Business and Blog Plans for 2018

MazieJanuary 23, 2018Leave a comment

It’s been a hot minute since I wrote last, and I mean literally I haven’t written anything aside from emails and facebook posts since November. NaNoWriMo kind of drained me a bit last year, and by the time I had my drive back, I got so sick, got better, then got sick again. It’s been one hell of a year so far but, never the less, happy new year friends.
I could waste your time and chatter on and on about how I spent my holiday, or where I’ve been the past two months, but I don’t really think any of it would make good content, which is a huge focus of mine this year: GOOD CONTENT.

I want to give you positive, meaningful and useful content, cohesive with my brand, among other goals I’ve set for my business and blog in 2018, which we’re going to be talking about today! So let’s just jump into the fun list part of the post that everyone will skip ahead to, shall we!

Business:

I want to create a more streamlined schedule for my freelance so that I can make time for more possible clients.
I want to zero in on my niche and find clients that fit my style better.
I want to pick up more one-off gigs, maybe go back to my roots of editing or paginating jobs.
I need to build my portfolio website, and formally list my services.
I need to draw up contracts for new clients.
I want to register my business.
I want my products to be stocked in at least 3 local store fronts.
I want to do monthly markets, and to expand my sales online (Etsy, Facebook marketplace, a shop on this site?!)

Blog:

I need a steady and reliable blog schedule.
I want to monetize, or grow my affiliate programs but only with companies that fit my brand.
I want to start a mailing list, with monthly newsletters, exclusive printables and what not.
Keep up with the rebrand, make sure all content on Instagram and this site is cohesive.
Expand my niche, but also stick to my guns and keep it simple, don’t focus on too many topics.
Build a media kit.
Be authentic, and make sure that my audience knows the blogger behind the posts. Be true to myself and don’t sacrifice what is in my heart for the brand.

Ultimately, I want my businesses, both freelance and Cozy Bones, and this blog to link up seamlessly, which is proving to be a bit more difficult since both businesses are completely different. I have contemplated with marketing myself as a Creative, and just using this as a blanket site for both projects, which would ultimately save me so much stress, but I run into the issue that maybe my freelance audience doesn’t want to see my crocheted cacti or sushi? I hope that’s not as confusing to read as it was to write, and I hope I can figure out a way to incorporate both into the site at some point, mainly because I don’t feel like building another site!

What are your goals for your business or blog this year?
Do you separate your goals into categories too or am I just insane?
Thanks for reading,

Canzine Toronto 2017

MazieNovember 29, 2017Leave a comment

On October 21, we were at the Art Gallery of Ontario seeing the Guillermo del Toro exhibition called At Home With Monsters, and when we were walking into the gallery we could see that they were setting up some kind of event downstairs but we weren’t sure what it was. After we were done with our paid exhibit we were walking out to go for lunch when we saw it: Canzine Toronto 2017!

If you haven’t heard of it before, its a festival of zines and underground culture! I couldn’t have planned the day any better. If we had gone to see del Toro any other day we would have missed it. Personally, I’m kind of surprised I hadn’t heard of it before that day but I’m super happy that we ended up there anyway, because I am a true lover of zine culture and that festival was my literal heaven.

I got to meet a bunch of people that I follow on Instagram, both writers, and illustrators, and it was just one of the most pleasant experience being able to be in the presence of hundreds of people that equally love art, writing, and publication as much as I do. Getting to go to that festival, even just for the short time that I was there was so inspiring. I was able to talk to likeminded creators and we talked about our processes, and how to get past that initial wall of “it’s not good enough.” I got to see both super polished zines, and super old school style as well. One of the people there even explained how he printed them all out this morning on his way there, he was folding as we were talking. I honestly want to find out how to get involved in Canzine 2018 now that I’ve been there and felt the vibe. So I’m putting it on my list of goals for next year and I’m going to start working towards it after Christmas!

Zines have always been a way for me to express my views and thoughts and though they don’t seem to be very popular in my city yet, to know that there is such a huge community just down the highway from me was really comforting! I feel like I can make these zines knowing that they will be appreciated and picked up by other makers that know what kind of work has gone into them, and that really settles all of my fear behind personal publication.

IF YOU WERE A ZINE, WHAT KIND OF ZINE WOULD YOU BE?

