The Mentality of Success

Happiness is a Block of Cheese

Most of the time I feel confident in every step I'm taking, that the choices I'm making now are going to bring all of my business and personal goals into fruition in the near future ...and then there are other days where I just feel like I'm someone who happens to get lucky at the craps table.

One of the keys to maintaining success is the mentality of it. It creates an illusion for not only myself, but those I meet. One of the keys to keeping people thinking about you is to appear to have something no one else has--especially some inner light no one else has. Even when things aren't going the best, I tell myself that they are. This isn't to say I'm deluding myself when I need to look for other options--I mean that I'm not letting the negative aspects of life get my attitude down.

Keeping myself peppy, confident, and with that go-getter attitude can be a challenge for me. I can easily fall victim to anxiety and have found myself battling long bouts of depression before. It's a self-destructive snowball effect and the worst part is you can see yourself letting things fall apart without being able to pull yourself together to do a damn thing about it.

For the majority of summer and a good portion of autumn, I was constantly pulling myself from being in one of those bad places. It was tough! And worst of all, I let the confident business owner side of myself slip a little and started to doubt my decisions and my methods.

Self doubt is the worst thing that can happen to any endeavor. A completely talentless person with confidence and charisma can have more success than  a very talented one who doesn't have faith in themselves. Finding that "inner light" to help give you forward moving inertia is a challenge, but the rewards of it are many indeed. Success is a mentality, and holding on to that feeling through thick and thin can keep you afloat.

A New Painting

'Man of the Hour' by Sarah-Lambert Cook, 6" x 18"

 I don't usually paint large pieces with watercolor--in fact, I never do. I'm more of a drawer, so if it's not a tiny piece, I tend towards colored pencils: specifically, Prismacolors. This time, however, I just felt like using watercolors. Maybe all of the tiny paintings have finally grabbed hold of me and turned my preferred medium into watercolor. I guess you could say it has been for a while since I haven't drawn with my colored pencils in over two years. 

When I started I wasn't "going for" much of anything. I was listening to a few songs on repeat which really took hold of my thinking: Talking Heads "City of Dreams," Pearl Jam "Man of the Hour," Paul Simon "Slip Slidin' Away," Talking Heads "Dream Operator," Fleetwood Mac "Never Going Back Again," and The Cranberries, "Dreams." It all kind of made me nostalgic, so the imagery is largely from my childhood: the white porch corner is from my favorite place I ever lived in Bridgewater, Virginia, the albums scattered are some that were often played in the car when I was small, the green train case is one my brother carried his favorite things in for a long time when he was little, the silhouette of the town is where I lived in Kansas for years, but never really thought of as home, and the Blue Ridge mountains are where I would like to be home again, but they don't seem to be yet. 

You can find the original painting for sale in my art shop here: Man of the Hour.

Handmade Gifts 2011

I'm going to be breaking this into 2 posts since I want to go into a bit more detail about the gifts I made for my dad and my father-in-law (they were pretty cool). Below are the gifts I gave to two of my younger sisters (I have 5 younger siblings) and what I gave to my mother-in-law. My mom's gift was kind of handmade--I recorded a CD of me singing for her which she has been asking me for some time about doing.

Camp Half-Blood beads from Percy Jackson

My younger sister (13) is really into the Percy Jackson series, so for her birthday, which falls just before Christmas like mine, I made her the Camp Half Blood beads Percy earns throughout the series. She really is incredibly obsessed, so I was really pleased when my gift was a hit (I was kind of worried it would have been nerd-overkill).

Hand Painted Time Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Another of my younger sisters wanted "Harry Potter" themed gifts this year, so I made her a snitch locket with an antique brass ball locket and some silver wings and also found this really nifty little antique spinner piece and used it to make a hand painted time turner necklace like Hermione wears in the 3rd book of the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban.

Hand Painted Silhouette ornaments

 For my mother-in-law I made hand painted silhouette ornaments of her three sons. My husband is the youngest and is the silhouette on the far right.

