog loose and she has one of the cats cornered on the front porch, but when I went outside, I found a dog I'd never seen before tangled up in our rose bushes.

The poor dog was on one of those heavy-duty tie-outs, and had apparently gotten loose from whatever the tie-out had been clipped to. The clip on the tie-out had gotten wedged between the bricks of our rosebed and in his efforts to get free from it, he'd wrapped the rope several times around the rosebush. Here's where I get mad. The rope was not clipped to the collar. It was TIED. For those of you familiar with those heavy-duty tie-out ropes, you know how hard it would be to tie one of those things in a knot, let alone untie it. This means the dog was chained up outside 24/7, probably with little if any human contact.

Now, I am not the kind of person to tell another person what kind of pets they should or should not have, but it grates my cheese so bad when I see these people who buy dogs and then NEVER interact with them. Dogs are not lawn ornaments. They are not decoration. They are living, breathing, SOCIAL animals, and they need social interaction as much as we do. I cannot understand the mentality of taking on the financial burden of a pet if you're not going to use it as a companion or working animal. What is the point of buying a dog, chaining it up, and feeding and watering it until it runs away or dies? Beyond just the cruelty of depriving a social animal of social contact, where is the logic in this? And WHY is this behavior so prevalent out here? Is it a status symbol to have as many yapping dogs in your front yard as possible? Does it make you the top of the Redneck heap if you have four neglected dogs tied to your trees instead of two?

Well, I freed the beautiful dog that was trapped in my rosebush, and he made a beeline for home. I suppose dogs are nothing if not loyal. The next morning I unwrapped the rope (cord? chain?) from the rosebush and got a closer look at it, and my irritation just got worse. This thing had been broken several times and tied back together. Seriously? Are this dog's owners so poorly off that they can't get a new chain? I'm a starving artist and I still found the money to get my dog a decent chain! If they can't afford a new tie out when the old one breaks (four times), they shouldn't have a dog, because clearly the responsibility and financial burden is too much for them.

Anyways, I just had to get that out of my system. Until next time, avid readers!

Lydia

No, Zazzle is Not a Scam

It doesn't come up very often, but when it does, I am always left scratching my head a little bit. Someone will come into the forums either asking if Zazzle is a scam, or insisting that it is. Just today, a gentleman (I use the term loosely) was looking for a "financial backer" to help him sue Zazzle and Google. Mind you, the Zazzle forums aren't really the best place to find support for something like that, seeing as how they're populated by avid Zazzle shopkeepers, many of which make their living there. All the same, we checked out his complaints, and what did we find? This "gentleman" believed Zazzle and Google were stealing his images and selling them without his permission, because 1.) when customers clicked his links in google they were taken to a simple list of products on Zazzle instead of his storefront and 2.) when he visited one of the international domains like the Canadian or Australian versions of Zazzle, his products were different prices.

OK, number 2 is obvious, or at least it should be. Different countries have different currencies and different exchange rates, so yeah, the same product is going to show up as a different price in another nation's currency. As for number 1...well... This fella should have made a trip to the New To Zazzle forum and asked for help on this one, rather than embarrassing himself to such a degree. The fool has his shop set to "Private", so, yeah, customers aren't going to see his storefront! Instead, they're taken to a list of his products in the Zazzle marketplace. He can still make sales (Though, I can't imagine anyone shelling out over $1,000 for a pair of his shoes like he wants), but customers won't see his storefront.

If anyone has doubts about Zazzle or thinks it might be a scam, let me set the records straight. I've been on Zazzle since 2005. I've watched them go through many changes in that time, and they just keep getting better. They are by far the most versatile, easy to use, trustworthy, and profitable POD (Print on Demand service) I have ever used, and their customer service has been above and beyond expectations every time I've had an issue with an order.

It's because of Zazzle that I am able to make a living doing what I love. It's because of Zazzle that I've been able to leave the abusive employment situations I was in and focus on taking care of my health and my home. Zazzle lets me decide what my work is worth, and when I make sales, that's exactly what I get. Zazzle takes care of its designers and shopkeepers, and they treat their customers right.

There are plenty of real scams out in the world today (I know, I get about a dozen of them a day in my inbox), but Zazzle is not one of them. If you're an artist, photographer, or designer looking to get your work out into the world, there's really no better way to go than a site that asks nothing of you but your time and talent.

An Unintentional Inspiration

Back in November, I informed my fellows on the Zazzle forums that I was finally able to quit my day job and become a full time "Zazzler". I received many wonderful responses, including a shoutout from the Zazzle staff themselves in the Zazzle blog. After a while, folks stopped posting on the thread and it slipped into the oblivion of inactivity, as all threads do in time.

Then one day a short while ago, I checked the forums and found that someone had dug up my old "I am now a full-time Zazzler!" thread and responded to it, commenting that they wished for my success as well. I thought, "isn't that odd that someone would resurrect such a long-dead thread?" thinking for sure it would quickly slip back into the abyss of hundreds of pages of inactive threads.

But that's not what happened. More and more people responded to the thread, commenting on how inspiring it was to know that you CAN make a living on Zazzle, telling me that I'd motivated them, inspired them to give their shops a renewed effort. Before I knew what was happening, Zazzle stickied the thread at the top of the forum, ensuring that it would never again slip away into nothingness...