November: small goals

MazieNovember 7, 20172 Comments

I know this post is a little bit late but I have had such a crazy start to the month with NaNoWriMo and everything I haven’t had a chance to write anything other than my novel. I also didn’t anticipate last month getting as busy as it did. Around Mid-October I got completely swamped with custom orders on Instagram, and then somehow managed to plan an entire pop up market for this month on the 19^th. I’m still in shock about how fast it happened, but I’m super excited about it and I can’t wait to see how this one goes. We have 10 amazing vendors who are all so unique and talented and the market takes place on the day of the cities Santa Claus parade so foot traffic is going to be off the charts! That being said I have so much market prep to take care of, at the same time as novel writing and keeping this blog updated at least twice a week! So let’s recap my October Goals and how I did….(spoiler it was kind of pitiful last month! I didn’t account for being as busy as I was!)

October Goals:

Inktober and Vlogtober: I started off so excited about Inktober, and did maybe the first 10 days and then completely fell off the wagon. I couldn’t get back into it at all. Vlogtober I’d like to say I did kind of well with, I never really expected myself to do daily vlogs, I more so just wanted to vlog more often.

Preptober: Though I did have more posts to include in my Preptober series, I think I did a job of posting the big and important ones. I definitely plotted my novel, and completely my preptober checklist in my bullet journal so I definitely think I won on that front!

Affiliates/PR/Sponsorships: I won’t lie, I didn’t even go on to the website that I use for my affiliations this month. I haven’t checked my stats at all. I feel like I was just too busy to keep up with that. I should probably go look at that right now….

Portfolio: Same with this one, I just didn’t have the time, October was a crazy busy month! I have a bunch of posts from some of the adventures I went on last month coming to the blog in the next couple weeks.

More Quality Time: This one I totally managed to do, and I am so happy that I did. I think that I really needed the time with my partner, I needed to recharge and I feel so much better now that I have. Its kind of magical how different I feel after spending time with him. He has this way of boosting me up in every regard and I love that about him so much.

No-Spend: I was successful on the no spend front! I didn’t buy anything on the no spend list unless it was a Christmas gift. I did get a big chunk of my Christmas purchases done, which I’m pretty excited about!

November Goals:

NaNoWriMo: Anyone who has been reading my blog the past two months will know that I am doing NaNo this month, my main goals are in my last post, but as a little update, I am only a day behind on my personal goal, but super ahead of the actual NaNo goals which is awesome! I’m still hoping to finish my 50k by the 17^th or 18^th!

Vlog NaNoWriMo: I am also trying to vlog my NaNo this year with short little videos in my Instagram story! I’ll be compiling them all together at the end of the month to make a cool little day in the life of a wrimo video! I can’t wait!

Makers Market: Obviously this market is going to need to take a bit of priority. A lot of planning and organizing goes into running an event like this. I still need to lay out a floor plan and make posters to post up everywhere downtown, never mind just stocking up my shop and getting my table set up finished!

Christmas Projects: I have a pretty big list of Christmas gifts that I need to make and I don’t want to leave them all until December so after market day I’ll be going on a short week-long hiatus to focus on nothing but the novel and my gift projects! Some of them are going to be super time-consuming!

Organize My Office: The past few months have been so completely hectic and I am really in need of some reorganization! I seriously can’t keep up with the amount of yarn that is flying off the fall, and I when I buy new skeins I can’t find the time to rewind them and put them on the wall. Don’t even get me started on my desk or the other craft cubes I have. All of them are so wildly disorganized and it’s giving me a migraine!

Stick to My Blog Schedule: I really want to stick to this goal of writing here twice a week! I added a little NaNoWriMo incentive that I talk about in my accountability post, and hopefully, the blog helps motivate me to get on top of my goals!

I think that’s it for my November goals! I can’t wait to share the next few posts I have scheduled! Going back to relive some of the super exciting things that I did last month so that I can write blog posts about them has put me in such a great mood and I can’t wait for you all to read them!

What are your small goals for November?

NaNoWriMo Accountability Announcement

MazieNovember 1, 2017Leave a comment

It’s been a week and a little bit since I posted last, and I’d like to start this post off by apologizing! I have at least 10 more Preptober posts planned, but just have had the time to post them. I’ve been far too busy just prepping my novel. In any spare time I’ve had this past week and a half I’ve been plotting out my outline and trying to flesh out characters, and though I know I have a lot of work done, I still feel unprepared. I guess that’s normal.

