The Kim Archer Blog

a little bit of a catch up

It's been a bit of a hectic time around here.

Issue 2 of Etzcetera is looming. We've had Brandt's 21st party. Visitors. School holidays. Parent/Teacher interviews. Ken's golfing trip to the Gold Coast (sore point. I was incredibly envious. Not the golfing bit. Just the holiday part!)

AND I have been redecorating over on the Etzcetera website.

I am loving the new look! It's much fresher, more vibrant, easy to navigate and it is much more workable for me in regard to my plans for Etzcetera down the track.

Blogging.

After much dithering and deliberation which is very typical of me - I do like to think everything through, process and then make a decision - I have decided to have a separate blog just for Etzcetera.

Initially I was going to keep everything here on Typepad BUT I do think it's important to build Etzcetera as a separate enterprise so I will be blogging on the Etzcetera blog linked to the Etzcetera website.

You can visit the Etzcetera blog here.

There's not all that much there yet as I didn't want to add too many posts while I was still working on the site and getting everything to function ok but now that the site is more or less revamped, its time to start blogging!!

I want to add lots of things. Crafty stories. Pinterest finds. Sneak peeks at the magazine. People. Craft. Product and project ideas. I have lots of plans.

OH I will still be blogging here though - family stuff, crafty things, @Home updates etc..I do still want to add in what's happening in our home!

I would love for you to pop on over to Etzcetera and say hello.

a few thank yous

My head is spinning.

The reaction to Etzcetera has been amazing. When you put yourself out there and launch something YOU really love and are totally passionate about, it doesn't always mean that other people will embrace it and love it too.

So while I THOUGHT crafty people might enjoy a crafty magazine with tutorials, stories about creative people and other tidbits, I didn't really know for sure.

But it seems you do! Which is a relief.

And it's time for a few thank yous..

Firstly a thank you to Ken who has been incredibly supportive of my decision to do this. In fact it was Ken who listened to my continual dithering about whether to do this or not and finally said to me, "Just do it!" It was Ken who covered all my @Home business expenses and things that my income usually covers, while I took time out from the @Home site to work on the magazine. And it's Ken who has proudly told everyone he meets about what I'm doing!

And thank you to my mum who has been with me every step of the way. She has read and re-read over and over, every last word written in that magazine as she worked hard as my proof reader and she has now come on board to help me look after sales, advertising and the accounts. She has always been so supportive of anything and everything I have ever done my entire life and never, ever doubted for a second that I couldn't do this!

THANK YOU to my three kids. This last fortnight before the launch has been crazy and I am sure they were totally sick of seeing me glued to the computer screen when they arrived home from school each afternoon! Thank you to Capri for helping me in the photo shoots for some of our projects and for taking my profile photos too! She did a great job! And thank you to Jamison who came on board and made and styled and prepared the recipe for the individual delicious trifles for the food section of the magazine. He was excited to be involved and I was thrilled to be able to include him! And thanks to Brandt who took the time to actually look at the magazine even though he hasn't one crafty bone in his body and to his credit, his eyes didn't glaze over and he was genuinely interested!

THANK YOU to my business coach Julie. Who said something to me that made me make that final decision to do this. She said, "This is something you really want to do and you're going to do it sooner or later so it may as well be sooner!" And I realised she was right. She kept me on track, helped me hugely with the website and helped me set goals at our meetings so I could keep going forward with the project.

Thank you to my wonderful friend Lisa who checked on me all the time, right from the start, to make sure I was eating properly, drinking my water and exercising! She made sure I was taking time out and not getting too stressed. She picked up the slack with emailing for permission for various projects nd products we used and wrote a few of the articles.

Thank you to my wonderful support network - my sister, other family members, my friends, the @Home Support Team girls, the wonderfully talented contributors, those I interviewed and who shared their stories, projects and talents with us, and our beautiful Issue One advertisers who cheered and supported this venture all the way along and believed in me that this could be a reality.

And it is a reality, thanks to our readers. And that's YOU. Thank you for the support and enthusiasm and excitement. It's been wonderful.

Here comes Issue 2.

yesterday my very first Etzcetera newsletter went out

..and that made me so very happy.

The Etzcetera newsletter will come out every second Friday and will have a few crafty tidbits, a tutorial here and there, some behind the scenes Etzcetera news and the all important news of when each issue is ready for viewing. It's just a little way for me to stay in touch with all our lovely readers in between magazine issues.

I know we had a flurry of newsletter signups AFTER the first newsletter went out yesterday. And you guys will start getting the newsletter from Friday 17 June UNLESS you would like me to forward yesterday's little newsletter to you. Email me if you do want a forwarded copy.

Well it's now JUNE which means that the 1 July is looming fast which means theres SO MUCH going on behind the scenes to get Etzcetera ready to go. I'm so happy with how it's all shaping up. To see an idea go from this little seed of "can I actually do this?" to becoming a reality is well, pretty cool really.

Over this coming week I will introduce you to a couple of lovely people who have come on board regularly to write or curate lovely collections to share or create projects for Etzcetera. They're all wonderfully creative, enthusiastic people and it's been a pleasure to work with them on this first issue and to know they're sticking around for subsequent issues too.

Have a crafty weekend everyone.

Etzcetera Update

A whirlwind week.

And I thought it was time for an update.

