Update on Changes to Wonderful Life Farm

Starting a new business is a tremendous amount of work. But reinventing one might be even more work! As many of you know, I'm planning BIG changes for Wonderful Life Farm coming in spring of 2020. I thought it was time that I give you a bit of an update on what's been developing. I've spent the first few months of the year figuring out my "why" and doing all the in-my-head stuff...lots of silent days processing all my thoughts and making sure this was a good direction for me, my business, and our family. 

And just when I thought I'd be completely overwhelmed with the enormity of the task before me, I was chosen to be interviewed in a mentoring episode of Josephine Brooks' podcast, "On the Make". Josephine is a productivity mentor for side-hustlers, and I'm completely hooked on her podcasts! And did I ever need her help! She helped me sort through all the tasks, develop areas of focus, and figure out how to break the whole job into manageable chunks. If you'd like to listen to the episode, click here. I will warn you that the day I was interviewed was day three of the cold that turned into pneumonia, and I sound dreadful (but only half as bad as I felt!). I'm grateful that you can't hear me sipping hot tea in the background to keep my voice alive. 

Photo credit here.

Josephine has a great system that utilizes one of her 12-week wall planners. On it, you focus on three areas to grow your business over a span of three months. Then you break each area into tasks divided up and spread out over those months. After talking with her, I spread the planner out on the kitchen table with my list of tasks and set to work filling it in. It now hangs on the bulletin board in my sewing room, where I am gleefully crossing things off as the weeks go by! Currently, my three focus areas are: 1.) travel and sewing for my current Etsy shop, 2.) branding and blog redesign, and 3.) all the learning things (content planning, SEO, Lightroom, and on and on.)

I've also spent an enormous amount of time and thought on my branding. What is branding? According to Fiona Humberstone, the Brand Stylist, "Branding is everything people expect, experience, and remember about your business." It involves everything from the colors you use, to the fonts you choose, to packaging, to how your website looks (big changes coming to this one!), to your photographs, and more. Using Fiona's two books, How to Style Your Brand and Brand Brilliance, as my guides, I've been completely immersed in building the identity for my new brand. And, I have to say, I found it to be one of the most creatively challenging endeavors I've tackled in years. It made me want to pull my hair out and made me euphorically happy...sometimes all in one day! 

When I was satisfied with my work on the branding, I created a branding guide and a mood board. I am absolutely thrilled with my mood board and how it perfectly expresses my brand! And the branding guide is now in the hands of the talented graphic designer I've hired to design a logo!

That's a little sneak peek at what's been happening behind the scenes here at Wonderful Life Farm. Here are some useful links, if you are creating or recreating your own business:

- to read more about my journey, click here

- Josephine Brooks, productivity mentor to side-hustlers.

- Josephine Brooks' 12-week wall planner

- Josephine Brooks' podcast, "On the Make"

- Fiona Humberstone, The Brand Stylist

- How to Style Your Brand by Fiona Humberstone

- Brand Brilliance by Fiona Humberstone

Changing Directions

This is where I've been the last few months. Well, I've been here and completely lost in my head. So many afternoons spent this winter, cozied up by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate and reading, reading, reading. Thinking and pondering and talking it all over with family.

I’ve been immensely challenged to shake things up! I’ve done all the inward processing and I’m pushing the self-doubt behind and starting to vocalize a bit of my dreams and plans! Although I love my Etsy shop, I realize that there’s a greater WHY behind what I do...that I LOVE creating happy memories for my friends and family! Hoping to transition off of Etsy and open my own online shop by spring 2020 focused around helping people to create happy memories for the people they love!

I may be a little less present here for the rest of the year while I make this big transition. But I hope that when I do post, it will be more of what I do best and a whole lot less of whatever's on my mind that night. But mostly, I hope it's more of what you want and need!

(And don't worry, I will still be making and stocking the shop with costumes through October/November of this year.)

And in very exciting-slightly scary news(!), this Friday I’m being interviewed by Josephine Brooks, a British productivity coach, for an episode for her podcast on the topic of pivoting my business!

(P.S. You may also note a name change. When I first starting blogging years and years ago, our children were young and I wanted to protect their privacy. But now they all go by their own names online, so I'm making the switch too.)

Currently Reading: The Christmas Chronicles

I'm not quite sure where I heard about this book, but it came highly recommended. I was curious, so I read up on it and discovered that NIgel Slater sounds like he might be the British equivalent to Ina Garten. It was described as part diary, part cookbook. That's intriguing! And then I read the reviews. I'm not sure I'd ever seen any book on Amazon get solely five-star reviews. Goodness, but they were glowing! So, I splurged and bought it. And I'm ever so glad I did.

Apparently, Nigel Slater, is as passionate about winter as I am. He's written the book in diary form, and that's how I'm reading it...one entry a day on each day, from November 1st through February 2nd. He puts voice to all that is in my heart about winter, as he contemplates all its holidays and beauty and quietness.

"Turn the lights off on a winter's night and light a candle or two instead. Instantly, the smell of cordite, and soon the scent of beeswax. Shadows to feed the imagination, flickers of flame, perhaps the scent of woodsmoke by which to read a book.

None of this would I wish to be without." 

"There is...less to smell in the winter, because odour molecules, denser in the cold, move more slowly in the air in the the cool weather. So we actually smell fewer things. This may explain why the smells we do notice, the smoke from burning leaves or of roasting nuts, or a pot of marmalade bubbling on the hob or the Christmas tree being brought into the house, is more pronounced. Our nose is less confused with other smells."

I haven'e yet tried any of the recipes, but from liquor-soaked fruit for cordials to "Braised brisket with porcini and onion gravy", they all sound delicious.

I'm looking forward to slowly savoring this book for the next few months...just like I savor winter.