De-Clutter Your Biz!

Are you an Etsy, Ebay, or small business owner that needs help with growing your business? Consider signing up for De-Cluttter Your Biz! a six week free program offered by IndieBizChicks starting Feb 21st.

Your six lessons will help you learn how to:

•Prioritize Your Projects
•Focus On What's Bring You Success - And Get Rid Of The Stuff That Is Weighing You Down
•Put Some Energy Into Your Marketing
•Create New Goals For Long-Term Success
•And MORE!!!

As a participant, you will receive a new workbook each week, starting February 21 and lasting through April 2.

Sign up now at IndieBizChicks to jumpstart you business.

Creativity Bug ~ Sue

Featured Freebies for the week of Feb 14th

Who doesn't like a few freebies to make creating papercrafting projects a little less expensive?! Every Monday, the blog will feature freebie finds from other blogs, sites, and crafting friends with direct links.

This week's freebies include:

Tip Junkie with links to free valentine card and 100 day of school printables

Beccy's Place with links to a free digi printable of Little Haley and Little Liz

Pop "N" Stick with links to several free owl printables

Making our Mark with link to a frog printable

MelJens Design with a link to a printable happy birthday sentiment

Little Claire Designs with a link to a free digi stamp of Lydia goes shopping

Patches of Pink with a link to a little girl printable

If you know of any other great freebies, feel free to send us an email or share the link in the comments section.

Creativity Bug ~ Sue

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing you a very Happy Valentine's Day! Spend this special day with the one you love the most!

Creativity Bugs ~ Sandy and Sue

Sausage Dip Recipe

Okay, here is it, the first official post by me, the missing sister. Or am I the missing link? Who's to say. I work in computers every day. I lead up a QA team, you would think I would have some tech saavy, but alas, I have none. Most days when it comes to explaining anything technical regarding the actual computer itself, I have to ask people to speak to me like I am a 6 year old. Use small words and draw pictures. Then there is this whole rambling "thing".

Anywho... my BFF turned me on to this awesome and super duper easy dip. I thought all of you would love to try. 3 ingredients, no lie, plus you can half it or double it. Easy peasy!

Jimmy dean sausage dip recipe:

2 bricks cream cheese
1 Jimmy Deans HOT sausage
2 cans Rotele original

Cook sausage in frying pan, breaking into small crumbles – drain grease
Warm cream cheese til smooth in micro
Drain the juice from the Rotele cans

Mix all together. Serve warm with tortilla chips. If in crock pot, low setting, and watch that it doesn’t start to burn on the sides.

Enjoy! First post to blog. Off my To-Do list. As Monica and Ross used to say on Friends, CHECK.

Creatitvity Bug ~ Sandy

Your Help is Needed

On Tuesday, Etsy had a wonderful all day symposium that I was able to watch via Livestream.  They had a half dozen great speakers and keynote speakers that talked about how to get an Etsy shop running properly, obtaining customers & sales, making Etsy team connections, and interacting more with the crafting community.

Based on everything that I learned, there will definitely be a lot of changes happening within the next few weeks both at the CreativityBugs Etsy shop and on the Creativity Bug blog. It will take some time to implement them, but the changes will be well worth the time spent.

During one of the breakout sessions, I made a number of old & new friends via online chat and they were gracious enough to give me a few critiques on the Creativity Bug blog that I really have taken to heart.

Blog Opinions:

Who are you?? – Sue, the blog is really formal in speak and we know that you are a super friendly & funny person.  Posts don’t reflect that person.  Don’t you want people to know that you have a habit of getting glue all over yourself,  that you walk around with glitter on your face (even in stores), like to put stickers on your dog for decorations, and all the fun things you do with your niece?

Suggestion - The blog say’s that it is two sisters, but I only see one making posts. Would love to hear more things from both sisters.

CreativityBugs really?? – The blog used to show challenge items and completed projects, but lately it is promoting other sites or contests. I want to see more of your creative side again!

Aren’t you on a design team? – Sue, there was a post earlier on the blog about you being a design team member. Where is the blinkie and what have you been creating?? Would love to see the stuff or at least links to the completed projects.

More consistency please! – Sue, I found my blog to have more followers when I am consistent with my posts. Maybe you want to put yourself on a schedule to make a minimum of 4 posts a week with only 1 post about promoting other sites, 1 post about contests, and leaving all the other posts to your creative projects and things you sell on Etsy. I see that you only have 22 followers and have been blogging for almost 2 years, you should have more than 200 followers by now.

Wow, this was an eye opener in some areas and other areas I knew changes had to be made. So, devoted followers I ask you to take the time and really review this blog with a keen eye and send me an email at creativebugs2-blog@yahoo.com  letting Sandy and I both know what you think. What do you like or dislike? What do you want to see more of? How do you think we can become a better blog site? If you have checked out our Etsy shop, what would you like to see more of? What can we do better? Don’t worry about offending or upsetting us in any way!  We really want to make a go of both this blog and our Etsy business and need constructive criticism to put us on track.

Thank you for being with us through all the ups and downs!

Creativitity Bug ~ Sue

TU's Radical BNR - February 9th

Come check out TU's Radical BNR currated by FoggyMorningSundries on Etsy. There are 16 items being featured including:

FoggyMorningSundries "I love you" scented soap

 Msformaldehyde's hand painted buttefly barettes and pins

Headstrong Headwear designer Libunnyfoofoo's handmade bow of white satin ribbon with black fleur de lis pattern

And the Creativity Bugs' Creme Brule scented candle with butterflies

The BNR is just underway with lots of wonderful products for everyone to enjoy!

Creativity Bug ~ Sue

CraftySteals - Share the Love

Our friends at CraftySteals are offering a special "share the love" promotion with an opportunity to win a great prize.

All you have to do is tell your friends about CraftySteals by inviting them to become a CrafytySteals FB fan, follower of the blog or twitter, or sign up for email alerts. Then follow this link and post a comment of how many friends you invited to "share the love".

Good Luck!

Creativity Bug ~ Sue