132 – Arts and Carafes with Tanya Ruffin of Create Studios

Gift biz on wrapped episode 132.

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I have the pleasure of introducing you to Tanya rough-in with

a BFA in fine arts and an M a in history.

Tanya ended up with a career in higher education in the

it department,

desperate for some part,

about six years ago,

she opened a teaching and event facility called create studios.

She describes it as an arts and crafts space because people

can bring up craft of wine to class.

If they so desire.

Her goal is to educate people in a way that despite

their background and experience,

they can do what they set their mind to the classes

she teaches and whatever topic be it.

Computers for arts are designed to educate without intimidation.

Oh my gosh,

Tanya, this sounds like a place I want to be welcome

to the show.

Thank you.

I like to start off by having people learn about you

in a little bit of a different way before we get

into everything about create studios.

And that is by having you describe yourself through a motivational

candle. So if you were to share with us a color

that resonates with you and a sane that would together create

your unique motivational candle,

what would your quote and your color be?

Well, I think my color of my handle would be purple

and that has nothing to do with where I work or

where I went to college.

I'm a very symmetrical person and I've always loved purple.

And it just kind of dawned on me thinking about this

candle. That purple is the perfect combination of warm and cool

colors. You know,

you've got your warm red and your cool blue and it

makes purple.

So maybe that's why I like it so much.

And my quote would be if there's a will,

there's a way.

And I need that for myself to keep reminding myself if

a will.

There's a way It kind of goes back to your history

too, about being more in the tech,

Nicole I'll call it it department type thing,

but still wanting to do something with your art.

Yeah, exactly.

So let's go,

Let's talk about how you got this idea.

It's not too long ago,

six years ago enough to be fully established,

but take us back to that time.

How did you decide that this was what you were going

to do?

Share with us a little bit of that stuff.

I work at the university and at universities,

they have courses you can take called leisure courses that they're

not for credit.

They're just for fun.

They range the gamut on topics.

And so I'd started teaching one or two of those a

year just to kind of keep my feet in,

in the art world.

And I really enjoyed it and I wanted to start doing

it more often and I didn't really want to work for

someone else.

I wanted to be able to do it when I had

time to do it,

not stick it on my calendar that I had to report

to a job.

I guess that's part of the wanting to be a free

spirit kind of thing.

So I'd always had it in the back of my mind

that I wanted to do something like this in Louisiana,

the paint and sip thing is huge.

I don't know if it's as big as it is everywhere

else as it is here,

but it's huge.

You can't spit without hitting one of these places,

Paint and sip,

just to make sure that everyone is understanding is the type

of a location where you can come in and everyone does

their own painting and you have wine and all of that.

You'd like you kind of come together as one Party.

Yes. And everybody paints the same thing.

So there's one teacher instructing everyone step-by-step to paint this painting.

And it's big here.

As a matter of fact,

the biggest franchise is located like 50 miles down the road

from me.

So this is kind of like this common thing here.

And so I thought,

well, what if I did something on that same,

same vein,

but people only have somewhat wall space,

but they've got risks to put bracelets on.

They've got fingers to put rings on.

They've got cabinets to put wine glasses in.

So what if I did something where they made crafts and

could bring dinner and cocktails or whatever they wanted.

And so that's how I started thinking about this.

And then just,

that's one of those things.

I call myself a creative procrastinator because I keep pretending I'm

really planning something out,

but I'm really just procrastinating.

And it's like,

no, I need to organize my thoughts a little better.

And then finally,

when a friend of ours that had a rental managed home

strip mall said,

I have a space available.

You want to look at it?

And I was like,

Oh gosh,

it's getting real it's.

So I went and looked at it and I ended up

signing the lease right then.

So it kind of like went from thinking about it for

years, years to boom,

all of a sudden happening.

Oh my God,

I am so glad you talked about this because I think

a lot of people who are listening right now have been

in that same spot,

they've been thinking and thinking,

and they kind of know what it is and you needed

that trigger of a space to be open.

But once you saw it,

you took action immediately Did.

And it was a perfect location.

It wasn't necessarily the best spot,

but it was the perfect location.

It was right at the foot of the university in my

head. I'm like,

I'm going to have a sign out there and everybody's going

to see my sign,

but I didn't have a storefront because I was technically an

office space in the strip mall.

So it wasn't a great space,

but it was a great place to get started.

All right.