It may seem like I'm being overly poetic about this whole thing, but there is something you have to understand about the world I come from. I live in a part of the country where people don't buy art. If it weren't for a site like Zazzle, I never would have been able to make a living doing what I love. With the internet, it's now possible for just about anyone, with just about any hobbies or passions to make a living doing what makes them happiest, and for years, I've been encouraging the people around me to explore those possibilities. I've encouraged coworkers at Wal-Mart to sell their crafts through etsy, I've coaxed friends into taking up blogging to discuss their passions, and I've been toiling with my dad to make his dream of a profitable produce stand a reality. Why? Because I believe that people shouldn't have to feel like they're stuck doing something they hate just so they can pay the bills. I believe that within every coherent human being there is the ability to step off the beaten path and forge your own way. Whatever it is you love, whether it's art, writing, gardening, cooking, or whatever else, if you have the imagination, you have a way to do great things with your passion.

So when I log onto the Zazzle forums and I see people telling me that I'm an inspiration, it makes me rather warm and fuzzy inside. I'm still rather baffled that of all the successful Zazzle designers and shopkeepers out there, I'm the one inspiring people. I'm hardly the most organized person. I don't have the greatest designs out there, and I'm certainly not as successful as many Zazzlers I could name, but maybe that's part of it? If a 20-something from the sticks that barely graduated high school can be a successful shopkeeper and designer, then surely, anyone can be, right? That's what I believe, anyway.

So for those of you out there that still have doubts, know this--if you have the desire and if you have the imagination, there is nothing stopping you from making a living doing what YOU love. I'm rootin' for you!

The Very First Entry

Welcome to my blog. My name is Lydia "PrairieGhost" Jacobs and I am a professional artist. Sure, you won't find my work hanging in any galleries, and I'm not featured at any museums. Rich folk don't get into bidding wars over one of my creations, and I'm practically unheard of even in my podunk little Kansas town. Truth be told, I'm a mediocre artist at best, but I love what I do, and I do what I love. By some miracle of chance or good fortune, I have found a way to make a living doing what I love to do, and despite being mired in one of the worst economic crises to face our society in recent history, I have been able to leave my "day job" behind in favor of a more uncertain--but certainly more fun--career.

Originally, I had the idea to carry on a blog while I was in the process of establishing myself, chronicling my progress and my woes as I faced the day-to-day rigors of working for a steady employer AND establishing my own online store. The problem with that, of course, is that if you're already working a full-time job AND trying to build up an online store, you're not left with a lot of time or creative energy for blogging. I kept putting it off and putting it off, until finally it was a moot point... My first blog entry comes nearly a month after my last day as an employee and my first day as my own boss. Ah, well... such is life!

So what possessed me to leave the security of a steady paycheck behind in favor of the chaotic world of self-employment? The middle of the worst recession in our history would seem like a crazy time to cut out on your own, and as many people pointed out, I was fortunate to have a job in the first place, but that was exactly the problem. We have become so focused on security and safe bets that we have forgotten that such a thing doesn't exist. We can believe with all of our hearts and minds that the company we work for would never fire us, would never go under, would never leave us high and dry, but that would be foolishness. Many of my coworkers told me I was crazy for wanting to leave Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart wasn't going anywhere, they said, and you'd have to REALLY screw up to be fired, but in the time I worked there, I saw coworkers demoted after being hurt on the job, one coworker fired after getting into a car accident on the way to work (They marked it as a no-call-no-show), and watched as several of my older, veteran coworkers were run through the wringer in an apparent effort to force them to quit. Since the recession began, I've heard countless stories of people who thought their jobs were secure, only to find out one day that they no longer had one. I've watched as retirement plans evaporated, pensions disappeared, stocks tumbled, and it's made me realize--there is no such thing as a safe bet. You may think working 9-5 will earn you comfort later on in life, or financial stability today, but it's all an illusion. While the world of self-employment seemed a little scary at first, I realized that by jumping into that big scary world on my own terms, I was taking control of my situation, instead of leaving it up to some larger entity to decide my fate for me.

The real moment of truth, however, was a few years ago. I was working at a convenience store that had no love or respect for its employees, and I was working the closing shift on Thanksgiving, which meant I was going to completely miss out on Thanksgiving dinner with my family once again. Trying to stay in good spirits, I kept a smile on through the evening, and as my shift wound to a close, I started cleaning up. As I was removing a huge trashbag from one of the outside trash cans, a customer nearby asked me how I was doing. I barely got the words, "Oh, I'm fine," out of my mouth before the trashbag split wide open and dumped all of its wet, unidentifiable contents down my front. In that moment, on Thanksgiving Day, as my family was a hundred miles away having a wonderful time and eating turkey and I stood in a gas station parking lot covered in garbagecan juice, I realized... I couldn't do this for the rest of my life. I just couldn't. I had to get out.

College was the first--and most obvious--solution, but try working and going to school at the same time when you work for an employer like I had. Even if I had been able to overcome the financial hurdles, my employers at the time were not known for working well with students. Student employees tended to be scheduled during class hours, or scheduled so close together that it was impossible for the student to get to work or class on time. It seemed I wouldn't be able to attend school while working, and I couldn't stop working long enough to attend school, so I was thwarted once again.

My epiphany came one day when I was checking my e-mail and discovered that I had sold 100 copies of a keychain I'd designed on Zazzle. The chili pepper keychain had been customized and ordered in bulk, and I found myself thinking, "What if I made a shop full of nothing but customizable products? Would that result in more bulk sales?" About the time I quit the convenience store and started work at Wal-Mart, my new Zazzle store Customizables was born. It wasn't long before the sales started rolling in, and I began to realize that a career as professional artist was really possible, even without a college degree! One year and three months (and about 4,000 products) later, I was earning enough money on Zazzle alone to pay my bills, and it was bye-bye Wal-Mart!

So here I am, 24 years old and making my living doing what I love. Sure, I'm not famous, and I'm not rich, but I'm happy. I get every Thanksgiving off, the only trash I have to empty is my own, and if I work 10 hours straight without a break, it's because I'm just having too much fun to quit.

Life is good right now.