Hand Painted silhouette ornaments

Well That's Pinteresting: the best resource for inspiration

I hope many of you are becoming more aware of the fantastic tool that is Pinterest. When you're out of ideas and need some inspiration, this site is the best. Gorgeous photographs often linked to fascinating articles ticker by in a sea of "pins." Some of my favorite recent ideas have come as a direct result of clicking through the random assortment of visual goodies. If you're not part of it yet, I absolutely suggest you check it out!

What Pinterest "Pins" look like

Feet First Into the New Year

It's been tough for me to write this post. What you're now reading is probably my 5th full draft with numerous edits along the way. TuckooandMooCow--and me, personally--have come a long way since the meager beginnings in late fall of 2010. I began 2011 hopeful, filled with ideas, and excited about what the future would bring. I couldn't see very far down the road, but isn't that why the earth is round to keep us from seeing too far?

2011 brought a huge challenge as well as a great gift in one: the opportunity to support both my husband and  myself (and our little dog) with only my income from TuckooandMooCow. This began in March when we took the plunge and moved to Asheville, NC after living for seven months with my parents. It was tough. Much tougher than I was anticipating, and even when sales and life seemed steady, I couldn't help but let anxiety creep in.

By the summer slowdown (typical for all in sales), I was pretty nervous. Would this month be the last for TuckooandMooCow? How much longer could I keep up my work-everyday routine? When would my husband find a job and alleviate some of the pressure I was feeling? It was overwhelming and I personally feel my customer service in the months of August and September reflect that to a certain degree. It was hard for me to focus and remember to respond promptly to e-mails. Even though items were going out in good time, I wasn't really all there for my customers and I knew it--that made me worry more. Basically, I was letting stress snowball.

As the Christmas season approached, I made some goals for myself. I worked hard to pull myself out of what I had begun to see as a rut and really push to make TuckooandMooCow into what I had wanted to make it back in June! I edited my photos, pulled old designs and added new ones, revamped descriptions, revamped my packaging, and just freshened everything up a bit!

Now that another successful holiday selling season is winding to a close, I begin to reflect on what I didn't like about 2011 and where I want to take 2012. For myself, my goals are small: support my husband in every possible way as he begins his career with the Air Force in March, give myself a little more ME time, and write more--possibly even start a blog filled with my creative writing.

For TuckooandMooCow, my goals are clear and will require work:

-Create a more quality product. Although my product is now of a good, durable quality that will last, there are ways in which it could be much improved. My hope is to begin to make this happen more and more in the coming months starting immediately with the introduction of a Sterling Silver chain upgrade option.

-Introduce more and more limited edition pieces and pull back on many of the open edition designs. Currently, my work is dominated by made-to-order open edition pieces. This will begin to shift more in 2012. As the settings themselves grow in quality, so shall the paintings, As the paintings become more detailed it will become increasingly more difficult to duplicate them. This will give these pieces a real one-of-a-kind quality that I am excited to offer you more!

-Launch my own website in January. When 2011 originally began I had plans of creating and launching my own website, but I just never really made the time. Now, I am much more ready. After deep thinking and some thoughts I shared with you in this post  about my brand and Etsy's, I have decided that this is a necessary step and one I am definitely ready to take now.


-Work to brand and build both on and off Etsy. Right now, TuckooandMooCow is that oh-so-common breed of Etsy-brand businesses. Without Etsy, it is barely recognizable. In 2012 it is my goal to make this change more and more spilling over into 2013's goals.

My hope is that with all of these goals, as well as a few too small to warrant mentioning, I will be able to bring you a better shopping experience and an even more exciting piece of jewelry or art to own! Art is often made more interesting by understanding at least a part of the story behind it. I hope that by getting to know me a little better you feel the same way about the tiny paintings you wear.

Happy New Year, everyone! Have a wonderful and rich 2012!