“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion” Hebbel

Are you ever working away for months, years or more only to realize that you’re not loving the work you do anymore?  Maybe it’s a desk job, or like me, if you’re a small business person with a small business that you’ve done for years that suited you when you started, but over the years it’s as if you’ve outgrown it?  This is what has happened to me with DIY Lounge.  There are aspects of the business that I still love, but many that I do not.  As a result I’m no long going to continue running DIY Lounge.  My passion no longer lies in making craft videos or in teaching others to make crafts.

So now the $10,000 question . . . what is my passion?  I’m so fortunate to have an answer to this question.  Here it is: I LOVE to help creative people streamline their work and life, by brainstorming and implementing strategies for success.

My new business is called The Maven Circle.

Check The Maven Circle for more fun wallpapers!

Now for the “how” part of this equation . . . I am working on an e-course with my friend Jena Coray of Modish that focuses on work, life balance and how to unleash your inner awesome.  You can sign up for our mailing list to receive more info about our program.

From here on out I’ll only be listing blog post pertaining to The Maven Circle.  I won’t be posting about crafts or videos on my blog, Facebook or Twitter.  I just changed my twitter handle from DIY Lounge to Jen_Neitzel and frankly I’m feeling quite liberated!

What is your passion?  Are you living it?  Are you moving toward it?  Are you willing to quit what you’ve been doing to make room for your new passion?  I’m a firm believer that life is too short for doing what you do not love.

Follow the Maven Circle on . . .

I love how things come together.  One person has an idea and then it grows and other people add to the idea, which grows and becomes something else that’s better and bigger than any one person could make.  On the back end this is my perspective of the Hello Etsy PDX conference.  It started like this, I had this idea for the Keynote . . . it was born out of a Facebook post from months ago in which I posted about Stumptown Coffee procuring investors.  I was surprised how many people were coming down on Stumptown and it was Rebecca Pearcy of Queen Bee who said in Facebook thread, “Growth isn’t always a bad thing.  Business people have to weigh out many different scenarios  to sustain their businesses and growth is some times the answer.”  When Rebecca, Isaac and I were in the early planning stages of the event we were looking for a dynamic keynote address and I thought of this Facebook post.  From there we thought it would be incredible if we presented a few different ideas around intentional business growth. One where we profiled a business that chose to grow large and one that felt they could be more viable by staying small.  We really wanted the bigger business to be represented by Stumptown and the smaller  by Queen Bee.  The idea seemed too crazy to happen for real.  How could we get Duane Sorenson from Stumptown to even pay attention to us?  None of us had a connection to him.  And would Rebecca Pearcy want to talk about staying small?  We had a few businesses in mind to represent the big and small businesses and cast our net wide.  Surprisingly we heard back from almost everyone, including Duane Sorenson!  Next we needed to talk with Duane and explain our vision for the conversation.  I have to admit that after doing some reading online I had a sense of a message I was hoping to send.  I felt as though Duane Sorenson was being raked over the coals for bringing in investors to Stumptown Coffee and selling out, but I really didn’t feel he was a sell out after reading how well he was taking care of his employees and the coffee farmers he works with.  I think it was at least part of the reason he decided to do the Keynote, because he could tell we were interested setting aside biases and presenting the whole picture.

Next we needed a moderator for the keynote and we were lucky to have Diane Gilleland who did an amazing job!  I had some insider information on both Duane and Rebecca because I had researched Duane and spoken with him on the phone.  Rebecca and I are friends, so I wrote up questions and sent them to Diane.  Diane did her own research about Duane and came to the same conclusion I’d had.  She felt that Duane was being accused of something that he wasn’t, a sell out.  In her graceful style, Diane tailored the questions, but kept the underlying message:

Bigger local businesses and small local business are a matter
of choice and equally necessary in a local economy.

A small business isn’t doomed to fail if they choose to stay smaller
and a large business isn’t necessarily selling out
if they choose to grow larger by taking on investors.

Just to give you a sense of the amount of work it took to schedule a meeting to review the questions that would be discussed during the keynote between Duane, Rebecca and Diane,  I believe it took 2 phone calls, 5 emails and 2 texts to set up that meeting.  Duane is a really busy guy.  More busy than I knew.  I learned that he has a wife and 4 kids!  Not to mention the 200 employees and all of the coffee shops he has sprinkled around Portland, Seattle and New York.  Phew!  That’s a lot to juggle.