It sounds like though,

then just to bring up all the different elements that then

you were paying retail rent for more of a commercial office

type space.

So you're probably paying more.

I was actually paying less.

I was actually paying office space because I didn't have a

bar on the building.

It was like a hallway that you went into the office

space, one bathroom at the end of the hall,

it was fairly inexpensive in a good spot.

It had some issues with it,

which I'll probably mention later,

but it did have some issues,

but it was a great place to start.

And once I signed that lease,

I had to get the other things in line,

which weren't as hard to do as I thought it was

going to be.

Let's talk about that.

I'm making myself a note over here.

Cause I don't want us to forget to talk about the

space. Cause it sounds like those are gonna be some good

learnings, but let's stick with this idea in terms of how

did you develop it?

What types of things specifically did you have to do to

get started now that you had a space?

So you have your idea.

You've got this base.

How do you start?

But you have to get an occupational license in my state.

They're called different things in different places.

But basically you had to go down and fill out some

paperwork and pay a fee to have a quote unquote license,

which I guess is just permission to run a business.

And if you don't have a physical space,

you don't need that.

If you're doing something online,

you don't necessarily need a occupational license.

But so I had to get that,

which was basically a tax I have to pay every year,

fill that out.

And that was pretty much it getting my tax ID number

and I was ready to roll.

And then you have to pay your taxes,

you know,

every month,

not quarterly every month.

And I'm still not good with getting my ducks in a

row to do that month playing.

I always pay a late fee because I'm always late paying

it. And it's never that much money.

It's just,

I'm one of those people.

I still have a full-time job and this is my part-time

business that I would like to make it full time.

But it's not something that I'm going to leave my job

for right now because I have retirement.

So I'm just kind of being,

part-time doing my business until I hit retirement age and then

I could do it full time.

There you go.

A lot of people too,

just like you,

you're staying for a specific financial reason because of retirement.

Some people might stay because they need to,

they need that income.

They just can't stop while they're growing another business.

And all of that is fine.

The nice thing about being an entrepreneur and starting a business

for yourself is you get to make the rules.

Yeah. And a lot of artists that I talked to they're

in their full-time job for the insurance.

And so it's one of those things.

You just decide what you want to do.

I know I could be so much farther along if I

worked every day at the studio,

but I don't right now.

And I like to know that my bills are being paid

at the end of the month.

I don't have to worry about anything like that.

So it is nice having my creative space that I can

escape to.

And it's not necessarily my full-time job.

You still kind of get the warm and fuzzies when you

walk in,

because it's not a job so much,

even though it is,

it's like a big playground for you in a way.

Exactly. You got all the structure down now,

how do you start building out your classes?

Let's go to that place.

One thing I did,

which I know a lot of people don't like doing this,

but it really worked for me is the first thing I

did. And I knew I was going to do this before

I ever started my business because I kind of researched it.

And I knew I wanted to run a Groupon ad and

I know that's Oh,

Oh the har.

But what I did is I picked the cheapest possible class

I could do that.

Didn't cost me hardly any money.

And I picked that topic and I ran a Groupon ad

for it now with Groupons half the given price.

So say you charge $35.

They're going to offer it at 17.

And then you're going to make half of that.

So you're going to make eight 50 or $9 off of

it. So people think,

Oh, $9 a person.

I couldn't do anything like that.

Well, you're making $9 a person off the people that use

the Groupon.

How many group homes have you bought and never ended up

using? Oh,

that's a good point.

So a portion of them actually you get revenue for no

reason. Yes.

And you get paid when they buy it.

Right. Okay.

So, and then were you using that to get visibility into

create studios?

That was a way to attract your first people?

That was my first day.

As soon as I signed that lease,

I'm like,

I'm doing this grunt in this group on it.

And I'm thinking of it in the terms of it's advertising

number one.

And I had a website as well.

So a lot of people will click on the link in

the Groupon to learn more about this business and they'll go

to your website.

So I was getting people that were calling me for private

events and birthday parties from Groupon that didn't even buy the

group home.

They just saw me on Groupon.

So I was using that as my launching into the city

because everybody in your town signs up and gets the Groupon

emails. So that was a really good way to reach out

to the community and not have to buy an ad in

the paper or in a local magazine or something.

And it worked really well for me.

Let me ask you this.

Before we get off of Groupon,

are you still using them today?

I do still use them.

