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My Journey to Squidoo, So Now What?

Ranked #2,623 in Business & Work, #100,167 overall

How I Got Here

When I started working for a company, it was just a job to me. Little did I know at the time, but it became my career. I learned so much on this job, I could probably write volumes about it. (Don't worry, I won't do that here!)

One of the things I had to do was write manufacturing instructions which involved using a computer and graphics. I really loved that part of my job and about 1989, I got my first home computer.

Now my husband loves technology and could not figure out why I wanted a home computer. Well he took over the thing, I hardly got a chance to get on it. Of course back then we had the magical dial up modem. This is where things got crazy!

My husband discovered the world of online, the early internet. On the early internet were these sites called Bulletin Boards. And yes kiddies, this is prior to Windows, we are talking MS Dos with Ansi graphics!

The next thing I know, he has purchased TBBS Bulletin Board Software and he is designing our own Bulletin Board! Next we had people dialing into our computer to play games, message and chat. How crazy was this? We we got very popular, so we had to expand, right?

OK, hold on, here it real craziness!

11 Computers, 72 modems and a T1 line to our home!

OK one more thing.......we became an internet provider!

So at that point, Windows is in full swing, we are a small time internet provider and we are nearing 1000 customers. EEE GADS!

Oh, I forgot to mention, we both had full time jobs and 3 kids to raise.

After a couple of years of this, we decided we either move this stuff out of our bedroom into an office, (Yes, I did say bedroom. We had a full rack of equipment next to our bed) or sell this mess. We decided to try and sell it and were lucky enough to find a buyer. Life got back to normal.

Fast forward about 10 years or so, early retirement came my way.

(photo credits and custom graphics on this lens are by the author - FlaminCatDesigns, unless otherwise indicated.)

What I am Jabbering About

  1. Early Retirement
  2. Taking The Zazzle Plunge
  3. Amazon MP3
  4. What's A Girl To Do?
  5. I took a plunge!
  6. OK, Tell me, What's a girl to do?
  8. My Best Lenses
  9. What is your best performing lens?
  10. What fun experience have you had with lenses?
  11. Blessed by Squid Angel

Early Retirement

So What's a Girl To Do?

My Princess Kali who keeps me company

(Trying out the Big Picture Module with my cat.)

After 34 years of working, I finally get to reap some of my rewards, early retirement. So far I am loving it! I worked through May, was off for 6 weeks, then went back part time to train someone for a month. That return made me really realize how much I truly enjoy being retired.

But your probably have realized by reading this, that I am a pretty busy person. I don't like to sit and do nothing. I don't watch hours and hours of TV and I don't socialize with a lot of people. I do love my home, which includes fixing it up, inside and out. I have been blogging for a few years and I am active on several sites, and if I feel chatty I go to twitter. I also love to sew and be creative on my computer with graphics and photos.

My husband is worried I will be bored and lonely. I don't think that is going to happen. I do have real people I can visit and we have 3 cats who keep me company while he is at work.

We are adjusting to my fixed income, which when you are a young working person, a monthly pension sounds like a ton of money to live off of. Ha! I didn't realize the economy was going to fall apart, inflation was going to eat up my money, not to mention medical coverage.

Don't get me wrong, I feel very blessed and fortunate to have a pension. A retirement pension is becoming a thing of the past, only 401K plans or even worse.

Taking The Zazzle Plunge

and other possiblities

I was racking my brain, trying hard to figure out how can I supplement my income? I don't expect things to get better in our world and I don't want to go back to working outside of the home.

Then I found Zazzle

I started working like a crazy woman making lots of designs to sell in my new Zazzle shop Flamin Cat Designs

I started networking, Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo. After about 6 weeks of starting my Zazzle shop I was having a blast with it and teased my husband saying that I am going to be a Zazzle-aire. Then he rolled his eyes.

I told him it takes time because that's what all the Pro Sellers on Zazzle are saying in the forum. Next I busily made more designs to try and have a full shop by the time the Christmas shopping is in full swing.

At this point, I read online that many Zazzle sellers also put designs on other POD (print on demand) sites.

Oh now what to do?

My goal is to make money to supplement my retirement income and something I like to do.

Would I like taking care of more than one shop?

Would it be worth my while to only design for Zazzle?

I really want to make some money so I can turn the eye rolling off!

Being new here at Squidoo, with so much to learn, it all seems a bit overwhelming.
So many decisions, I think I will go outside and work in the yard now.

Amazon MP3

I keep songs in the cloud so they can play on my android phone while I am busy on the computer.

What's A Girl To Do?

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I took a plunge!

My Halloween Bengal Cats shirtThanks to the wonderful voting here (thanks everyone)
I went ahead and took the plunge and opened a Cafe Press shop.

It's either yay me, or now what have you done!

Anyway, I am having a little difficulty with the store template and made a mess trying to do my own. I'm not sure how this will work out.

Here is the store link :

Flamin Cat Designs on Cafe Press

OK, Tell me, What's a girl to do?

(PLEASE NOTE: Your comment will not appear until it is approved. This will help ensure good content is added to the page. Your patience is appreciated. Thank You.)

  • lclchors Apr 1, 2012 @ 12:36 pm | delete
    love you Zazzle store I startedSquido first than zaz mine is http://www.zazzle.com/lclchorse. I have some other art work to add but setting up you own design is really time consuming
  • grannysage Mar 1, 2012 @ 5:34 pm | delete
    Love it! I'm newly retired to, or I should say my husband is retired. He fired my boss and now we live on the road in an RV. I started out just writing, mostly for Squidoo, but I've been hit with the Zazzle bug. I love your Flaming Cat design. Visualizing prosperity for both of us form our on-line pursuits.
  • artbyrodriguez Feb 21, 2012 @ 9:51 am | delete
    I connect with you on a few levels, including my husband and the computer. He uses it, but likes repairing them more! Fun lens. Keep expanding!
  • victoriuh Jan 6, 2012 @ 1:46 pm | delete
    Eat lots of chocolate! Oh wait, that is advice for me. Do what makes you the most happy while also making you the money you need. Seek balance.
  • Luv2help Nov 27, 2011 @ 1:34 pm | delete
    I need to look into Zazzle; it sounds promising and I have the time. I think you'll do well with your knowledge! SMILES! ~Wendy
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My Squidoo journey continues.

It keeps getting better too!

My Best Lenses

And some milestones at Squidoo for me

My first lens that was blessed by a Squid Angel was just days after I joined Squidoo. I started on 8/21/11 and my 1st blessing was on 9/2/11 on my lens Flamin Cat Designs On Zazzle.





I was thrilled and encouraged and got a lot of great comments. There was so much to learn and it was confusing at times as to what would make a lens a quality lens.

My first Purple Star Award was on 12/27/2011 on my lens Butter Cookies From My Mother.




This was really exciting for me and to top it off, it got picked to be in the top 100 of lenses from 2011!! I am really surprised and proud of my lens being nominated. Here was the voting page on Squidoo HQ where you will see my butter cookies graphic for my lens where people could read and then vote for it: Vote For The Community Favorite Lenses of 2011.

In January of 2012 , I was invited to join the Rocket Squids. It was a fun group of beginning lensmasters that had less than 25 lenses to learn about how to make a quality lens. The first week of Rocket Squids ended during the first week of February. It was nice to meet other beginning lensmasters and learn a lot of great tips. The problem with me was I was already at 23 featured lenses so I could not participate very long and I graduated from Rocket Squids on 3/23/12 when I published lens 25.


Photo Credit Squidoo from my trophy page



On 3/25/12, my first feature on the Squidoo front page started! Wow this was fun to watch. So many visits and comments, I couldn't keep up on it. My featured lens was Bengal And Savannah Cats Are Not For Everyone




This lens normally gets about 1 or 2 lensmaster visits a week. It started on the front page with a lens rank 14,840 and it was my best performing lens. After 3 days of visits averaging about 80 a day, the lens rank shot to 1,565. I was shocked and excited. On 3/29/12 the lens rank was 1073, and on Friday, 3/30/12 the lens rank was a whopping 680!! Well it wasn't done, by Sunday it had changed again to 370 and by Monday morning, 4/2/12 the lens rank was 258!! It was also ranked No. 9 in the Pets and Animals category on Squidoo and was listed in the Top Performers, Best of Pets and Animals column on the category page.
Here are a few other stats for this lens:
Visits this period: 501 visits Pageviews this period: 607 pageviews Pages/visit: 1.21 Lifetime visits: 1,106
On 3/21/12 my lens also made my 1st ever Amazon sale. It was a small sale for Da Bird Super Pack Cat toy, but a sale that I appreciate.

I'm not looking forward to this lens going down in rank after the feature, but it has been quite a learning experience. Now my hopes are for another lens to get featured. But I am really happy that this lens was picked because my cats are so important in my life.

What is your best performing lens?

Or a lens that you made and you love!

1

Vote Up
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Strange Christmas Tree Decorations

My fun lens about strange Christmas Tree Decoratio more...0 points

2

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Writing Triggers for Family Memories

Your memories of childhood may have receded, but w more...0 points

What fun experience have you had with lenses?

Please do not leave lens links here, but you can mention the lens title and I will post your comment after approval. Thank you.

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Blessed by Squid Angel

My Thank You and Appreciation

LisaAuch, on Sept 30, 2011

LisaAuch

Katiecolette, on Oct 4, 2011

Katiecolette

Kingsrookie, on Oct 23, 2011

Kingsrookie

by

FlaminCatDesigns

I am a big cat lover, of course that translates to crazy cat lady for many people. I have a great family and one of our family activities have been offroading.... more »

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Adobe Illustrator Software 

Adobe Illustrator CS5 [Old Version]

Adobe Illustrator CS5 [Old Version]

Amazon Price: $558.00 (as of 06/03/2012)Buy Now

I have used a much older version of Adobe Illustrator, version 10. It was a very powerful program and the new version is another rock solid program. Adobe Illustrator has been an industry leader since it was first release. I have my sights on getting my hands on this program soon. I like making designs for my Zazzle and Cafe Press shops. This program will do everything I need.

Here are some samples of my Zazzle designs: 

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