:: up up creative gets fashionable ::

i've got some crazy things coming up in connection with the national stationery show in may. i've had some press inquiries and sample requests and even an interview with a trade magazine. but perhaps the strangest and also possibly the most interesting is that i am providing 45 invitations to be used in a fashion show.

for real.

apparently kate's paperie is hosting an exhibit at the stationery show that will showcase paper dresses from cutting-edge designers as well as fashion design students at new york's lim college, the latter of whom will be competing for cash and the opportunity to have their designs displayed in the kate's paperie windows during fashion week.

the students' work will incorporate products from NSS exhibitors. including up up creative.

i have to send 45 invitations for some fortunate student to incorporate into his or her design. but i'm totally stuck. i can't choose which design to send. part of me is thinking chevron, but then i'm thinking maybe that's too obvious. what do you think? check out the 24 options here and let me know which one you'd like to see made into a garment.

:: choose your own adventure ::

i had something really strange happen the other day. i logged into facebook as up up creative and i posted the following status update:

"I'm thinking it's time for a little coupon code action. What would you prefer: a percentage off your order? free shipping? something else altogether?"

it was like a choose-your-own-adventure book, only the adventure was SAVINGS! but i didn't get a single response. not a comment, not a like. nothing. 


it shocked the freaking hell out of me. and it made me think a lot about my business and its future. i'm still kind of reeling from it, actually, and i'm not sure i can yet articulate what i feel like it has taught me. something about the nature of online retailing, maybe. but also something about online papergoods retailing. about keeping the customers you already have versus going out in search of new ones. about people and paper. about my own buying predilections.

i've spent a lot of time and effort trying to build this lovely e-commerce presence over at upupcreative.com, and in the time i've had said lovely e-commerce presence my business has continued its steady growth. i'm profitable. i'm growing. i'm setting and achieving dollar-amount goals. but almost none of my sales have come as direct e-commerce conversions. practically no one orders through my shop, and almost no one ever takes me up on my sales, coupon codes, or other promotions. my business, though it thinks of itself as an ecommerce business, just isn't really an ecommerce business. but it's not really any other kind of business, either. i don't really know how to define it. i don't know what exactly it should be. i've grown this whole thing very organically, putting one foot in front of the other on my path to "making enough money to support my family so that we can start an emergency fund, save for college, invest for retirement, and oh yeah not have to live on credit in the event of even the most minor catastrophes." but the result of that is this: i'm not always entirely sure where i'm going or even where i've been. 

i just keep taking steps and hoping i'll know where i am when i get there.


and the thing is, right now i'm at a point where i really want to have a plan. i want to, i dunno, understand my business model and have a plan. i want to choose a direction and run headlong, leaping hurdles like a grasshopper leaps cracks in the dry dirt - as if they were nothing. i want success, baby -- the kind of success that you can measure not just in pride or even dollars but rather in goals achieved. 

maybe even crazy goals achieved.

:: i dream of genies ::

about, oh, ten days ago, i lost my keys. i'm not a key loser, so the loss was disconcerting. that it happened when we were running almost late for evan's first no-parents swimming lesson made it much more so.

they were eventually found in a pile of things that had been moved from my desk in the living room (not my main work desk, which is in the attic) to the dining room table and back again the previous night, accumulating detritus, and keys, apparently, with each move.

that afternoon, when the kids were at daycare and i was here working, the state of the house got me so distracted that i went madly through the house like a tornado, scooping up everything in my path that wasn't properly put away, and dumping it into a laundry basket.

part of me wanted to just throw the whole thing in the garbage bin outside figuring that if i couldn't be bothered to put it away then i couldn't be bothered to own it, but then i realized that things like my income tax documents were in there.

so i left the whole thing at the base of the stairs.

and there it still sits. and now there is still more stuff striking various non-put-away poses throughout the house.

i'm not fussy. i'm not a neatnik. but holy crap this is starting to get ridiculous. my very brain is beginning to feel disorganized and cluttered.

one trouble with working from home is that you don't have the time to pick up because you're working, but you're not out of the house enough to keep from messing it up, and even while you're hard at work you still have to look at the domestic disarray.

oh how i sometimes wish i worked outside the house.

or that i lived with a genie.