It doesn't work as good for me now because I'm doing

the same exact class six years later and it's kind of

tricky to work with them so it can get tricky because

they do some things that I don't really like,

like they'll automatically roll your offer over.

So you have to be really attention to it.

Like right now they're running mine,

Groupon ad and they're running two separate Groupon ads because one

was supposed to cancel and the other one was supposed to

be live and they're running both of them with two different

graphics. So it's kind of confusing.

Yeah. So you have to be on top of it.

If you do Groupon,

That's a good point,

but it helped you a lot in terms of getting exposure,

getting people to know you.

And most importantly,

starting to fill those classes because now even if the space

is a good deal,

you still have now overhead.

Yes, you have overhead.

And it actually works so well that I got really lazy

at it because it was kind of automatically people bought the

group pod.

They automatically went and registered for the class.

Everything was like auto deposited.

My payment was on a paying.

So I had the luxury of getting pretty lazy at it,

which ended up not being a luxury,

but it did work really well.

And especially if you're doing something that is of interest to

the average person,

it's not like,

Oh, come and pay your grandma.

It was more something very generic that everybody would probably be

interested in.

All right.

So I talk a lot these days about,

especially if you have a brick and mortar shop events in

your store are so important.

So that kind of equates to events that you're hosting.

It's a little different cause you're teaching different types of classes,

but what do you see?

How do you make sure that once people actually arrive that

the experience is really good.

So they're going to want to come back again.

I feel like when I'm teaching my classes,

I almost have like a different personality comes in and I

feel more of an entertainer at the time that you're on

stage. Right.

It sounds kind of silly,

but it's kind of like my most bubbling personality comes out

and buy places,

painted very bright colors and it's very happy place people walk

in and they're like,

wow, I just love this place.

It's so bright and cheerful.

So that automatically kind of puts people relaxed and they're ready

to have fun.

I do say that people can bring wine and cocktails.

The majority of people don't I brought might have one person

in the class that bronze one.

Oh, if I was there,

I would be,

I would be for sure.

So at the beginning of the classes,

I'm just introduced myself and I have like a couple of

little patent jokes that go with each class that I'm teaching

and get everybody kind of giggle and fill out people,

see what kind of sense of humor they have or everything.

And so the way my thing works is the majority of

my classes,

like the first 30 minutes or so is the education.

And then it's pretty much work at your own pace and

I'll let everybody personalize their projects.

Every one of my classes,

they can personalize it.

So it's not like everybody's doing the same thing as everybody

else. And so I think that when people kind of get

into the zone of they're making it they're,

so they're going to end up making it as a gift.

People really enjoy that.

I don't hover over everybody else.

I pull my chair aside.

I'm like,

I'm gonna sit here.

If you need something,

just holler I'll come help you because nothing's worse being in

a class.

Cause I hadn't happened to me at a paint and sip

where the lady came by and took the paintbrush out of

my hand and started painting on my painting.

And I was like,

I will never do that to anybody ever.

So I just let people go if it doesn't look that

great and they're okay with it.

That's great.

I'll let them ask me for help.

I make sure I'm there.

They look like they're having trouble blog,

go approach them,

but I'm not going to say,

Hey, do you want me to touch that?

And so everybody seems to have a really fun time.

I have music going.

I have a big screen TV on the wall and I

have a slide show going over other projects from other classes

and I have music playing.

So it's,

it's more of like a little party atmosphere,

not real loud,

but to make it a little cheerful.

Yeah. No,

that sounds good.

Because then also people see what other classes there are available

too. It's different projects.

Exactly. But that's kind of a subtle sell that you didn't

even play.

Yeah, exactly.

And I have a lot of little freebie things.

I have little buttons that we had made and the little

plastic bracelets let's say create on them for people to pick

up. Oh,

that's awesome.

No, I love what you're talking about here and get biz

listeners think of this.

If you are somebody who has a brick and mortar shop

for events.

Exactly what Tanya's talking about here is in terms of the

environment that it should be colorful,

cheerful, welcoming.

She puts music on.

Then in her case,

she gives direction and then lets them just be in their

creative zone.

So for you guys,

it might be welcome people when they come in,

but let them just look around.

They want to think about,

well, does this top something like,

what pants would I have to go with it?

Or what would I wear with these earrings?

Let them get in their own creative zone.

You have you ever been in a retail shop where people

hover over you and it's like,

leave me alone.

Right? Like being at a used car lot seriously.