I felt Isaac would do the best job introducing the keynote and in typical Isaac B Watson style he totally exceeded my expectations.  I really enjoyed this part of Hello Etsy PDX so much because it was informative, funny, it shed light on some iconic Portland businesses as well as it helped dispel some myths about bigger businesses by telling a different story.  One of making the best choices for the business and employees, like Stumptown Coffee.  It also reminded all of us about the incredible viability and success possible for small business, like Queen Bee.

The keynote for Hello Etsy  is really a microcosm of the overall event.  It took a lot of people, specifically, it took the I Heart Art Leadership Council members and some pretty amazing volunteers all really pulling together along with Etsy who footed the entire bill.  The fact that Etsy had this vision for this incredible conference alone is HUGE.  People have asked me, “Why do you think Etsy wanted to have this international business conference for makers with such a big picture, educational perspective?”  I know it wasn’t any type of monetary gain, because they spent more than they earned from the conferences.  I think they must have had a vision for international good will and an education revolution for the universal maker community.  The internet adoration was their payment.     I received an email from Kimm Alfonso who works at Etsy in NYC.  She told me that there were over 4,000 tweets with the Hello Etsy hashtag.   I think this conference was truly beneficial for all involved.   Thank you, Etsy for making this day possible!

by: jen

On September 17th from 9:00am-6pm we’ll converge on the PNCA campus for a day of learning, sharing and networking.   Best of all the whole shebang only costs $20 to attend!  We’re fortunate to have an amazing list of speakers including our keynote speakers, Duane Sorenson of Stumptown Coffee and Rebecca Pearcy of Queen Bee, who will be discussing their business growth.

Here’s the list of workshops that will be happening at the Hello Etsy.  You can find everything from how to have a toxin free workplace on a micro-business scale, to learning how to make peace with your finances, or learn to make your own website in an hour and so much more.  Not to mention all of the little extras that will be supplied at the event like stab bound journals (with supplied donated by collage) that attendees will get to make during the conference to keep notes in, subsidized lunches, snacks and even free moo cards to attendees who sign up early.  Sign up today!

How do I know about this event you might be wondering?  I am the co-chair with the help of Rebecca Kerr from I Heart Art: Portland.  I am also fortunate to be working on this project with the rest of the I Heart Art Leadership Council and  with the folks from Etsy.

WHEN: Saturday, September 17th, 9:00 am to 6:00 pm
WHERE: Pacific Northwest College of Art, Swigert Commons, 1241 NW, Johnson St, PDX 97209
Tickets: $20 RSVP today. Limited space available.

For all of the up-to-the-minute announcements on speakers and workshops, follow us on Twitter and look for the #helloetsy hashtag.

by: jen

“Oh, right, I forgot, I love this!”

I was feeling sorry for myself and letting myself become overwhelmed.  I was allowing myself to be bogged down by my own choices and opportunities.  I decided that I wasn’t going to be stuck in my own negativity and worry.  I spent most of yesterday bringing some of the awesome people I know personally and people I work with on the I Heart Art Leadership Council into the various events I have coming up.  I was relieved to find so many people willing to help me with all of my projects, work and personal.  I love the work I do and how I think about it affects how I feel.  I know I’m lucky to do the work I do and I am learning something new almost daily, which keeps things interesting for me.

Ever since I changed my attitude, I’ve been riding the wave.    I was feeling so overwhelmed for a couple of days and wishing I hadn’t overcommitted myself.  Then I changed my perspective and my behavior changed.  I decided yesterday that rather than putting my energy into feeling stressed, I’d put it into solving as many problems as I could and bring people in to help me in areas where I felt like I couldn’t extend myself to.  Sometimes you have to spent a few days dog paddling and getting pulled under by the undertow, but with a few little mental shifts you can be a radical surfer of life.  Now it’s time for me to get back into my proverbial wetsuit because I have a lot more waves to shred today.    [Disclaimer: I've never been on a surfboard in my life, but I like to use analogies even if I don't know the medium per se and yes I know I'm ridiculous, but that's how I roll.]

Here’s a side project I’m working on in my “spare time” – quotes with fotos is what I’m calling it.

by:jen

I made it to the Rhododendron Garden with family this summer.  Before, I could never find the time.