So anyway, I’m making this post to talk about outline my NaNo Goals, Rewards, and Personal Rules to keep me accountable throughout the month.

Goals:

This NaNo, unlike all my other past years, I’ve decided to not be a NaNo Rebel. I’m actually planning on writing a first draft of a novel. I want to be able to sit down in December and tie up loose ends and edit, and publishing will be our main 2018 goal. I’ve never felt this passionate about a story before and so I’m really feeling positive about this NaNoWriMo project.

Overall Goal: I need to reach 50,000 words by November 18th
Stretch Goal: 70,000 words by November 30th

I mathed out my daily word goal and that determines that I will be able to write 92k by November 30th, but I’ll be happy with 70k.

Rewards:

This year I’m bribing myself with an order of fresh baked goods, a special embroidery needle, pokemon go coins, a value village sweater hunt, a date night and a new desk from Ikea…. I was going to get the desk anyways, so it’s not really a NaNo thing, but I might as well put off getting it until I’m done!

Personal Rules:

I’m not letting myself count work/freelance towards my word count. I’m only working on one project. If I reach my daily goal (2800 words) I will let myself count 1 blog post towards my word count (usually spanning between 300-500 words) This acts as a kind of incentive so that I can post all of my backlog ideas! I did a lot of super exciting things in October and I can’t wait to share all the pictures and everything!

Right now, I can’t see myself having much time to post until I’m finished my 50k, its currently 40 minutes until midnight and I don’t feel confident that I’ll be able to write as fast or as much as I want to, but that’s fine. I’m just working on the finishing touches of my NaNoWriMo Survival Kit, mostly meaning that I’m creating my Spotify playlist, and making sure I have enough freezer meals. I’m feeling a way that only NaNo can make me feel; the perfect mix of excited and panicked…and caffeinated.

Are you ready for NaNo?

Fall Bucket List Update: Balls Falls

MazieOctober 8, 2017Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I posted my Fall Bucket List and promised that I would be posting updates whenever I cross an item off the list! Well, here I am with that first update!

Yesterday we attended the Balls Falls craft show! Andrea volunteers there every year and runs a vendor relief program so we decided to go and visit with her, and while we were there we got to check out a lot of awesome makers, food, beer and just overall autumn fun.

When we were driving out, the weather was super cold and rainy and I was super bummed about it, so we made a pitstop for umbrellas and better shoes and then when we got there it was so hot and sunny we were actually sweating, (in regards to my outfit, definitely fashion over function).

After we were done at the festival we went up to visit my parents, they don’t live that far from there so it wasn’t out of the way. We visited and meal-prepped a bunch, I think roughly 25 mini freezer shepherd’s pies so that we don’t have to stress about dinners during NaNoWriMo. We didn’t get to visit for long, but we’ll be able to catch up more on Monday for my family’s Thanksgiving.

As for today (Thanksgiving Sunday), we’re having our very first turkey dinner. It will be my first time cooking a turkey, though it’s from a pre-cooked turkey kit, it still needs to be stuffed, and put in the over and all the other dishes need to be made too. It’s a good first turkey, hard to mess up, and I’m pretty excited about it.

So happy I got to spend some quality time with some of my favourite people yesterday. Seriously feeling so thankful for all the positive people in my life right now.

What are you thankful for?

october: small goals

MazieOctober 4, 20171 Comment

Let me tell you, it has been an absolute ride this month. A strong start, a big loop in the middle and now another amazing start for this month! If you follow me on social media, you may have heard that I got a new job! I haven’t shared much about it publically yet, because I plan on doing a post, but I’m very excited about it, it’s all falling into place and I seriously couldn’t be happier.

So here is how I did in September!

September Goals:

Portfolio: I was offered a pretty awesome job near mid-september and I just completely fell out of portfolio mode. Its definitely being migrated to this month AGAIN.

~~Prep-tember:~~ I’m going to do a round up post of all my Prep-tember posts but if you liked those posts, you’re going to love all the Preptober posts I have planned for this month!