And the third thing you talked about is you do freebies

or some prizes,

but what kind of a gift or what,

something that is unexpected that they might see in the shop.

Maybe it's a piece of candy at the counter checkout or

something. If you're in a situation where you're able to do

that, maybe you have a promotion going on,

anything like that.

So the three things are environment,

some type of instruction or welcome,

and then let them get into a zone.

And then any type of a little surprise,

whether it's a freebie or something special that they're getting,

these are things that draw people in.

And the whole thing that brick and mortar has to be

these days.

So they don't just purchase on Amazon.

Let's face it.

Let's go on and talk about something that was challenging as

you were putting this business together.

Well, I ended up wanting to move spaces.

I love my location,

but I didn't really love the space.

It was actually on the second floor.

So people that came to my class would have to go

up the stairs.

There was an elevator,

but it was a lot farther of a walk to the

elevator that it's like,

if you're in a wheelchair,

use the elevator.

If you just lazy,

you got to come upstairs.

Cause you'll walk much farther kind of thing.

And I ended up not using the space unless I had

a class going on.

I mean,

I didn't use it as my basis,

which is what I wanted all along was this debate.

So I saw a space near my house and I live

in the arts district.

So there's this stretch in the arts district that they have

a festival with shuttles down the street,

this art hop that goes on twice a year.

And actually there's four of them,

but the big ones are twice a year.

So I'd always wanted to move into this area and be

able to showcase more of my own art as well as

teach. So I saw this space that came up available and

I went and looked at it and then shortly thereafter my

mom had a stroke and then the next month died.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Thanks. So that was just kind of like,

so for two months I just didn't do anything at the

studio. And then the next month a girlfriend and I,

for our 50th birthday,

we gave ourselves a trip to Italy.

So then the next month it's like,

I have to go,

I'm going to Italy.

And so it was just a weird time.

So for like three months,

I wasn't doing squat with the studio.

Really. It was just kind of on autopilot.

It was paying its own bills,

automatically debit or whatever you call it,

auto draft or whatever.

But you were paying out with nothing coming in for those

three months.

Exactly. And I want to say that I only invested $3,000

in starting my business for the Groupon to make it autopilot

was pretty good.

I was still my head above water doing good,

but my head wasn't in it anymore.

And so we got back from Italy after being inspired by

being in Sienna and Florence and everything.

And I was like,

okay, I've got to get back to my roots and to

art and everything.

And so I was like,

if that space is available,

I'm going to get it.

Well, it wasn't.

So I was like,

okay, well I guess that's an omen.

I'm not supposed to take it.

And this was the Space in that art district you were

talking about.

Yes, this is a space in the arts district.

And so it wasn't available.

And so I was like,

okay, well,

what am I going to do?

It's kind of the pooper kid off the pot kind of

stage right now.

And even though I was doing okay over there,

there were other things I wanted to do that being on

the second floor.

It wasn't that easy to haul stuff up.

And so I was kind of like getting turned off from

that space and I'd been there for years.

So anyway then just all of a sudden the sign goes

back up in the yard at this place.

So I called him up and I was like,

I want it.

And I'd already looked at it.

And so I signed on and that's where I am now.

And it's a house.

So it's this little Oddish.

So there's so much more space.

The teaching space isn't as big as the other place because

the other one was just a box,

but I have closets,

I have a bathroom,

I have a kitchen.

So there's so much more to be a party space and

event space.

So I really loved moving into the space.

And then it also cost more a month than I really

realized because being in a standalone building,

I wasn't thinking about the lawn.

I wasn't thinking about having to pay water and sewage and

garbage pickup.

So it ended up being a lot more expensive.

And then we had what has been called the flood of

the century.

Actually now it's called the thousand year flood out of the

blue. It flooded here and we have never flooded down here

in these places.

Like my mom's house flooded that we were still like going

through at my house.

Didn't I,

my area didn't.

But I mean,

everybody out of 10 people,

four or five of them flooded,

Oh my gosh.

And when in time was this,

This was a year and a half ago.

Okay. Well not quite a year and a half ago last

August. And it flooded and it was thousands of homes flooded.

Like my mom's house got just four inches in it.

The back of the neighborhood,

which has the streets would flood,

but that's about it to the roof.

The houses flooded.

Oh my word.

It was crazy.

So well I didn't flood.

My customers flooded people.

