It's new and it's going to be great!

Welcome to the all new, reconfigured and redesigned Graceful Impressions.

There may be a number of you reading this that are wondering how you ended up here, after searching for card making or stamping supplies. Yes, it is true that my business for the 10 year period of 2009 up to now (Feb 2019) was all about scrapbooking, stamping, cardmaking and memory keeping. And I loved it. I really did. I still do. But, it was not paying the bills, and I need to be investing myself in something that does.

However, without this crafting background, I would never have ended up here. I would never have had the confidence or possibly the capability to delve into different crafting mediums and try widely ranging techniques. I have had the opportunity to meet new people that have such different business backgrounds to me and I have learnt much in the past 10 years.

So how did I come to the decision to leave stamping behind and get involved with this venture? Well, it was a number of things really, all of which came to a head over the past few months. The stamping company I was working with as a independent demonstrator, was a MLM*. Now don't misunderstand me, I loved operating in this company as it satisfied a number of needs of mine for a long time. I made some wonderful friends and met people that I would never have had the opportunity to had I not been involved. However, by their very nature, it is VERY difficult to make a lot of money in these organisations unless you get in on the bottom level, early on in their operations in your country. I found that even in the years that I was working my butt off, and sold a lot of product, I personally did not make a lot of money from it. Sure, it more than covered my costs to be in business and allowed me to also access products for a discount, but it certainly did not pay for my kids education, loan repayments or send me off on a holiday.

Some of you know that I am also one half of a partnership in a dairy operation. And unless you have been living under a rock since 2016, you will know that the dairy game is in a 7th innings slump right now. Things are hard - REAL hard. To the point that it is almost costing as much as we make, which leave no slack for things like improvements, infrastructure and anything other than basic R&M. Which brings me to my next point....

I am also swimming teacher and have had to up my days in the pool in order to meet the curricular and extracurricular activities of my kids. There is nothing in the farm budget for us to live on, so, I have to earn it off farm.

In a nutshell, I did not want to give up my creative side completely. Farming can make you do that. It can suck up every last fibre of your being unless you consciously make time to do other things. My previous demonstratorship was also not fulfilling my needs anymore, so I had to broaden my view. I was recently the president of one of the local kindergartens, and fundraising was always an issue. I think these days, unless you are a big footy or netball club, fundraising in rural centres is hard. But it is an evil necessity. This sparked my imagination into how I could be the solution to some of these problems. One that our kinder faced - and I know many small organisations and individuals face too - is that when trying to access small quantities of goods to customise or personalise, there can be blocks put in your way. Either financial or quantity-wise. But I knew that I had the skills, resources and aptitude to help here.

So I decided to use my craft talents in a different way. Instead of trying to be big and reach out to everyone, I decided that what was needed was a SMALL supplier. Someone that you could access, someone that you could talk to if needed, a business that was able to tailor products for YOU. As such, this version of Graceful Impressions was born.

There is much still to be done and lots of things to add. Please add my website address to your browser and please sign up to be get updated with news, new releases and sales. I look forward to the challenge of this new venture and I look forward to working with you all.

Sam

(*MLM = multi level marketing. these legitimate direct marketing businesses focus on recruiting sales people to promote their products and by doing so, earn a percentage of the overall sales. recruiting a downline is an important part of building an individual's success in this type of business framework. there are heaps of these businesses in operation in australia and the indeed the world, and you probably buy off some of them a number of times a year).

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