:: progress ::

i give you: the sneakiest of sneak peeks at what i've finally settled on for the trade show booth. i've accepted the fabric walls now* and i've gotten over my need to seekseekseek until i find fabric-walled booth-nirvana.

if you want to get a little idea of what i'm cooking up think white, wood, and tangerine. think modern and clean. think fun and a little bit surprising. think bold.

it seems awfully silly now that i'm sitting here on the other side of deciding what to do for the booth, but what it really came down to for me was thinking about my products. i did one of these "quick: name ten words you think of when you think of up up creative" deals and those words that came up are the words i used to finally land on booth-related design decisions.

it's the advice i would have given anyone else who was having my trouble, but for some reason it was advice that was eluding me. funny how that happens.

*  i got some great public and private advice this week, prompted by my "i am still totally going crazy trying to figure out my trade show booth walls" post a few days ago, and while i appreciated all of it, the best (for me) was this: "I think the way that I would spin it to myself is that this is my first trade show and I will look back on this when my business is a mulit-million dollar juggernaut and smile." that was exactly what i needed: spin. plus it's an attitude i have all the time. brian and i are always talking about how these are the hard years and how we'll look back one day and remember it kind of fondly.

:: at least i get to eat the cookies (without holding them on my nose first) ::

like a puppy who has failed obedience school two, three, four times running, i find myself sitting here in a familiar place, facing a familiar situation, yet feeling none the wiser.

it's the whole change versus acceptance thing. it's the whole "i make a decision and then continue to obsess over the question, meaning i really don't like my decision" thing. it's so familiar to me now i actually find it boring. i'm not even interested in writing about it. figuring it out. my inner therapist has asked that i please find another topic or just flat stop coming to therapy.

i decided recently to go with fabric walls for my trade show booth. my reasons are many and varied, but chief among them are two: it is the least expensive option, and it is the least wasteful option.

and really the deciding factor is the money.

and i'm having a hard time accepting that. i really don't want fabric walls. as much as i can sit here and obsessively troll google images and flickr and all of my favorite paper blogs seeking out fabric-walled booths in an attempt to convince myself that hey! they're great! whee! i just keep smacking up against how much i really don't like them. i don't like the fabric. i don't like the limited ways there are for displaying your product. i don't like the options, the executions, the problems, the solutions.

but i simply cannot afford to do what i want to do. it is too expensive. if i am to pay for the booth itself (okay, that's paid already) and the crazy hotel costs for the 5 nights surrounding the event, if i am to cover the cost of getting there and eating there, if i am to be able to send out marketing materials letting people know where to find me, i cannot have the walls i want.

but i cannot accept that. it's killing me.

i wonder if there are dogs in obedience school who know how to sit on command but who just cannot bring themselves to do it. dogs who sit, even, but just at the moment it matters stand up and pee all over the leg of the instructor.

i feel like i'm at one of those points -- like i am sitting here at obedience school knowing that all i need to do is just get over this one hurdle -- just accept the damned fabric walls -- and i will graduate, only instead of just walking up to the hurdle and jumping over it i am searching high and low for a different way to get myself to the other side of the bar.

i know. my metaphor is a bit muddled. it doesn't quite line up. but please, indulge me.

it's just that even though i want to want fabric walls, and even though i want to do the accepting thing and just move on to planning all the other details, i cannot. my husband proposes various options for hanging shelves in front of the fabric and instead of evaluating those options, i obsess instead over the fabric.

i search endlessly for an example of one single booth that has had fabric walls that i just love. so i can accept them.

even as i obsess over this, i realize that it is a silly thing to obsess over. i am embarrassed, even, to tell you about this. i don't want you to know that i am having such a good-versus-evil-scale mental battle over something as minor as this.

the logical, rational part of me knows that there are several really amazing companies that have used fabric walls at the nss and who have gotten lots of press and purchases even despite the walls i find so hideous. in fact i can think of one company that had what i consider a quite ugly fabric booth that just launched a collection at target. (like, the target.) but i just can't get past it.

i ought to be able to reassure myself that it won't matter what my walls are made of because my product will be so stunning. people will flock to my booth because they will want to see my stuff, not my booth.

but i can't seem to swallow this pill either. i can't seem to convince myself of this. perhaps it's a little bit of doubt creeping in? perhaps i somehow think that if i have hard walls and a perfect! splendid! gorgeous! booth it will propel me far beyond the success of my wildest dreams.

it's driving me crazy that i'm sitting here writing about this. i want desperately to attack this first trade show experience with grace and verve. i want to look like an old pro who has no questions, doubts, or turmoil. i want to sit and stay and hold a biscuit on my nose without even flinching or trying to eat it.

at least my husband brought home half moon cookies tonight. those should help.