Didn't have money to go take an art class when they

have to figure out how they going to put flooring down

and FEMA was great,

but the average person got like $1,700.

Oh, that's not really paying for your floor.

So there's people that still aren't finished.

We're still not even finished at my mom's house.

We only had four inches because we got a bunch of

bad contractors coming to town.

So I wasn't having hardly any customers.

And now my rent is higher.

So I was like,

what did I do to myself?

I should've just stayed where I was,

but I decided that while there's this lull going on,

I'm going to invest in me.

So I signed up to do a mentoring group,

Sue B's group,

the high,

if sign up to do that,

I took B school and I just started educating myself so

that when people were starting to be coming out again,

I was going to be ready to promote and reach out

and figure out new ways to reach my clientele.

Okay. So Tanya,

just for clarification,

you decided to invest in yourself with these extra courses and

groups, et cetera,

to perfect and learn more to upgrade your level of marketing.

Yes. I've just figured as long as there's a lull in

business. So I've got a little bit more free time.

Now I'm going to take all these classes and do all

these things that I've had written down that I wanted to

do, but I'd always find some excuse to not do them.

Okay. Okay.

So here comes a huge question.

You ready?

Yes. Are you sure?

You're ready?

Hold on.

Let me like my purple candle.

There you go.

Okay. So you have a space that is,

I'm just going to say draining money right now.

And then the courses that you took,

those are not cheap courses.

And I think this is fabulous that you did it.

And I want to ask you the question,

because I think a lot of our listeners might struggle with

this is you're draining money,

but you're still going to throw some money out to invest

in yourself.

Talk through the mental logic of that.

The mental logic of that was that it was still going

to get worse.

If I didn't take the classes or anything,

I'm still not making money at the studio Because you couldn't

affect the fact that there was the flood and that people

had to restabilize.

Right? I couldn't go to everybody's house and then think they're

going to buy something from me.

So the floods still happened.

People are still struggling from that.

I can't change that.

And I'm still not making money from the people not taking

classes. But if I invest a little bit more,

more money in myself,

I could figure out maybe something else I can do with

my studio.

I may find another way to reach the people.

I may find a whole nother group of people to reach

while these people that are by local people are still rebuilding.

So that was my logic behind it.

It may have been flawed.

I talked to my husband about it and I'm like,

in the next couple of months,

it's not going to get any better at the studio,

but I may learn something that I can do in the

meantime, or offer a different service or something.

Right. And so how did it all pan out?

So What ended up happening is people started needing a break

from their house.

People wanted to do something and not think about that.

They lost everything.

So I started slowly getting people that were coming to the

studio and I started putting Facebook ads and things like that

that were more like escape for a night.

Yeah. So you actually took a really difficult situation,

analyzed what people could use and then used it to your

advantage for your business.

Yes. I put up a big sign in the front and

said stress free zone.

I ended up making a quick little video of myself talking

about, I didn't lose everything.

I lost a lot of stuff at my mom's house.

And how coming to the studio has helped me get my

mind off of it because you get focused on your art.

You're not thinking of anything else you're in the zone when

you're in the zone,

you're not in your flooded house kind of thing.

Right. And it seemed to slowly start.

The tide started turning a little bit and I implemented some

of the other things I'll learn in the classes.

Things started slowly turned into where it's been really good.

Now I've been through three of the big art hops.

Now my husband plays music.

So his band plays in the front.

We're actually a block off of the main strip.

And it's like a two mile road.

They have shuttles going on up and down.

So we had a band and play in the front with

lights all outside and have artists intense down the driveway with

lights all in there,

bringing people in networking with the merchant group in my area.

And so it's really turned.

And so it was kind of crazy.

I ended up going there when I was going through a

bad time,

I changed houses kind of spaces to become like,

I need a fresh start and then boom,

something else happens.

So it was crazy.

Yeah. But you didn't throw in the towel,

you found some way to adapt.

It sounds like you portioned these into two things.

Number one,

you weren't going to be able to do anything about the

flood. So how can you ride out that low sales time

if you will,

but then secondly,

how can you make that time then productive and keep yourself

still energized and excited about the business and learning more so

you can take it to a new level.

So I think you handled that beautifully and then you found

a way to make the whole thing turned around for you.

So that is really cool.

That's a great story.

And so now things are going well,

you've got people coming in,

you're running classes.

Are you pretty much maxed out because it's still only a

portion of your time since you're still working.

