The ghosts of Carla past
Aka a spontaneous trip to say goodbye to my childhood home before it was sold.
We moved in in 1993, when I was seven… and we turned it from an identikit new house on an estate to a much loved family home with a glorious garden. (I say ‘we’ – I had a miniature cement trowel and gardening kit, but while I was convinced I was helping, I’m now pretty sure my lovely parents were just humouring me…)
The Wendy house in the corner was the site of some of my most magical and happy childhood memories. It had electricity (because my Dad is amazing) and he and one of his best friends moved it for me from our old house – apparently 6 year old me made it a condition of moving, along with a Thelwell pony cartoon frieze in my bedroom.
Not long after we moved in (though we had laid grass, top patio and put the Wendy house up)
As it was when I saw it for the last time, at the beginning of May. Some difference!
I probably wouldn’t have made a special trip to say goodbye to the house now it’s empty, but happened to be down the same weekend to see one of my best friends try on her wedding dress, and she only lives half an hour away from the old house.
So we went and wandered round, remembered all the happy times the house has seen, and also took some photos in the garden by my wendy house (I’m still slightly sad I haven’t been able to dismantle it and bring it to live up here, but my garden isn’t big enough and it’s almost 25 years old. I think it should stay where it is).
I sat in my favourite place to watch thunderstorms (but no longer fit all the way through the window as I used to as a child), and I marvelled at how much the garden has changed since we first moved in, and I reminisced aloud with Lou and silently, nostalgically, quietly alone as well.
I even found my hamsters’ gravestone. You can almost read “Dozy” but the dates, and Herman’s name, are long gone.
And then we went and had tea with two of my lovely neighbours, and got in Lou’s car, and drove home.
It was strange but lovely – a little like stepping into the past, a little like looking to the future. I think I’d have found it hard to do if I wasn’t so settled where I am – so many rites of passage and key life events happened while I lived there. But I’ve flown the nest and the house should do what it does best – shelter and nurture a growing family.
I found some old photos of my childhood in the garden and my bedroom:
I still have Larry the lamb. Sadly Biscuit the cat, Amadeus Woofgang Mozart the dog (what can I say? I was a gloriously geeky child) and Scruff the smaller dog have since found new homes. There’s the Thelwell frieze I apparently insisted my Dad installed before I consented to move house…!
Terrible photo, but we lived at the top of the hill and Dad built me a sledge so I could have more fun on snow days. It was the envy of the other children in the close (as was my night time sledging!)
Dad and I having breakfast in the garden. My late godfather Nick would have approved – this was when we still had a charcoal bbq, before we got the gas one I still use now <3
Some things never change – I still love My Little Pony!
I’m full of love and gratitude for our time there – it saw everything from knee scrapes to my first love, from Dad’s departure for a stint overseas to my driving test, and I left to go to university and start my adult life from there. Though I’ve not lived in it for nearly a decade, it feels very strange to think I’ll never go through its doors or see my beloved Wendy house again.
I hope that the family moving in loves it as much as we did. It’s bittersweet letting it go – but its sale is helping me buy a house of my very own – so a new era is beginning.
With love and nostalgic unicorns,
Carla
Not all of us have one true calling {Video}
Here’s a TED talk I’ve been waiting for since forever. Emilie Wapnick, founder of Puttylike and fellow scanner/Renaissance soul/polymath/multipotentialite, shares her thoughts on how we’re all wired differently.
If you’ve ever felt adrift, confused or lost because you can’t pick just one thing to specialise in and do for the rest of your life – watch this.
What no one will tell you about starting your own business
Through my various ventures and the community of solopreneurs who keep me sane, I’ve learned some intriguing truths about starting up. Whatever stage of business you’re at, whether it’s thinking and daydreaming, early stages or you’ve been going for years, I hope they help.
It’s allowed to be fun
I have been musing recently on how un-fun (is that even a word? It should be if it isn’t) lots of business courses and seminars are. The ones I’ve been to in the past have been helpful on the one hand, but I can also imagine them being offputting. With pages and pages of business plans, finance information, insurance and scare stories about what happens if you get your tax return wrong, it’s enough to make you want to run away and hide (and that’s before I mention the EU VAT fiasco…!)
But if you don’t love what you’re doing, and if you don’t allow yourself to have fun and enjoy your business (and build in ways to do this from the start), you will find yourself with a cage you’ve built yourself, which is far harder to escape than the 9-5 you so joyfully quit months or years ago.
(This photo is from an actual shoot we did for a Louise Rose Couture collection.)
