30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 3

As we get to work on day 3 of our 30 day small business cleanse, we're starting to settle into a pretty good routine. Happily, this is one of the project goals that we worked out as part of yesterday's assignment.

Yesterday's undertaking was to assess your overall situation. Where is your business now and what are you trying to achieve with this cleanse? Make a list of goals for this project.

Our list of goals for this project, but first coffee...

In many ways, this gets at the crux of why we've embarked on this project in the first place. The past year has been erratic at best. Many of the work habits we had gave way to stealing moments here and there to get things done. This has led to a certain level of chaos. The first order of business then, is to get ourselves organized.

Our second goal for this project, is to clean out the dead wood. It's an opportunity to examine what we do and how we do it in an effort to figure out what is working and what isn't. To pinpoint our weaknesses and come up with strategies for dealing with them.

Third, to create healthy habits. Constantly working on the go is the obvious outcome of not having much of a set schedule for the past year. It was very difficult to plan very far in advance, and as a result, we were often flying by the seat of our pants. Working this way all of a sudden meant that things got missed, or forgotten, or done twice. By getting back to healthy work habits, we will be able to get more done in less time. The obvious and immediate reward will be more baby cuddles!

The fourth goal may seem the most obvious but important to mention nevertheless. Our main objective is to figure out the lay of the land. Where are we now and where do we want to be. This includes a year from now, two years from now, five years from now...

And lastly, our intent is to learn how to work smarter and not harder. We've been doing a lot of reading lately, and one of the things we've found the most helpful are the creative business blog posts by Sycamore Street Press. Their post 10 Steps to Working Smarter (not Harder) has been especially helpful since we find ourselves in a very similar situation. We're not able to maintain the crazy, all-out work schedules we once had. This last goal may sound a lot easier than it is.

All in all, yesterday's task was a good early step. It led to some really great discussions and has allowed us to chart a path that we both feel comfortable with. And most importantly, it's getting the creative juices flowing!

Today''s goal: Clean up your computer. Start with your desktop then move on to your files. Choose a file structure then implement it. You’ll be amazed at what you find lurking in unexplored corners of your hard drive.

Ugh! Wish us luck!

30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 2

Well here we are, day 2 of our 30 day small business cleanse.

Yesterday's Task: Clean up and declutter your physical workspace. Clean off your desk, create a space to work over the next 29 days!

The assignment for day one was a good way to get our feet wet. We were lucky enough not to have to start out from absolute scratch. We were both really sick with a nasty cold last week, and as a result we did a mini cleanup early in the week in order to de-germ the studio. There were still a few piles here and there as well as some materials that had been shifted around from surface to surface for the past few weeks that were finally dealt with properly (there is nothing like a good deadline, and a little public pressure to help you get things done!). Oh, and miracle of miracles, we finally fixed the work calendar that hangs above the standing desk! It may seem like a small victory but it was pretty huge for us!

Our desks look much better after today's cleanup!

There's something about clearing your work surface off, washing it down and re-organizing it again that makes you feel like you have things under control. Like you're clearing out the cobwebs and are ready to get to work. Overall it was a pretty gradual way to get this project started but probably just the right speed for us right now.

L-R: We finally fixed our wall calendar (btw, just above the calendar are our very first experiments in letterpress, from grad school!) and afternoon baby cuddles as a reward!

Today's Task: Assess your overall situation. Where is your business now and what are you trying to achieve with this cleanse? Make a list of goals for this project.

Today's undertaking requires a little bit more consideration. It'll be a good exercise to help us put down on paper some of the ideas we've been throwing around for the past few weeks. Although we're over the moon that the little one is sleeping through the night, we do sort of miss those 3am nursing/pumping sessions. Not only because of the irresistible baby cuddles, but also because we often had great impromptu business meetings strangely enough.

30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 1

Today is day 1 of our 30 day small business cleanse. Today's task is to clean off our physical workspace. We've decided that means our desks.

Carving linoleum blocks on our desk before the concrete.

We've shared the same concrete slab desk for nearly six years. It's a desk we made when we first moved to L.A. It started off as a wooden desk, but after a few years as our linoleum carving station, it refused to come clean anymore so we covered it in concrete. 

L-R: the standing desk where Rosemary is working these days, the concrete desk where Robin is working these days. Both are clearly a mess!

