A {Mon}Day In The Life Of A Maker

It has been just shy of two years since I left my full-time corporate job to make a go as a full-time artist/maker/small business owner. It has been almost two years of lots of learning, adjusting, trying and even failing at times.

For me, the hardest adjustment has been scheduling my time. With my previous job, my days and weeks were very much planned out and there was a definite rhythm and routine. I had certain tasks due on certain days, scheduled meetings, and hard deadlines - as well as the accountability of a manager. Even when I worked from home, my routine pretty much stayed the same, minus the 20-minute commute. So after 20+ years of working for a company and probably 8+ years of the same corporate routine, finding my footing as my own boss has, well, been a challenge.

While this post will be about my start to this specific week, I do not yet have a set routine (maybe as a creative doing creative work I never will), so this will simply give you, the reader, an idea of what a Monday entails for me, particularly a Monday after a weekend market.

Being a vendor at a market almost always energizes and motivates me. Even if the market was not as busy as I had hoped or I didn’t meet my sales goal, I somehow always leave a market event with a renewed energy for this craft. I usually can’t wait to get back in my studio office and get to work.

I have my biggest event to date coming up at the end of October, just three short weeks away so it is important I make the most of all my time between now and then.

After taking Sunday to rest, hang out with my family, and get groceries, I was ready to get to work first thing Monday morning. There was no school on Monday which meant no 5:00 a.m. alarms for any of us. I slept until 7:30, started the coffee, and took care of the pets.

Most days I enjoy savoring my coffee while I read and journal in my rocking chair but this week I wanted to get straight to work. Etsy was starting a promotion on Monday - a big promo that would be a great incentive for buyers but would greatly benefit sellers as well. I had hidden a huge selection of my inventory to take to the market and I had new products I had taken to the market that had never been offered in my Etsy shop yet. Getting my inventory and Etsy shop updated was the number one priority.

I spent the morning in my pajamas, using the coffee table in the living as my work area. I had to first somewhat unpack from the market, starting with just getting my inventory spread out. Subsequently, my living room and studio office were a mess with boxes and products and displays everywhere.

I worked until 10:00 and was able to get quite a bit done in that time. Meeko, our dog, had a vet appointment so I had to take a break to get some actual clothes on and get ready for the day. After I was ready for the day, I had just enough time to photograph some of my newer items.

After Meeko’s vet appointment, it was back on the floor in front of my coffee table work area - this time with a tired little puppy dog snuggled on my lap - and I worked to get the new listings created for Etsy.

Around 2:30 I made what I thought was going to be a quick trip to Sam’s to pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner but the chicken was not ready quite yet. I walked around for 10 minutes, picked up a cozy wrap and a large bag of candy for Halloween, and then proceeded to wait in the forming line for the rotisserie chicken.

I was fascinated watching this guy and his well-practiced and smooth process of getting all the chicken ready to go. Efficiency at its best! Also, if you have a Sam’s membership and have not yet gotten a rotisserie chicken, well, don’t wait any longer. It is the best $4.98 I may have ever spent. Delicious and makes dinner prep a breeze!

When I arrived home I proceeded to shred the chicken to be used in a chicken pot pie soup for dinner. I finished up the new Etsy listings and had to leave again at 4:30 to take my girls to dance. Dropped them off, home again, and finished dinner.

Ed, my husband, picks the girls up from dance, and at 6:45 we had soup and biscuits for dinner. By the way, it was so delicious!

I had to take the girls back to dance at 7:45 but was able to get the mess I had made with inventory updates and unpacking all straightened up - well, mostly straightened up. It was at least straightened up and cleaned up enough that when I got home I could actually work on clay and I had a custom order I wanted to get started on.

As it usually goes, once I finished the first part of the custom order I was definitely in the creative, making mood so I continued to work on and test out a few ideas I had brewing. Getting in the creative mode is both a blessing and a curse. I could have stayed up all night making stuff but I’ve learned the hard way, pulling an all-nighter is probably not a good idea most of the time. At 10:30 p.m. I made myself clean up my desk and get ready for bed.

And that, friends, was my Monday as a maker! :)