You’re allowed to change what you do
But do make sure you check in with yourself as to why you’re changing. If you genuinely don’t like what you’re doing, or you know you work best in cycles of things, then go ahead and change it up – as long as you communicate it clearly to your customers and clients, no one important to your biz will bat an eyelid.
You have my full permission to ignore any naysayers who predict doom and gloom. We’re small and nimble, we can change with the times – and we can change on our own whims, too. Some of my most successful solopreneur colleagues have been through several editions of their businesses before they found the one(s) that work best and light them up.
There will be days when you wonder why the hell you started this
Yes, even for that thing you LOVE to do, and do in your spare time, and you would totally do even if no one ever paid you for it. Even when you are earning decent money from your biz (and definitely when you’re not yet earning decent money from your biz), and even when you have All Of The Flexibility because you finally left your day job… you will still have days when you wonder what on earth you’re doing and why in the name of all that’s cat shaped on the internet you ever thought it was a good idea to work for yourself.
It’s normal, it will ambush you when you least expect it, it will go on happening for your entire life as a solopreneur. But it will also pass, and you will emerge the other side. I promise. Find yourself a likeminded and sympathetic buddy you can call when you’re considering jacking it all in.
Day jobs are cool, too
Do not ever let anyone shame you about working a day job. It could be a delightful part of your portfolio, or it could be something you do simply for the money. Whichever way round, having a part or full time job for someone else in no way makes you less – you are still self employed, you are still creative, you are still amazing and you are still changing the world in your own way.
My day job meetings often look like this. It’s a world away from the London corporate cage!
I can tell you from experience that you can’t create from a place of desperation, and if you have quit your steady income too early, you’re highly unlikely to be creating your best work while you worry about where your next rent payment or grocery shop is coming from.
For those who have jumped and the net hasn’t appeared – you can go back! Two of my friends have recently gone back to full and part time day jobs, which, because of their self employment adventures and passion projects, are more aligned with their strengths and what lights them up than you’d believe.
Lots of us flit in and out of jobs as money requires – this is ok. Do what you have to to enable you to do your best work.
Which leads me on to…
It will take more time than you expect or plan for
A bit like any kind of building or home improvement work, no matter how clear your vision (and let’s face it, they all cloud over at times), and whatever your level of social media proficiency, building a network and community around your business, who will turn into your loyal customers and raving fans, takes time. More time than you expect.
But when they come, they are so worth waiting for! Steady, consistent, interesting content is the way forward – and if you don’t have much of an audience yet, that’s ok – it gives you time to experiment without worrying.
Your list is less of a big deal than you’ve been told
Lots of online and offline courses will tell you the most important thing is your ‘list’ – the people who have given you their email address. A selection of current advice seems to be that you can’t blog without an opt in, you can’t have a business without a blog, and you certainly can’t have a blog without a list.
While there is some truth in the fact that the bigger your list, the more likely you are to have big paydays when you launch new products, Shenee points out that most courses and online products take 3-4 runs to become remotely profitable, and that many people sell from a very small list and do extremely well.
It really is quality not quantity that counts.
That idea you have? Try it and see what happens.
So you shouldn’t be put off by the website/blog/opt in/list/etc you “should” have before starting.
Neither should you assume you need to have a seventeen page business plan and financial forecasts before writing your first post about whatever it is that’s persistently lurking in your head. We are fortunate to be living through the internet revolution – so start a site and test the market.
Start a blog and write some posts, gather email addresses with a plugin like SeedProd’s Coming Soon Pro, set yourself a challenge to talk to twenty or fifty or a hundred people about your idea and get feedback, make a prototype and film it for YouTube… there are endless ways to start without freaking out, and without spending a fortune until you know whether the product or service will work.
Go on – transfer that idea from your head or your notebook out into the world.
You don’t have to be THE expert to be an expert
You know when you show your Gran how to send a picture message and she’s fascinated? Or when you pop in to see your parents and solve in ten minutes that pesky computer issue they’ve been having for weeks but haven’t wanted to bother you with? When you can spell “supercalifragilisticexpialadocious” without reference to Google and your colleagues think you’re some kind of genius?
What comes easily to you, doesn’t come easily to everyone else. And you don’t have to be a world leading expert in order to appear expert to, and be truly helpful to, the people you serve.
So don’t be put off by knowing less than someone you admire – just make sure you know more about your subject than the people you want as your clients.
What have you learned, that goes against conventional business wisdom?
