This weeks goals include creating a couple of custom GPT assistants for my businesses. I started a character based customer service bot for my fantasy shop last year and I'm finalizing that and getting it ready to launch publically for 2026. One of the things I need to finish programming it is product spec sheets... So I'm also going to build a custom GPT assistant that can create the product spec sheets for me.

Does daily posting on social media really matter? When I tried to post every day, I burned out, got bored, or forgot altogether. Over time I've found consistent does not have to mean daily... What helped wasn’t more discipline, it was reducing friction. Using tools like schedulers, prepping seasonal posts ahead of time, and leaning into formats I could repeat without overthinking. The more I leaned into my brand and my tools the easier it became to identify content and get it online. I'm still no where close to where I want to be... Some of what I post now is messy; sewing time-lapses, a toddler in a gnome hat, cluttered craft rooms, stretched out pajamas that I wore through two pregnancies. I’m a little embarrassed by it, but it’s real, and showing up is what is going to give me the means to fix those things. That’s been my experience. It's never perfect, hardly polished, and only gets good after building the foundation even if that means messy buns, and old maternity clothes for all the world to see... In Practice— Assignment Your turn (comment below): 1. Hard: What’s the biggest friction point keeping you from posting consistently? 2. Easier: What’s one change you’ve made that helped (time, expectations, format, etc.)? 3. Tools + workflow: Short answers are welcome. Bullet lists are perfect.

One of the things I think about a lot is that progress doesn’t always look like expansion. Sometimes it looks like closure. Right now, I’m in a deliberate deferred work realization phase — closing out projects that were already mostly complete, but set aside while life, priorities, and capacity shifted. One example from this week:I finished a children’s book that I wrote and illustrated years ago. It wasn’t tied to any current brand, shop, or monetization strategy. It didn’t move revenue or unlock a new funnel. It was simply unfinished work that mattered enough to deserve completion. From a Brand-Made lens, this matters because: - unfinished projects still carry cognitive and creative weight - closing loops frees capacity for better work later - not every finish needs to be “strategic” to be valuable This end-of-year window is often better used for execution and close-out, not new ideation. Turning near-finished work into finished assets is one of the cleanest ways to enter a new year with clarity instead of drag. Sharing this as a reminder:sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop starting — and finish.

Product photos should be clean, neutral, and uncluttered. I didn’t do that. I staged my gnome hats in the woods out back — dirt, moss, uneven light, branches in the frame. At the time, the shop wasn’t meant to be serious. It was a cosplay prop. Something that amused me. At the time, Etsy’s front page leaned heavily on user-made galleries. Fantasy artists curated what they enjoyed working with, and the woods made the images easier — and more fun — to place. So when hats started selling, I didn’t pivot to what I was “supposed” to do. I didn’t buy a backdrop. I didn’t clear a corner of my house. I didn’t re-shoot everything to look more legitimate. What I did pay attention to was light and composition. I made sure the photos were clear, well-lit, and intentional — even if the setting was messy. Part of it was stubbornness. Part of it was taste. Part of it was paying attention to the moment I was in. Clean photos make sense if the goal is flexibility and mass appeal. But my goal wasn’t flexibility — it was place. Those photos weren’t clean, but they were orienting. They told people where the hats belonged and who they were for. Looking back, if I’d cleaned it up too early, the shop might have grown faster — and burned out faster too. The aesthetic held the world in place long enough for other ideas to form. Gnome Scouts didn’t come from a white backdrop. Neither did toadstool toss. That’s been my experience. It wasn’t perfect or polished. It was specific. And it lasted long enough to become something else. Your turn (comment below): Hard: What’s one “best practice” you’ve ignored because it didn’t fit your work? Easier: What part of the advice did you keep — and why? Short answers are welcome. Bullet lists are perfect wasn’t perfect or polished. It was specific. And it lasted long enough to become something else. In Practice — Reflection Your turn (comment below): - Hard: What’s one “best practice” you’ve ignored because it didn’t fit your work? - Easier: What part of the advice did you keep — and why?

Hey, I’m Jaymie. I started my Etsy shop, Dragonswood, as a joke for a convention back in 2009. I made felt gnome hats, listed them online, and accidentally sold 200 of them in September/October. I honestly thought that was it. A fluke. A funny story I’d tell later. So I didn’t scale it. I didn’t optimize it. I didn’t “do marketing.” I just… kept the gnome hat stocked. And somehow, it kept selling at about the same rate for 15 years. The shop always had intentional vibes, but not intentional strategy. From the beginning, I ignored Etsy advice about sterile, white-background photos. I photographed everything in the forest because they were gnome hats — and it felt ridiculous to pretend otherwise. It wasn’t supposed to work anyway. It was just a hobby. Recently, I went on maternity leave and finally had the time to slow down and ask a question I’d been avoiding for years: Why is this working? That’s when I leaned in — not by stripping it down, but by giving it what it had always been hinting at. I added the whimsy it deserved, built the world I’d been quietly dreaming about, and got clear about the audience who had been finding it all along. I didn’t change the product. I shaped the story around it. After updating the shop (including SEO) in July, Dragonswood tripled its annual sales in four months. Customers didn’t just buy once — many came back two, three, sometimes four times in the same season. Reviews stopped focusing only on the hat and started talking about how magical it felt. That experience is why I’m here. Brand-Made is about designing brands people recognize and return to — even when they don’t follow the usual rules. We use tools, tactics, and formulas here — but always with intention. Always in service of the customer, not the algorithm. If you’ve ever built something that didn’t follow best practices but refused to disappear, you’re in the right place. ✨ Your turn — introduce yourself below.