Are you pretty much maxed out in terms of the offerings

Starting in September through Christmas,

amp up my classes right now,

I have stuff scheduled every weekend and I actually started adding

some Tuesdays and Thursdays.

So I'm pretty maxed out on times offer,

not every class do I get my minimum requirement for,

but most of my weekend classes I do.

And so that's really great.

Right? And I actually go to my space since it's walking

distance from my house,

somewhere in Louisiana,

you don't walk anywhere,

but it's walking distance from my house.

And so I go up there a lot just to make

art and work on stuff,

which is something I never would have done in this other

space. And that's something that you were saying you were seeking

when you were looking for a place somewhere where you could

go and it could just be private space.

Yes. So talking about your customers,

the people who come and participate in the classes,

is there something that you do to communicate with them,

to try and bring them back in so that they don't

forget about the wonderful experience they had and they resigned for

a different class?

Yes. I do email notifications out to people.

I don't do it as regular as I should.

I usually end up doing it.

Like there's a great big class on one weekend and I

do it the weekend before,

but I'm trying to get more organized.

It's very hard for artists to be organized,

have all the best intention.

I'll get a planner and I'll put stuff up.

And then I never opened the planner.

It's a daily struggle with me,

but yes,

I do send emails out.

I have an email capture on my website for those people

that go to Groupon the ad,

decide if they want to buy it.

So people will see the Groupon.

And then I have an opt-in on my page that gives

them a coupon.

So sometimes they'll grab that opt in and never buy the

Groupon, which is fine with me because I'd rather them take

20% off of my code than buying a group on.

Anyway, because with Groupon,

you don't get those email addresses until you have some way

of capturing them.

Yeah. Groupon,

doesn't send you the,

all the email addresses.

Oh, interesting point.

So someone who is considering group on then should before they

even start,

because you're missing out on a great opportunity,

have some way of attracting those emails.

Yes. The registration software,

I use captures that email.

So once they register for a class,

I've got their email address,

but they register five people.

You get one email address.

Right. And then you could try and get their emails when

they actually come to the class.

Right? Yeah.

Would you be willing to share with us what your registration

software is since you like it so much?

Sure. I use Eventbrite and there's a couple of reasons why

I use Eventbrite.

I've been told there's better ones out there.

Quote, unquote,

better ones out there.

There's some that do different things than Eventbrite does.

But I'm going to tell you if there is a creative

that is having classes of any kind,

this is why I think Eventbrite's the way to go.

I am not a paid spokesman,

but they probably should.

This is why I think they should,

because there are so many groups and organizations that pool events

going on in your town,

pull that list and post it on their websites.

That if I was using something else,

I'm not going to get that.

There may be another product out there that's cheaper.

That has a better calendar because the event bright calendar is

not that great,

but it's okay.

As a creative,

you want a big space where you can put a big

picture on every date and you have to like click the

date and it pops open the big picture.

There's some out there that are much better suited for this,

but I've had people that come to my class and I'll

say, how did you find out about the class?

Oh, my neighborhood has a little group calendar that they send

out once a month.

And it was listed on that.

I don't even know what their neighborhood is.

And so I was looking for events.

And so I just went to event Brighton,

Titan art events and it popped up.

Oh, fabulous.

Yeah. That to me outweighs the,

cause you do have to pay a dollar,

a ticket that's sold with event rights and you have to

pay a percentage of the price as a fee.

And then you have to pay the credit card processing fee,

which you would have to pay on any of them.

There's other ones that don't charge a dollar a ticket,

but I feel like,

look, it was worth it to me because I add that

in as like an advertising cost.

Right? No,

it sounds like the perfect solution.

So I will definitely link up Eventbrite in the show notes

for everybody here.

So Tanya,

okay. We've talked already about that.

You've taken a couple of pretty high level courses that have,

have an element of one-on-one and some very deep learning.

Is there something other than that on a regular basis that

you do to stay informed in the creative industry on the

creative side?

Well, I am a member of the,

it used to be called the craft and hobby association.

They've recently changed themes to the association for creative industries.

And if anybody is a creative,

they should be a member of this.

It's not very expensive.

They have a conference once a year.

I go to this conference and it's like,

go into Disneyland for me.

Well, so am I going to be seeing you in Phoenix?

In January?

Yes, you will.

All right.

Then I will let you know what my booth number is.

Tones. I get it.

I've already registered.

I've stopped by your booth before,

but I just didn't.

