To say that I fell into the planner community is pretty much true. As I have said before I always used a planner/calendar of some sort, loads of sticky notes etc. but I never had the love for them as I truly do now. I have always loved office supplies per say, I can spend hours in an office supply store but I look at planners like I used to look at a good looking man! Ok, I still peak at those men but it is just admiring the view, not buying the merchandise.

I want to talk about my journey a bit into the community and my Etsy shop. I owned a business for many years and retired at the young age of 46. I am a pretty ambitious person and retiring was not my idea. My husband wanted to retire and move to where all the people migrate too when they are retired. So off we went. Long story short I moved back up north to be near my parents who needed my help. So snow is back in my forecast.

I have always been a busy person so I knew I needed to fill the gap of time that used to be devoted to my clients and my business. We live where nothing much is going on, nothing much to do. I first bought myself a Cricut die cutting machine because I had always wanted to scrapbook. I quickly learned the whole 12 x 12 layouts were not my thing but I was pretty crafty so I ventured into card making and then slowly 3D projects etc. I also started a blog and just grew from there.

I grew tired of the Cricut machine because of the limitations. I owned every model they had. When I owned them you were limited to buying cartridges which had designs on them and you couldn’t create your own or cut svg files (now they offer a machine that can).

I purchased a Silhouette Cameo which offered more flexibility and creativity. I took the designer edition software as a major challenge and learned the ins and outs of it. I loved what I could do with it. I built up a following in the crafting community and joined several design teams and loved every minute of it. I now make a lot of my own files if I can’t find something I want.

One day I noticed how popular planners were becoming (can you say late for the party!?) and the idea of making a cute little paper pieced paperclip came to mind. Lots of tweaking and sizing were involved but I did it, shared it and then became obsessed with making them. I started getting lots of requests from people wanting to buy them so I opened an Etsy store! Starting an Etsy store was really easy. I do love the way things work in Etsy and it's pretty easy to navigate and set up. Nowadays there are a lot of people selling clips but I can say I was at the beginning of that one.

Instagram was definitely the biggest help in my clips being seen. I couldn’t grasp the concept at first and then just never gave up on it so I have slowly grown a decent following there as well which in turn has helped my Etsy store.

I still blog but I feel blogging has become like newspapers for me. Newspapers are still being printed and have a lot of content but social media and the internet have made blogs a bit less popular. I hope that changes a bit. I know I neglect mine a lot more now that I am on Facebook or Instagram so much. Social media is your friend and your enemy. Most people know what I am talking about when I say that. But none the less we definitely need it as a tool.

I have enjoyed where this journey has taken me. I connected with some awesome people and continue to. I can say crafting is still my jam but I love that I can combine my love for planners with my love of crafting.

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This blog post was written by Debbie Crowder for the Limelife Planners Media & Creative Team. For more information about Debbie visit her blog at www.craftinchaos.com. Please share and repost this blog entry with your friends! All we ask is that you give credit to Limelife Planners and the post author.