Ever have one of those frustrating weeks where you can not see any results of many hours of work – but you can absolutely see the results of the routine jobs you haven’t done while doing the other work instead. That about sums up my week…  it was totally one of those weeks where I had high hopes of what I wanted to achieve but depending on how I decide to look at it, it wasn’t all that fruitful – or was it?! That’s the thing hey – it’s all about deciding which perception to have… and I was pretty productive in many areas – just not the area I first set out to be productive in…
…. So this is the summary of week 4…   (sorry – it’s a little less “show” & a little more “tell” this week folks…)

My goal for week 4 was to learn a bit more about the art of sublimation printing and have a few projects to show using my new stuff. To cut a long story short – it didn’t happen. Firstly I was chicken… I know, I know – the very reason that I wanted to do Project 52 was so that I pushed myself to conquer my fears right?! But unfortunately, as I found out this week, that commitment doesn’t automatically override my natural ability to procrastinate!!!
In order to do sublimation I have to use not 1 but 2 new machines – a printer (how hard can it be I hear you ask it’s a printer for goodness sake … well unfortunately technical enough & hard enough to scare me off – that’s how hard…) and a heat press – (also probably considered quite simple – but it is foreign to me & gets REALLY hot and those are barriers enough).

… so instead of just being brave & getting on with it, this is what I did instead…

* spent time researching, setting up, pulling out of, researching some more, finally making a successful decision & going with a website supplier
* spent time trying to figure out CSS (a.k.a. highly confusing & hard to comprehend techno website making babble) to try & make said website pretty how I want it
* more time on website
* more time on website
* pulled hair out over website
* looked after my 2 sick children 
* decided to forget about the website, part with money & leave it to the professionals
* did a bit more of my business plan
* looked after my 2 sick children
* reworked my logo
* reworked my logo again
* decided it’s much easier designing things for other people than it is myself & decided to hire a professional to do my logo as well
* looked after my 2 sick children
* went shopping for some practise fabric for my sublimation (HOORAY- something towards my goal…)
* surfed the net trying to find wholesalers
* emailed a whole bunch of wholesalers & ordered catalogues
* got brave enough to actually order some samples
* spent more time following up on wholesalers
* didn’t do any housework and watched a toy & mess explosion occur at my house
* felt sorry for myself because I was starting to suffer from same sickness as children

on Thursday afternoon I finally decided I better harden up and “get it over with” (the learning a new thing part). Namely because by this time I was tired, cranky & having massive withdrawels from not creating anything!!
“not hard…” I thought to psyche myself up… “what am I waiting for….”
So away I went, printed some of my favourite pics,  used my heatpress to press them to the fabric… and um yip – so it didn’t work…

… I should clarify here that there is nothing wrong with the process of sublimation I’m sure – but there IS a problem with how my computer & printer are set up currently to do it and it looks terrible. To cut a long story short – the colours are all wrong – & everyone looks like they should be in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory starring as oompaloompas – no joke. Nothing that can’t be fixed, it’ll just take a little time & a skype conference with my suppliers over East (hopefully that’s all it is).

So then I got all disheartened and discouraged and got a mild case of the sulks… basically because I left it to the last minute and it didn’t all go perfectly… Don’t worry – it did not take me long to work out I was being stupid. I know I should not expect things to go perfectly the first time I try & conquer my fears – but the reality is that I do. That’s the very reason I chicken out of trying things in the first place. Are you like this too? Please tell me I’m not the only one!!

Anyway – this whole process was invaluable to me. It taught me a MASSIVE lesson – and this is the 1 thing that I learnt this week for my Project 52. So here goes… are you ready for my massive revelation?! …

Yip – that’s pretty much it. That was my massive revelation. Those 2 things are all I needed to learn this week…

You see – the art of sublimation was my distraction. I know, get that – my very goal this week was my distraction. It was my distraction because I did not question to myself when I took on the goal of learning sublimation printing if it was actually something that I TRULY wanted to learn. It was never originally part of the business plan & my vision. It kind of snuck in there because the printer came as part of a combo pack with my heat press – I saw the potential – I knew I now had the tools – so lets learn it and do it right? Not really. Now I know that. It’s not a good idea if it’s going to stress me out so much that I won’t succeed in my original goals.

So there you have it – I am officially putting that one back on the shelf.

Do you have any of these kinds of distractions? They seem so great at first glimpse – but really they take you away from what you want to achieve, what is important & add extra stress to your already busy life that you don’t need?

I am by no means putting Sublimation away for good – I do still want to learn it & utilise it & it will definitely be part of my future business – I have no doubt. BUT & this is the important part – it will be at a later date…

I will not be using it for my initial product launches – and I am now refocussing back to my original journey…

So there you have it – told you it was more tell & less show. Sorry about that. If you’re anything like me you’ll be craving some pictures by now (if you’ve even made it this far lol…!!)
WELL DONE if you have made it this far. To thank you I will give you an exclusive preview of one of my product designs:

I put these together last night to re ignite my enthusiasm and remind myself I can do this…

I have since made a couple for baby shower gifts for friends which have the birthdate of the baby on too. They look great. But I can’t show you those until I actually give them away 😀

and * mental note to self – do not put your kids in their t-shirts and then expect to find it easy to photograph them so that you can see the design!!! You end up with a lot of photos like this…

” Look mum – I can roll…”

“ha ha…”

“give that camera here…”

“Look mum – it spell’s HANNAH” (said with great excitement)

“NO – take a photo of my nail polish!!”

“Take a photo of my princess crown mum!!”

So there you have it… 1 valuable lesson learnt & 2 princess t-shirts for 2 princesses.

How’d you guys do? Looking forward to seeing your projects…