My son is playing way less computer games than he would have if I hadn’t come up with a program like this.  He’s also getting more exercise and initiating more creative projects as well.  I think I said this in my last update, but he really likes the structure of our schedule.  Not that he’s doing certain activities at certain times, but he is referring to the schedule to see what sort of projects he’d like to do when he’s feeling bored.  He has told me on a few occasions that he really likes being able to see a list of things he can do, generally how long he can do it for and what various activities can earn him toward future computer game playing.

It’s funny because when I put together this plan in the back of my mind I had this little doubt.  It was coming to me from something else Leo Babauta had said about habits at the World Domination Summit, but I never mentioned it before now.  He said that you can really only expect to change one thing at a time and that each change takes 30 days, so doing more than one goal at a time can be problematic and hard to achieve.  I was well aware when I started Uncamp with my son that I was changing one big thing, which was the structure of Uncamp itself and that I was making many, many small changes too.  I knew that changing so many things could be challenging, even unsuccessful, but I felt that I needed to try anyway.

This is touching on what Chris Guillebeau said in his blog yesterday about thinking for yourself and that you don’t need to take other people’s advice. From what he said in his post it sounds like he gets a lot of questions and concerns from readers feeling that this cannot be good advice.  OK, quick side note: I do think it’s funny to get advice about not listening to advice and it makes perfect sense that a non-conformist such as Chris would advise people in this way. Having said this, I totally agree with him.  I do get advice from time to time, but it has to square with what I believe and want.  If it doesn’t, I typically reject or as in this case, keep it in the back of my mind to reassess later.  This is what I did with Leo’s tips on forming a habit.  I used the parts that worked for what I needed it for and breezed past the parts that weren’t as good of a fit for me.

I’m glad I listened to myself rather than taking every word as my dogma,
because if I had listened to every word I wouldn’t have tried something new like this
and I think this plan has been great for myself and for my son.

Once my son is back in school I plan to address the schedule again.  I have a really nerdy desire to make my own schedule – meaning that I want to make a template that is visually interesting and inspires me so that I can fill it in and get down to some serious time management on a bigger scale.

The purpose of time management is
managing your time so you can have more of it to spend as you choose.

Time management = Intention management

I want more down time and more creative time.  The more I’m able to manage the various activities I do the more I can choose what I spend my time on.  Time management is really about intention or choice management.  I have so many more ideas and projects I want to do.  No, that I will do!   Managing my time is critical to getting where I want to go.

Another shot from the Rhododendron Garden

by: jen

by: jen

I am co-chairing the PDX portion of this event with Rebecca Kerr, along with tons of help from Isaac Watson.  We are currently opening a call for proposals for instructors to lead 50 minute workshops on the subjects of:

The Big Picture
The Product
The Business
The Market

If you are interesting in leading a workshop check out our request for proposals for more information.  The deadline for proposals is August 5th, 2011.  One quick tip: this is a business conference that will have a broad appeal and will be useful to all creative business people – the focus of this conference is on business, not really arts or crafts.

We’ll have lots of information available about this event in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, tickets are currently available here.  Get your tickets while you can because at the low price of $20 they’ll go quickly!

More on this conference soon!

by: jen

Yarn bombed: street sign

I organized my own yarn bombing posse.   The whole thing came together super last minute, so even though I had invited a lot of people only a few were able to attend so last minute.  Also, there was one minor detail that I got wrong with the yarn bombing; the date.  I had read somewhere about International Yarn Bombing Day online and it had said it was the 18th, but when I went to look  more information after the “bombing” I realized we’d bombed a week late.  We decided we didn’t care and the fact that we did it was pretty cool.  Here are some more photos of our yarn bombing.

Yarn Bombed:  street sign.  Is it just me or is this sign kinda sexy?

It was raining when she showed up to start the yarn bombing, but it stopped raining soon after.  We had such a great time!

Yarn bombed: a series of yarn bombed trees

We’re planning to do another yarn bombing next year and are making pieces especially for the event.

Yarn bombed: knitted patchwork

Yarnia donated small swatches of yarn to the yarn bombing.  I put them together and made the piece above.

Yarn bombed: branchy tree

Yarn bombed: Caught in the act.

Yarn bombed: still caught, but no one cares.

Yarn bombed: finished product.

Yarn bombed: fire hydrant and street sign.

If you’d like to see these yarn bombs for yourself and you’re local to Portland, Oregon you can check them out at Tanner Springs Park.

by: jen

So far my son is thriving and I’m, in typical fashion the rebellious one. I’ll start with myself.  I think part of the problem is that I haven’t set up the Stay Focused Chrome Extension yet.  I started to set up and my whole computer started running really slow, so I uninstalled it.  I need to get a consultation from my husband about what I need to do to install it and make it run properly with my system.  In the meantime I’ve been finding that I’M the sneaky one!  This was shocking to me.  I’m sneakin’ around looking at various online sources or doing other things that it’s not time for me to be working on.  I’ll look at the schedule and think, “hmmm, that’s what I should do.  I wonder what’s going on on Facebook?”

Photo of my son at the graduation ceremony for his elementary school

My son on the other hand, has really impressed me with how well he’s doing with the program.  I think he really likes knowing there is a plan for the day.  He has the schedule on his bulletin board and is referencing it all the time.  Sometimes he’s reminding me when I’m off task!  This is so backwards..  I’ve never seen him work so hard at so many new skills and be so motivated to help or initiate work around the house.

I’ve been amazed to watch  my son developing these skills:

1. Creative motivation: He is so motivated to try new things that ordinarily he would be resistant to.  Like for example, yesterday he spent 15 minutes making a journal/comic.  It’s about his life, but in a comic form.   Creative, right?  And he’s writing!  I can’t tell you how much this makes me happy.  Sure it’s a comic, but he’s writing!  This was his idea to so extra points for creativity.

2. Housework and home improvement motivation: He’s been initiating chores around the house.  It might be time for him to unload the dishwasher and he’s saying to me, “Hey Mom, why don’t I wipe down the counters too?”  What?  How is this happening?  I’m thrilled of course, but wow!  I didn’t expect this.  He’s offering to do many tasks and really staying motivated to complete them without complaining because he knows these tasks will bring him what he wants, computer/game time.  He’s also been helping me hang shelves, level photos and hang them, etc.  I was the type of kid who was doing simple home improvement projects mostly by myself and learning as I went.  I feel great that he’s also learning home improvement skills and from his mother no less!  This makes me really happy!

3. Deep Concentration on skill-based activities: In the past he might have made a small little video with much encouragement from me and once he finished the 30 minutes or 1 hour video he would have complained that he was bored and that he wanted more game time.  Now he knows the schedule.  He’ll have one hour of video making time before lunch each day and then when it’s time for more project time and he can choose  the project, he’s choosing to make more videos.  He’s spending about 3 hours a day working on filming, editing and uploading videos.  He’s loving it!  He’s never seem so engaged in his creative work before!  I’m so excited to see what new skills he’ll develop this summer!

4. Time management and game management:  This has been the most shocking of all the new skills I see my son developing.  He is rationing his game time very responsibly and it’s something I never discussed with him.  He’s saving time each day so that he and his dad can play Minecraft together at the end of each day.  I noticed at the beginning of the week that he wasn’t spending as much time playing games as he was allotted in the afternoon.  I asked him a couple of days ago, “Are you saving up time for evening to play games with your dad?” He said” Yeah, I like to have some game time with dad at the end of the day so, I’m saving it up.”  Holy crap!  Totally impressive, right?

OK, now back to me and my less impressiveness.  I know that part of the issue is that I am a left handed, right brained, head in the clouds creative type who has somehow managed to get enough time management and organization skills to function in the world.  I was raised by a creative person and had basically no schedule ever, in my life, until I grew up.  I think Uncamp might be the most scheduling I’ve ever tried to impose upon myself.  It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.  I also think I need to rework the schedule a bit because I’m finding that there are times of the day that I don’t wanna, wanna.  There are other times when I think now is a good time for that, but it’s not on my schedule, which brings up another issue.  I am very intuitive, so I tend to be motivated by my mood or a moment.  Trying to do things based on when I’m supposed to do them is really challenging for me.  I think part of my problem is that the schedule needs some tweaking to suit my needs better and part of it is that I need to settle into this new style of managing myself.

The other issue is that I guess I’ve never really tracked how often I’m getting distracted in a day.  I am someone who tends to like a lot of things going on.  I’m happiest when I’m doing a few things at the same time or in close succession. I love to have people over, listen to music, cook, maybe business planning, often all at the same time.  I think everyone has their own processing time, mine tends to be very fast.  I think in my normal life, I might check my email, Facebook, etc up to 5-10 times a day.  Maybe more.  It’s almost like a nervous habit, because when I try not to check I’ll think, “BUT I HAVE TO CHECK MY EMAIL” (or facebook or fill in the blank).  Now that I’m tracking how often I’m losing concentration from what I’m working on, I’m seeing that I get distracted regularly and often!  I had no idea.  I think because I’m pretty good at doing a lot of things at once or within close succession, I hadn’t noticed this before.