Outline my NaNo Novel: I started brainstorm more scenes but I didn’t actually write any of the outline down. Which is not very productive. Thats what this month is for though right? RIGHT?!

~~Print M~~y Zine: I have successfully written and illustrated a whole new zine, but neither of them are printed yet for some reason. I need to sell some during NaNo though since I won’t be working as much, so it’s definitely a priority!

~~Blog Every W~~eek Day: I was doing really well up until Navi’s vet adventures that I wrote about here. I tried to redeem myself a bit in the last week of September but it wasn’t the best attempt! I got all the important posts I needed to get up though! So that’s a thing!

~~No Spend:~~ I killed it this month on the no spend! No slip ups, I didn’t forget once, I was super mindful about what I was spending! On October 1st I rewarded myself with a beautiful Luna the Cat Backpack! When it arrives I’ll be writing a post about it!

October Goals:

Inktober and Vlogtober: This month I’m doing the Inktober and Vlogtober challenges over on youtube. At the very least I want to do what ink drawing each day, my expectations are a bit lower for the vlog challenge but I’ve been doing okay so far!

Preptober: As I mentioned before I have a huge Preptober series planned for this month. I’m a NaNoWriMo ML and prepping my novel now is super crucial for my wellbeing in November!

Affiliates/PR/Sponsorships: Last month I became a part of a whole handful of new affiliate programs and I really want to create some kind of routine on getting my links out there on my Pinterest and in posts and whatnot, so I’m going to try to up my game a bit on that front. I also want to find more programs that pay per click instead of sales.

Portfolio: Migrating this task over from September! Kind of rolling my eyes at myself right now!

More Quality Time: I want to focus on spending more quality time with my loved ones. Things have been super hectic since we got back from vacation and the next couple months are going to be absolutely insane so I really want to set aside some time each week before the weekend to get some good quality time in with Drew and our little fam!

No-Spend: This month on the no-spend list are the usual suspects. No books, no MORE bags ( I bought that backpack on the first of the month with the intent of not buying any other ones until I can get rid of a few.), No yarn unless it’s specifically for a Christmas gift!

What are your goals for the month? I’d love to hear some of them in the comments below!

Thanks for reading,

Fall Bucket List

MazieSeptember 11, 201720 Comments

I think I mentioned earlier in this blog that for the past couple years I have been doing seasonal bucket lists with my best friend Andrea. It’s by no means a strict list but more so just a guide line for what we want to get done during the season. Since Fall is both of our favourite seasons, we definitely are hype for this years list.

On one of our thrifting excursions, we found a copy of The Year of Cozy by Adrianna Adarme and we were super excited to incorporate some of those seasonal things into this list! The titles of the tasks might be a bit vague, but I’ll update them once each one is complete!

Homemade Chicken Wings
Wine & Paint Night
Go on a hike* * or a short horizontal jaunt
Go apple picking
~~BAKE SOMETHING!~~ I baked Pumpkin Snickerdoodles, and Banana Bread and a Smores Pie!
Make Butternut Squash Soup!

Leaf Collecting
Carve Pumpkin
Roast Pumpkin Seeds
Howell’s Pumpkin Farm
Ghost Walk in NOTL
~~Balls Falls Festival~~
Fall Photo Shoot
~~Thanksgiving Dinner~~

Red Lobster
Crochet scarves and things! (ongoing)
Fall (HOME) Spa Day
Christmas planning
Halloween movies (Hallmark ones more specifically)

I’m going to try to plan some corresponding blog posts for every time we cross an item off the list. My prediction is that we are going to be trying to get at least a couple done each time we see each other since she recently moved a bit further away and we might not get to see each other as often as usual. Once I have the corresponding post for each task up, I will link it here so that it’s easier to find!

If you have any other cute suggestions for our Fall Bucket List, please leave them in the comments below!

How Habitica Changed My Life

MazieSeptember 7, 2017Leave a comment

A frequent question that I get is “how on earth do you manage your time,” with all the freelance projects and personal projects I do. “It just seems impossible to have that much going on, but still have time to spend time with friends,” is another common statement that I get sometimes.

