Firstly, I’m working on packaging my handbag and purse patterns for selling wholesale to craft stores around this area. That needs for all the patterns to be folded, the pattern pieces to be printed and then folded and inserted into the pattern. Then they need to go into plastic zip lock bags and then the supplies that go with the pattern need to be inserted into the bag. I haven’t even printed out the pattern pieces yet. Hopefully I can get this project finished by Sunday.

Then the next project is reviewing my pricing. This project involves going through the listing of my products and, well, raising the price. But part of this project is figuring out what percentage to raise the prices by, whether to do a blanket price rise, or just certain products, or whether to raise some products more than others. You see these things that I have to contend with?! Then, coinciding with the raising of the prices, I want to set up a discount structure for certain products so that my lovely customers don’t feel too badly that I’ve raised my prices. I hate raising my prices. I hardly do it. One year I didn’t raise any prices at all because I was afraid there’d be a backlash (but there wasn’t). Thinking about the structure of how I will set up the discounts is making my head hurt. I just need to focus on raising the prices first and then think about the discount structure.

Then the next big project is getting our flat set up for my sewing machine. I’ve had 4 months without it and I’ve been surfing etsy and seeing all the wonderful things that people are making (some of which are making some lovely things with my patterns and supplies!) and I’m starting to get a little anxious about not being able to sew. So the long term project is getting the sewing machine all set up and being able to make a handful of bags. I figure, why not, if everyone else is making money out of the patterns and supplies they have purchased from me, why aren’t I doing the same?! And then along the way I want to start making some new tutorials for my website. This is one thing that has been lacking in my business and in 2009 my plan is to completely turn this around. I want to be adding tutorials, tips and ideas like a crazy person! (But of course the other two projects need to be done before I can start on the tutorials – let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Sarah).

I have been thinking a little bit about what renovations I’d like to do on our house in Tasmania. I’m not going to go overboard as I only have a limited amount of money to spend on the whole renovation (see wish list here) and plus I don’t want to do any renovations that aren’t completely necessary first-off. One of the things that isn’t completely necessary but something that I’d really like to do is to erect a sunroom off the back of the house. This area gets a lot of lovely sunlight during the day and it is so nice to sit in this space right here and get the warmth of the sun during the day. At the moment its just a covered over patio with old steel posts and laserlight sheeting but I want to replace the entire structure and put up glass screens so that the fresh breeze is blocked out. I am thinking of something like this:

Or something like this:

Keeping in mind that there will be a big 10m x 9m shed running parallel behind it, I will have to put up some kind of timber screening or something similar. Also, I’m not really sure how the sunroom will be laid out in relation to the bedroom window, bathroom window and the back door. The back door will probably lead straight out into the sunroom and there might have to be another glass door that leads from the sunroom to the back yard area. I don’t really want the windows to look straight out into the sunroom.