I’m working hard at observing my behavior around this project and trying not to judge it. My first thought once I realized that although my son is the juvenile, I am the delinquent, was to make myself a really cool glittery dunce cap.  My second thought was to make the dunce cap and burn it.  My third thought was that I’m trying to stay on track with my schedule and making and burning dunce caps is too much of  a distraction.  Also, making a dunce cap has inherent judgement involved and I’m not judging.  To change a behavior you must acknowledge it and I acknowledge that I’m very distracted by the computer.

OK, so I’m working on setting up the Stay Focused Chrome Extension, revamping my schedule and a few tweaks to my son’s as well so we can both participate in our schedules together, not judging my natural rebelliousness and also trying to calm my inner rebel.  I’ll update you next week on how things are going and if I’ve tamed my inner rebel.

Here’s me at 5, sporting my best rebel girl face.

I’m wondering if anyone have any questions for me about Uncamp? I feel like there is so much more I could say about it, but you know, I’ve gotta stay on task with my schedule so no more time at the moment for writing, but if you ask me a question in the comments section, I promise to get back to you at my allotted computer time and respond to your questions, that is if my inner rebel girl doesn’t sneak online and respond earlier.  OK, I’m cracking myself up here.  Hope you’re all doing well with your summer plans!

by: Jen

There were a few different bouts: such as detailing and tricking out a chair from a thrift store.  In the next round they made puppets.   Chelsea created superior puppets, but Aurora did voices and named her puppets in an excited 5 year old kinda way so she totally won that leg of the competition.

Photo by Mike Harper

Aurora had a huge fan club at the event.  Even, Isaac B. Watson from I Heart Art was getting in on her fan club by waving a huge sign that said, “show us your cleavage.”  If you know Isaac you know how funny and out of character holding a sign like that is for him.

Photo by Mike Harper

One of the many fun elements of this event were the bribes that contestants brought for the judges.  Here you can see Richard and Julie fighting over who will get the hand altered “Hans Solo” created by Aurora.  I’m pretty sure Richard was screaming something like, “I’ll cut a bitch for Hans Solo!”  But that’s what happens when you go to a rumble.  Things can get pretty ugly.

Photo by mike Harper

Another cool element of the Rebel Craft Rumble  was that contestants could have secret weapons.  Miss Demeanor had caution tape, which she used to weave a chair.  She also did sexy, yet almost threatening dance moves that were totally entertaining.  Check out the picture above and you’ll see what I mean.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here you can see Isaac in “jail” again.  Throughout the night many people spent time in jail.  Sometimes for running around and acting like a nut, as in Isaac’s case, others were jailed for not bringing the craft cop a beer or other acts of “doing nothing,” but no one spent as much time in jail as Isaac.  He was so rowdy.  Screaming and waving signs to Sister Diane that said things like, “Marry me!”  It was pretty awesome!

Photo by Mike Harper

I think this guy was jailed for doing nothing.

Photo by Mike Harper

As the night began we were legit judges as you can see in the photo below.  We were carefully thinking it through and weighing out our options.  But we kept getting drinks from contestants and from the audience, after awhile it became more and more challenging to judge people based on their projects.  The bribes, booze and entertainment of each contestant began to weigh more heavily.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here’s a link to a quick iphone video of a drink that was delivered to me.  Diane didn’t purchase this drink it was purchased by an audience member on Diane’s behalf.  I couldn’t get a good photo of it because it had been written on all the way around the cup, so a video seemed like the best idea.    Notice in the photo below the water has barely been touched but the beer cups are getting stacked up in the middle of the table.  We are also being presented with the whiskey shots at this time.

Photo by Mike Harper

Here are Bridget and Diane competing in the chandelier redux portion of the evening.  Bridget’s hot glue gun died, but Sister D was kind enough to share hers.

Photo by Mike Harper

Crafters came and competed hard!  After a few black eyes and copious amounts of hot glue Sister Diane came out victorious once again.  It’s hard to beat divine crafting.  Even the Chinook Book sign couldn’t handle the intensity of the rumble.  Look at it, trying to fall down for mercy and crying for it’s mama.

Photo by Mike Harper

All in all this is one of the most fun events I’ve been to in some time.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes crafts, supports reuse, is a fan of friendly competition or really anyone who likes affordable fun!

by: jen