Yeah. Well now we do.

Yay. So Yeah,

that to me has changed everything.

And I'd already heard of it from watching back when HDTV

had craft shows.

I remember seeing on the Carol Deval show,

the review of cha,

it was like one day I will be a member of

that. And so finally I signed up for it.

It's not that hard to qualify,

to be a member.

So it's even easier now because they have a blogger category.

And so before I even opened my first one,

I went to,

I had signed the lease,

but I hadn't opened yet.

So I went completely not knowing anybody,

anything to have in like a core group of girls.

We have a private group of when we just share information

back and forth,

it was a game changer for me considering I hadn't started

playing the game yet,

but I highly recommend it because they have stuff going on

all year long,

online things.

So you don't have to physically go,

they have a group online people you can ask questions to

and contacts like I'm having a workshop and I need some

edge cream.

Who's a good contact,

things like that.

It's a great resource for me.

Well, and it sounds like probably for every single one of

our listeners,

they're fitting in the category that I described earlier,

except for bakers,

maybe. But every single one,

They have all the Baker stuff too.

Now they have the cricket that can cut fondant.

There you go.

All right.

So thinking of somebody who might be listening,

Tanya, who is like,

all right,

this sounds really good.

I should really get started on this idea that I have.

What would you say to them so that they don't walk

away from this podcast and then in about 15 or 20

minutes, say no,

no, no.

That's not a good idea for me.

What would you suggest to someone who really has that passion

really wants to get started,

but just keeps going back and forth about it.

Creative procrastinator like myself?

Well, what I would say is if it involves anything where

you would be teaching anything like having a class or even

just, you want to test the waters,

I would definitely look and see if you have a school

nearby, a university,

a community college that does these type of leisure classes and

see if that's something that you could hook up with and

teach a class or two.

I would also,

I would look and see if you have an arts council

of any sort in your area.

If you haven't even started selling your products,

you could try people put stuff on Etsy,

but I actually believe people should be using their own San

Juan website like Shopify or something like that.

And from my it perspective,

that's what I'm thinking.

But just do it because you're going to always come up

with excuses are maybe not excuses,

but things that you really should take care of beforehand.

But you know what,

when you find you a spot,

when you do that first sign on the line,

that just speeds everything up.

And then you're just going to be shocked at how easy

all the pieces fell together.

So really what you're just saying is just take that next

step and do it,

just do it,

dust do it.

Absolutely. All right.

So Tanya,

I'd like to now present you with a virtual gift.

So this is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your

future. This could be your dream or your goal of almost

unreachable Heights that you would wish to obtain.

Please accept this gift and open it in front of me

and all of the listeners here.

What is inside your box?

This is a hard question.

And it seems like it would be so easy to admit.

I have my foot into so many things.

It's like so hard,

but I guess in the most general terms,

it would be financial security so that I could do the

things I want to do.

The art projects,

the teaching,

not having to worry about money coming in.

You just get to go and follow your heart instead of

having to follow your wallet.

And if it happens to take place on a beach somewhere,

that would be even better Because you're going to want to

use the shells that you pick up and your art or

something. Yeah,

Yeah. Or the sand.

And then you got to rinse off your brushes.

Well, there you go.

In the saltwater,

which could add to the artistic flair.

That's right.

And if it's on a beach in Italy Haven Better,

there you go.

Nothing wrong with that.

I would say I'd have unlimited wealth and I could just

be a docent at the feed.

I'd enjoy that for the rest of my life too.

Yup. That sounds good too.

By like asking this question,

because in a way it's like first what you just said,

making people think,

what is it?

What do I want to do?

Because if you don't think of that,

how are you ever going to get there?

You just just happen upon it and then say,

Oh, this is good.

Got to think of where you want to go first.

But also it's putting it out in the environment because I'm

one of those law of attraction type people.

So in a way,

this is like a subtle gift I'm giving back to you.

So if someday you are sitting in Italy on a beach

and that's where you live.

I want you to thank me for that,

Tanya, thank you so much.

This has been really interesting.

And this is an industry that we haven't really talked about

before in terms of working creative spaces.

Thank you so much.

I wish for you,

of course continued success with your create studios and my wish

for you is that that beautiful,

hot and cold,

the purple candle of yours always burns Sprite,

please. Thank you very much.

I appreciate the opportunity to be on the show.

Today's show is sponsored by the ribbon print company,

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