Truth is, I’ve always been kind of proficient when it comes to managing my time and keeping on track with goals and deadlines. But it’s not all me I promise! I always have my bullet journal or planner next to me, it has become my favourite tangible productivity tool. But aside from that, I have recently started used one of my favourite apps again!
Today I want to talk about an amazing App that has been keeping me in check lately, called Habitica! Formerly known as HabitRPG, this app has taken my productivity to a whole new level.

Here are the Coles Notes:

Start a character: There are all kinds of ways you can customize your character, but if you don’t have time, just a basic character avatar will do! This is my current character!
List your habits and dailies: The app will come with a few examples of tasks that you can use, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to just clear all those out and start fresh with your daily habits to track and what not. I personally stretch these a bit and track a bunch of smaller things. (The more you check something off, the more coins you get in a day!) These features really do help with starting to build new habits, or break bad ones! Dailies are good for everyday tasks that you don’t want to keep putting in your to do section! Then just add any other to do list tasks as they come along. I sit down every morning with my BUJO and draft out a game plan from there, but now instead of wasting a page in my notebook, I map out all of my small tasks on this app and check them off as I go. More coins for me!
Set your rewards, use the coins you receive to buy new items or quests: Obviously there needs to be some kind of compensation for being so amazing, so everytime you do something on your lists you get coins. These coins can be used to buy armor, items that bump up your abilities and other neat things. There are bosses and battles once you get into a party, and these items will totally help with that. A feature that I really like is that you can set it up to give yourself tangible rewards too, like episodes of game of thrones and what not.
Join a party, find some guilds or start a challenge: A great thing to do when you first get started is to find a community of like minded people to quest with. Quests happen within a Party. In order to get into a Party, you need to request or get invited to one, or just start your own, you can find a chat in the tavern full of people looking for members or looking to join a party. You can only be in one party at a time, but you can be in multiple guilds! Guilds are kind of similar to a party but they are more specified interest wise (At least that’s what I have noticed!) There are guilds for people who like bullet journals, guilds for people who like Gilmore girls, guilds for people that reward themselves with anime! It’s all here, and it’s all amazing!
Collect all pets and mounts: Also, while you complete tasks you can find random items. There is no way of controlling it, but these add that addictive collecting aspect that us app-users love. Basically, you can find eggs, potions, and food. Once you have an egg and a potion you can combine them to get a pet. For example, Bear Cub Egg + Cotton Candy Potion = Cotton Candy Bear Cub!There is a huge list of combinations that you need to try to complete! You can feed your pets to train them and boost their stats, but they only eat certain foods. IE. Pink pets can only eat pink food, and brown pets can only eat brown food… and every other colour is the same. It’s simple, but like I said, so addictive. Since the HabitRPG days they have added so many new pets, and I’m completely invested in getting them all.

Overall, I love this app and it really does help make everyday tasks a little more fun. At first, I was worried that it might make productivity a bit distracting, but after I explored a bit, joined my party and settled down, it really is something that I can’t see myself living without now. It is a free app, there is the option to purchase in game currency which, to be honest, I definitely see myself doing in the future (the developers of this app are so amazing so I would love to support them), but you can play without it for sure! Check it out and let me know what you think!

New BuJo Tour

MazieSeptember 5, 2017Leave a comment

I mentioned on Instagram that I recently started my new bullet journal, so I decided to post a little mini tour of some of the spreads and trackers I’ve included in the new notebook. Also I’m going to include a detailed list of supplies and pieces featured in the pictures! If you would like me to go into more specific details on each of my spreads please leave your requests in the comments and I will explain them more in depth, but as for right now I’m going to just include the photos and links, for simplicity!

Also, this post is just exploring my bullet journal. I haven’t set up my new travelers notebook/ midori yet so I’m not really able to share that part of my system. Definitely stay tuned for that post in the near future, I’m super excited to set it up.

* Please note that this post may contain affiliate links. This means that I might make a few cents if you click one, at no extra cost to you. I will never share a product that I don’t truly love. Thank you for your support.*

Links:

Zebra Mildliners

Faber Castell Brush Markers – Greyscale

Essentials Grid Notebook- A5

Inkjoy Gel 0.5 Pen

loll3 Stickers

Carly Watts stickers

Succulent Sticker (cover)

Succulent stickers

All of the stickers you see on the front of my bullet journal are from RedBubble.com. I love this site because you can search and find millions of new artists and support their talent by buying high-quality products featuring their work! All art is uploaded by the artists themselves so that they can make some money off of their sales, and you get that amazing Redbubble quality! I have ordered from companies similar to RedBubble and wasn’t super impressed before, so I was a bit worried about placing the order for these stickers, but let me tell you, the quality is flawless. No pixalation where it doesn’t belong, the adhesive is perfect, and these stickes have been on the front of this notebook since I got it, and they aren’t wearing off or fading at all. I’m personally a huge fan of Redbubble, and am working on setting up my own little print shop on there. More updates on that soon for sure!

I’m personally a huge fan of Redbubble, and am working on setting up my own little shop on there. More updates on that soon for sure!

Thank you so much for reading this post, and for supporting me on my bullet journal journey! I have some pretty exciting bullet journal/ planner stuff coming up this month that I seriously can’t wait to post about so make sure to follow me on instagram for those updates!

September: Small Goals

MazieSeptember 2, 20172 Comments

In my last post, I kind of spoke about some of the things that I plan on doing in September but I felt that it might be a bit more beneficial if I post my goals publically, for all that accountability and what not! So Here are the goals I had written down for August and my progress with them!

(Disclaimer: This post will contain affiliate links, which means that I may earn a few cents if you click on a link or make a purchase through a link posted here, with no additional cost to you! I appreciate the support!)

August Goals:

~~Finish Unpacking:~~ In July, my partner moved into my apartment, and since then there has been a constant stream of plans, events or just road blocks keeping us from unpacking all of his stuff. So I set a goal to find time to finish getting him all settled in! There is at least one more Ikea trip to go before we’re completely organized but at least everything is out of boxes!

~~Cozy bones Instagram:~~ I made a goal to post more on Instagram, and a goal to get to 200 followers! I got to 215! A fair jump from 80 followers in July! My next goal is 35o, but I’m not making that a monthly goal.

~~Label my part of the office:~~ I got a bunch of craft cubes for our shared office, the ones you can see in my workspace tour. Up until that tour, they were labeled with sticky notes, so I needed to upgrade it a bit! It’s been on my task list for at least 3 months.

~~Complete the zine:~~ I’ve had my zine planned for about a month now, and I finally sat down and wrote it out! I’m excited to share more about it in the next couple of weeks!

Start Couponing again: Now this is kind of a half and half win for me. I didn’t start hardcore couponing again, like the whole clipping and price matching dealy that I used to back in the day. But I did log back into my PC Plus account, but more importantly, I signed back into my Checkout 51 for the first time in a couple of years! I completely forgot how fun it was to use this app! I’ve already got $15 on the app, and a little bit more processing after my grocery shop from today! I’m a bit too excited about it, to be honest, I keep asking Drew if we can go grocery shopping again. If you haven’t checked out the app yet, you definitely should! It truly is remarkable the savings you can find!

~~No Spend:~~ At the beginning of the month I wrote down a list of things that I wasn’t going to allow myself to buy. The list consisted of books, makeup, bullet journal supplies, yarn, and purses. I’m proud to say I spent money on none of these things last month!

September Goals:

Portfolio: I need to set up my portfolio page, it’s currently just sad and empty and it’s something that is super important for my career. Time to put the big girl panties on and just get to work on that.

Prep-tember: I want to write at least one or two Prep-tember posts each week. I also need to get set up for Prep-tober. Let me know if there are any posts you’d like to see from me.

Outline my NaNo Novel: Now that I have an idea for a novel, I need to sit down and write a detailed outline for it, other wise it will never get written. I’ve tried the unplanned route, it just doesn’t work for me.

Print My Zine: Now that my zine is written, I need to lay it out, and print it. That’s really the last step before it gets out into the world. I’m pretty excited about making a couple extra dollars from something written and made by me.

Blog Every Week Day: Writing every week day is a definite goal for this month! I really want to see if I can do it! I know there are a lot of awesome bloggers that write every day so week days are super doable I think!

No Spend: This month I’m cutting back on my rules a little bit! This month it’s just no books, not purses and no stationery. I’m sorry, but all the fall colours just came out in the yarn department and I have n0 will power! I’d just be setting myself up to fail!

That’s it for today’s post! Share your goals, I’d love to hear what you have planned for this month!

As always, thanks for reading,

This post was proofread by Grammarly