At the moment, this desk is piled high with cards that need to be packaged, as well as piles of random things. We have a really bad habit of letting this area become a landing strip for the odds and ends that are important but that don't have a home of their own, mostly paperwork and packaging materials. This has become particularly bad since the baby was born partially because Rosemary has been camping out on the new standing desk. It's a lot easier to get work done there while baby wearing and during naps, it's just those few steps further away from the studio bassinet making it less likely to wake her up.

Today we'll be cleaning up both areas. We need to set things up so that we keep these spaces reserved for paperwork and not turn them into a magnet for random papers and projects. Wish us luck!

30 day small business cleanse!

The day our new equipment arrived at the new studio!

This time last year, things were going really well with our business. We were settling into our new studio space, we were working on our Kickstarter rewards and wholesale and retail sales were on an upward trajectory. We'd also just found out that we were pregnant. Ok, we weren't pregnant, Rosemary was. We were so excited, everything seemed to be going so well. And it did, for the first six weeks of the pregnancy things were fantastic. And then the nausea set in and made itself comfortable for the next six months. It was pretty rough. Suddenly we went from taking care of the business to trying to take care of ourselves. And in the end, the business suffered from the lack of attention. Not horribly, but just enough to quiet things down a little.

Our booth at Artisanal L.A., October 2014.

Fast forward to this year, we have a beautiful new daughter, Rosemary is back on solid foods, and although we're pretty tired a good part of the time, we're also really excited to be back at work. We have been making the most of our quiet time to work on our business. We've taken the opportunity to really look at what we're doing in order to make sure that we're working smarter not harder.

L-R: Robin printing Kickstarter rewards, Rosemary at Eastside Handmade with Ana from Love&Arrow, Rosemary proofing neon sign cards.

In that spirit, we've decided to embark on a 30 day cleanse. How L.A. can you get right? Inspired by the Apartment Therapy January Cure (which we've always wanted to do but have always been too exhausted since it comes right at the end of our busy season!) as well as several other  creative cleanses we've found on the internet or Pinterest (take a look at our Professional Practices board!), we wrote our own list of projects to follow for the next 30 days. It's going to be pretty intense, especially sandwiched between running the business, baby cuddles and marathon nursing session, but we're going to do our best! If nothing else, this will formalize a lot of the discussions we've had over late night feeds and early morning pumping sessions.

L-R: Robin taking a quick nap in the car while Rosemary feeds the baby, a stack of note cards hot off the press, studio hangouts with the baby.

We'll be charting our daily process here on the blog as well as sharing some bits and pieces on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Each day we'll cover our goal for the day and a small recap on the previous day's progress. It's a lot to bite off, and frankly we're a little nervous. You can follow along with us if you'd like, here's a pdf of our schedule for the rest of the month. It's tailored to our type of business but feel free to customize it in any way that makes it work better for you.

Wish us luck!
Rosemary+Robin

she's here!

We welcomed a new addition to the Ink+Smog Editions team, our daughter was born at the beginning of June and we couldn't be more in love!

We've been easing back in slowly, first at Renegade Los Angeles at Grand Park in July and then at Unique LA in August.

We've had a great response to some of our new note cards and Greetings from... cards and after taking  the better part of the summer off to adjust to life with bébé, we're starting to get back into the swing of things in the studio so expect some new additions in the coming months.

In the meantime, enjoy the last waning days of summer and have a very happy fall!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin

The Second Batch of Rewards Has Shipped!

If you've been following us on Instagram, you'll know by now that after a very looooong wait, we finally shipped out the calendar rewards a few weeks ago! We're so sorry for the delay, we've added a little something to help make up for the wait. 

As of today, we're now 2/3 of the way through sending out the rewards. We're waiting for some more packaging materials to arrive and then we'll be sending out another batch of rewards in another few weeks. Again, we're really sorry for the delay, it's been a bumpy road, but we're finally hitting our stride!

We've also been really busy printing up some new cards (and we have a bunch more in the works that we'll be debut at the summer shows) so stay tuned for some sneak peeks!

Best,

Rosemary+Robin

we're gearing up for a great 2015!

Some of our new flat letterpress note cards spread out in the studio

We've been hard at work over the past few weeks getting some of our newest additions into production! We hope you like the new cities and neighborhoods we've added to our line of urban paper goods!

We're already working on some new designs that we're looking forward to launching this spring/summer. As always, you can keep up with us on Instagram or Facebook or head over to our Etsy shop to see what we've been up to!

Happy Winter!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin