Caffiene is my god

So I'm taking a quick, jittery break from studying. By the way, if anyone wants to know about marginal propensity to consume or save, real GDP, aggregate demand or supply and/or disposable income, ask me, since I now understand it enough to feel relatively confident about my midterm tomorrow. Does anyone else love caffiene this much? Seriously. Best invention ever. Anyway so I'm officially scheduling in time to work for OmgLia since I'm not getting much done updating at 3am every night... from now on, Friday is OmgLia day. I will wake up early and report to work at the library, and work diligently until I am all caught up! Mostly for my benefit, but also for all those who are curious what tasks go into running a DIY shop from a dorm room, here is my To Do List for the next few Fridays:

1. Update Etsy/website with finished pictures (finished means cropped, resized, background whited out, and any contrast or color adjustments.)

a) Alice in Wonderland Line (preview to the left)
b) New stud earrings
c) Necklaces, earrings and clearance updates (need to move old items to clearance!)
d) Add new photoshoot pics to existing items


2. Advertising

• a) Set advertising budget, contact collected potential advertisers to purchase slots


• b) Write advertising code and page for OmgLia to bring in more advertising revenue


• c) Make new advertisement banner, whore it everywhere

3. Accounting

• a) finish updating 2009/2008 balance sheet using paypal, propay and income statement


• b) Add any values from receipts including post office fees, credit card purchases, etc


• c) Collect data from net income or loss per month


• d) all kinds of data analysis! (this part is only fun if you are a huge excel nerd, which I am!!)

4. Newsletter

• a) Depending on budget, purchase newsletter production company like Vertical Response


• b) Develop template for regular newsletters


• c) Set up a schedule for sending newsletters (Currently it's something like whenever I feel like it, which is not often enough to bring back many customers!)


• d) Create newsletters with original content, coupon codes, pictures, etc that people will actually read, not send to spam box, and perhaps even click on once in a while!

5. Blog

• a) Brainstorm blog posts based on polling various readers about what they want to read about. Create blog posts. Post regularly!


• b) Research ways to get more traffic to my blog (keywords?)


• c) Figure out how the hell to move this blog over to http://blog.omglia.com/ >.<

6. Etc

• a) using new site banner, design new bag toppers, etsy banner, link banners, and business cards.


• b) order more business cards


• c) Depending on budget, purchase Flickr account and upload as much as possible to it.


• d) take pictures of any leftover inventory to upload to site


• d) make more stuff (funny, you'd think this would be a more important one, but honestly with all the rest of the stuff I have to do, creating inventory is really NOT as prioritized as one would assume. They should tell you these things BEFORE you start your own DIY business!)

Anyway. So that's that. Now I shall return to studying. PS, note for all college students reading this: IF YOU HAVE NOT BEEN TO YOUR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, VISIT IT ASAP. I've only recently made studying at the library a habit of mine, and I've noticed SUCH a change in productivity from when I tried to study (unsuccesfully) in my dorm room. Also, the resources of the IU library are absolutely staggering: everything from paid subscriptions to any online article I could ever want to read, to one-handed keyboards in case I break my arm, to printers capable of creating life-size posters, to ... well, books. They even have a cafe downstairs with SUSHI, and 5 floors of studying lounges. AWESOME. I'm making a library kit with all the neccessaries to take with me every day when I stop by here for HOURS. Ok. seriously, back to studying. And also my favorite picture of me from this weekend's photoshoot!

Dorm room pics!

I finally got my dorm tidied up and looking nice heres some pics

The actual color of dorm room is very pinkish, I covered the light with tissue paper to filter it . Also those are candy corn "christmas"lights sent by my mom as a hallowen present!

My bed, with my awesome rolly laptop table!
To see the rest of the pics, click here!

Ideas for blog posts?

So, I really don't update enough. Like, 3x or so a MONTH. What the fail is that?? Dear readers, I'd like to know what YOU want me to write about! Please vote in this poll so I can crank out some new awesome entries for you.

What would you like to read about on the OmgLia blog?

• Stuff about Lia and her life, college, boyfriend, etc
• Business tips: making money, advertising, traffic sources, etc
• Crafty tutorials: how to make stuff!
• Other handmade artists
• Other, please comment + explain!

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5 Easy Ways to Earn Extra Money

So, times are hard, bla bla bla. You need extra money for gas, for your kid, for those shoes, whatever. Doesn't really matter to me, I'll take extra money whenever, bad economy or not! As such, I've become an expert at figuring out ways to sneak extra cash into my wallet. Every little bit helps and it all adds up over time. However I do remind you know that the tips I'm sharing are NOT a substitute for real, substantial income. Its more like some extra pocket cash. Second, I have already written a review of ways to make money via paid-to and survey sites, which brings in about $30-$60 a month extra for me! You can see that information here: http://omglia.com/makemoneyonline . But here are even MORE good ways to make extra money!