Initially I was going to keep a separate blog just for Etzcetera news BUT I've decided that Etzcetera is an extension of what I already do. SO I've decided to keep this blog rolling along but it will now contain a mix of everything I do - all in the one place.

Some things will stay the same over here and some things will slowly change and evolve as the magazine evolves but I hope to post about

• @Home workshops, sneak peeks and Support Team news
• snippets of our family and home life.
• crafty projects or tutorials I've found online that I want to share with you
• Etzcetera Magazine news, updates, upcoming articles, behind the scenes and tidbits.
• projects I'm working on
• My Pinterest finds. I do LOVE that site and it is loaded with inspiration.
• interesting creative people I stumble across on the net or crafty friends who are doing crafty things!
• and anything else that fits within my little tag line of Craft. Lifestyle. Home. Family. You.

So, I think this blog needs a bit of a facelift and a spruce up to bring it more in line with where I'm headed with everything. If there's anything you would like to see more of on my little blog - let me know:)

I love to read your comments..just click "comments" at the bottom of this post and type in your hello.

Have a great Saturday.

thank you everyone

Thank you.

From the bottom of my heart.

The response to my Etzcetera news has been enormous and overwhelming and I must admit I feel a bit scared now that my long held secret is now out of the bag. 'Cause now it feels really real! Which is both terrifying and thrilling at the same time!

I'll continue to add tidbits of Etzcetera news here on my @Home blog until my new one is set up..

Thanks for signing up to my Etzcetera mailing list too..the confirmation emails have been flooding into my inbox over the past 24 hours!!! Thank you my lovely @Home supporters and to our new names.

Welcome!

introducing...

It's time to tell.

For as long as I can remember I have loved to write.

Growing up, I would write long winded, tell you every last detail about my day letters to my cousin Jacki when we were in Primary School. I would write short stories - even picking up a Newcastle Herald Young Writer's Award in Year 11 for my Case of The Missing Gym Boots story (a riveting tale, let me tell you!!). I would write long stories without endings. I would write pages of teenage romance, each chapter being handed around in geography in Year 8 for my class mates to read.

And I always wanted to work for a magazine.

In my teens, I wanted to be Lisa Wilkinson - the then youngest editor of Dolly Magazine. I kept the clipping of her in Dolly when she talked about how she had gotten the job. I even made a couple of mock up magazines using photos of my family and made up stories and called my little publication The Australian's Kim - yeah, I know..pretty dorky name!

Fast forward to now.

For a couple of years I have had this idea bubbling away in the back of my head. And it just wouldn't go away. At the start of the year when I was sick and took time off work the idea started playing louder and louder in my brain. And I could no longer ignore it.

I decided to launch my own magazine.

I'm not sure when the idea became "I would like to .." to "I am going to.." But somewhere along the way this year I decided to take the plunge. And it was not without angst and worry and what ifs.

BUT it's happening. And I am THRILLED, excited, and eager to announce that my new magazine will launch 1 July 2011.

I would like to introduce to you all,

Etzcetera Magazine

....An online bi-monthly crafty lifestyle magazine.

Visit our website here. Sign up for our newsletter so you can keep up with our happenings as well as be one of the first to know when we have launched.

Tomorrow the media kit will be ready for potential advertisers and our Facebook page will be set up.

Ahhhh.

It's good to get the secret out there..

I hope you will help me spread the news.

coaching..classes..a new all consuming project

Where are all the new classes over on the @Home site? I know our regulars are wondering why there haven't been any new workshops uploaded over the past few months.

Well, I have been working on something enormously ambitious over this first part of the year which has been all consuming and taking up a mammoth amount of my time and energy.

It's a new direction that will marry nicely with what we already do @Home so the site won't be going anywhere. However, in these early stages of developing the new project, my site has been a little neglected and light on for new content - but that's only temporary for just a little while longer.

I've gone through lots of what ifs? and can I do this? and self doubt and fear and anxiety and worry and I've worked through all those doubts and processed it all and I've come out the other end excited, motivated, still a little scared but really, truly thrilled with this new endeavour and eager to share it all..

But it's not time. Not just yet. But soon.

I find it frustrating when people announce on Facebook and their blogs etc that they have a BIG secret squirrel and can't tell just yet and then you have to wait. wait. wait for ages before you hear the big news. So I apologise 'cause that's exactly what I have done!!!

BUT I wanted to make mention of the fact that the @Home site hasn't had any new classes uploaded for a little while but that we will be back on track very soon AND more importantly I wanted to acknowledge someone (besides my family) who has been pivotal in helping me work through my self doubts and take this big leap of faith with this new business venture..

Her name is Julie and she is my business coach.

I haven't ever had a business coach before so it's been quite a novelty to have someone motivating to talk to, someone to encourage and guide and advise and Julie seemed to pop into my life at just the right moment. Julie owns Sassii Coaching and has helped me to move forward with my ideas and turn them into reality.

Each session she gives me a little set of tasks to complete before the next session so that I continually move forward instead of getting stuck in the one place (which I have a tendency to do!!!) And I tell you what, there's a bit of a flurry of activity the night before my next session to make sure I have done all my homework Julie set me the week before!!! I do like to work right up to a deadline!!!!

If you head on over to Julie's site I just noticed my little testimonial is featured on the front page today - woo hoo!!

Over the next week or so I hope to start revealing what I've been up to and I thank all my lovely regulars for being so patient with me...