Tulle and rainbows {What I Wore}
A dear friend’s 41st birthday… our new favourite bar in town… a balmy Saturday night… and a quick detour to the ruined priory at the bottom of the high street for some photos on my way in…
Jacket and tshirt: ancient components of my wardrobe | Tulle petticoat: Hell Bunny | Polka dot pencil skirt (underneath): M&S | Rainbow shoes: Schuh, custom work by me | Handbag: genuinely not a clue, possibly from Dubai. (I’m in that delightful stage at the moment where most of my wardrobe is so me, but also so old, that I have no clue where most of it originated)
My hair was in ringlets before I left the house – but it’s now so long and heavy that a twelve minute drive rendered it vaguely wavy, instead. It still felt mermaidy though.
And apparently I need to work on my poses – I do actually have two legs, it’s just not that obvious from these photos.
Will definitely be wearing my petticoats as outerwear for the rest of the summer, though!
With love and unicorns,
Carla
How to give old shoes a magical new lease of life
Three ways I’ve given old shoes a new lease of life…
1) The Rainbow Shoes
I don’t know if I’m ashamed or proud to admit that I have three pairs of identical Mary-Jane shoes from Schuh, in different colours. Red ones, a present for my 19th birthday, to go with my Dorothy outfit. Black ones followed to go with an interview outfit, because they were SO DAMN COMFORTABLE but also looked good. And finally purple ones, a 21st present from my then-boyfriend.
I have now worn all three pairs so much that the straps have broken, the buttons have come off, they’ve all been reheeled at least three times and the leather is, well, completely buggered. No amount of polish is ever going to make them look good again.
So I took a leaf out of my own book (I’ve gone through phases of decorating shoes before) and decided to turn the black ones into rainbow shoes… using Decopatch papers.
I finished them off with a couple of coats of glitter Mod Podge (because sparkly rainbows on your feet!) and when they were dry, a coat of satin spray varnish to get rid of the stickiness.
2) The Lace Effect Heel Shoes
I used a similar ploy very effectively years ago, in the hideous London job, when I was informed my favourite shoes weren’t smart enough any more because the heels were worn and scratched. Never one to be deterred by rude people, I spent an evening up to my elbows in sandpaper, Mod Podge and tissue and this was the result:
These are now five years old (I did the heels three years ago), still worn regularly and have held up to all the abuse I regularly chuck at my high heeled shoes.
3) The Sparkly Shit Underneath Shoes
Yeah, that never took off as a brand name. But, back in 2012 when I still lived in the flat, I had a cheap pair of black-and-turquoise satin shoes that needed a bit of pep for a night out with friends. As you can’t really glitter glue or spray paint satin, I looked around my studio, spotted my bead stash… and the rest is history.
These have sadly long since bitten the dust, but I plan to use the same technique on another pair of heels that need some love soon.
So now I never have boring feet!
With love and unicorns,
Postbox: Blackbird in the Rowan Tree
I believe wholeheartedly in being able to manifest experiences and my life’s direction, but have always been a bit dubious about being able to manifest physical things I want into my life.
Happily, I have been proved wrong. Back in February, I was browsing the glorious Slightly Triangle gallery (mixed media art and illustration by the very talented Chloe Redfern) and found myself irresistibly drawn to her blackbird print.
I wrote it on my wishlist at the front of my daybook, made a note to check her shop when I returned from holiday, and didn’t think any more about it.
Then, last week, I had a text from Chloe to say she’d put something in the post for me, but had forgotten to write a note with it, so please don’t be too surprised. (Though we met online over a decade ago, we have delighted in offline communication for our entire friendship and often send each other random presents, not necessarily anywhere near our birthdays).
And when the parcel arrived… it was the original Blackbird in the Rowan Tree piece, signed on the back and now taking pride of place on my mantelpiece.
Isn’t he gorgeous?
I couldn’t have been more excited if I’d tried… and it was the most glorious surprise after a complicated and pesty week. And proof that sometimes the things you want most really do come to you – if you’re clear about what they are.
With love and unicorns,
I'm Carla, a quirky thirtysomething with a penchant for unicorns and glitter. I believe in magic and make-believe, and the gorgeous rebellion of making your life absolutely your own. And I'm a proud multipod!
I am a photographer and catalyst for small business owners, and a real life mermaid. I photograph people as they truly are, help women see and step into their brightest and best selves, add a sprinkling of magic to the mundane, and am a happy ambassador for stationery and slow living.
Proud to be both girly and geeky, when I’m not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.