Checkbook Cover by bagladiesinpa

1. Donate plasma. Every decent sized town should have a plasma donation center. Donating plasma is fairly easy and you can do it up to twice a week after you pass a screening and fitness exam which takes about 2 hours - additional visits take much less time. You can make roughly $200 or so extra a month donating plasma. For more information and to find a donation center near you visit this site: http://www.bloodbanker.com/plasma/

2. Sell any extra stuff you might have lying around in your house on Ebay, Craigslist or Livejournal. Some things you might sell include clothing, CDs, video games, DVDs, action figures, keychains, old jewelry, unused makeup, purses, shoes, or craft supplies. If you're absolutely desperate and have low standards, people will also buy your used underwear. (I've never tried this, but apparently you can get $30 for a pair of your panties. Hey, if the demand is there, why question it? Or even think about it and wonder what kind of people would ever want to buy a pair of used panties? .... exactly, let's not.) Livejournal has loads of awesome selling communities, though you'll need to know a bit of HTML and join lots of communities to get your items out there for people to see. Ebay is great too, but once you add your items, they can tend to get lost in the fray. To boost visibility of your stuff, advertise the items with an image or two on livejournal! There are communities just for that sort of thing - if you want some help finding them, just check out my profile.



Earrings by hollee

3. If you have a marketable skill, put up an ad on your local craigstlist offering your services. Marketable skills can be anything from cleaning houses, to walking dogs, babysitting, making websites, creating artwork, whatever. Charge on a sliding scale to attract more business - remember, every little bit helps!

4. If there is a university where you live, check out whether they have a research program that offers paid studies. For example the psych department at my university offers up to $10/hr for certain studies, and they are always looking for demographics like people who smoke pot, drink often, don't drink at all, have good hearing, etc. It's similiar to the "paid surveys" that are on the make money online tutorial, only its for academic research, not market research.



Cash Ledger by orangebeautiful

5. If there is something you know a lot about that other people are interested in - for example, social networking and marketing, cooking, MMORPGs, anything -- make a blog about it. Once you get a lot of entries and a decent amount of readers, charge money to advertise on your blog with Google Adsense, Project Wonderful or private advertising. This idea is definitely more long-term and takes a lot of work. To me it's one step below opening up a handmade store in terms of the amount of work it takes compared to the profit margins - but if you've got time, you've got a computer, and you've got something to say, go for it! For an idea of how to maximize profit potential on this particular idea, here's an awesome example of how to make $2500 in a month.

If there's anything you know is a surefire way bring in extra cash, let me know and I'll add it here! I'm always open to new ideas!

Halloween!

Halloween is just around the corner, and at Indiana University that's a HUGE deal. Aside from your standard drunken debauchery and an unusually high proportion of ridiculously skimpy clothing, Halloween is an awesome holiday to celebrate at college. For example, my dorm is hosting a Halloween Arts and Crafts Party, a Thriller Workshop - side note, fun fact about me: I was on a hip hop dance team in high school and we not only learned Thriller in all of its 13-minute long entirety, but we performed it every weekend for hours at The Baxter Avenue Morgue in Louisville! -- as well as a huge Halloween Dance, a Halloween Charity party for disavantaged kids and an in-dorm Haunted House. WHEW! In summation, my dorm is pretty much the best ever, and I luff it. *luffs dorm*

Anyway, the real question here is, what am I - and what are you - dressing up as this Halloween? By principle I tend to abstain from the obligatory skanky mcskankskank costuming that seems to flood the women's section of costume stores. I tend more towards literal costumes and the previous costumes I have worn were, on the whole, rather strange. Now that I am a fashion design major I feel like I should branch out to something interesting and perhaps a twinge more crafty than usual. My general intuition is to go to the Salvation Army, pick out something ridiculous, and make it into something awesome - but what should I look for? As an inside joke, my friends and I were all going to go as Little Britain characters and I was going to be Emily Howard, but frankly, nobody would get that reference at all (did any of you? yes? maybe? ....nobody?) and some of my friends might be in different states than me for Halloween anyway. So ... that leaves me with pretty much nothing. Help me come up with some ideas, dear readers!

Side note: check out the amazingawesomecrazycool Halloween jewelry at http://www.omglia.com/Halloween