Writing, for most of us, is normally a solitary occupation. We retire into our garret – or basement office under the stairs – and block out the world to produce words and worlds. Writing involves many skills and talents: one of them that doesn’t usually show up in the mix is salesmanship. I won’t say […]
(In Teresa Peschel’s “Fed, Safe, and Sheltered,” she talks about the best ways to efficiently heat and cool your house. In this essay, she has more advice on the best way to use vents and other openings to make your home comfortable.) When you want to vent out your house, ensuring a complete air exchange […]
I love ceiling fans. They let me move air around quietly with a minimum of dust. They don’t get in the way since they’re attached to the ceiling rather than taking up precious floor or counter-top space. They don’t have to be stored during the off-season, taking up valuable space. They don’t have to be […]
In the long term, you can manipulate the temperature of your home’s interior by adding insulation, weather-stripping, planting trees, reroofing with white shingles, adding glass to let in sun, and installing wood-burning stoves. Doing these things will let you better keep the heat outside or inside (depending on the season) so you and your family […]
A solar tube is an odd thing to see in the wild. A skylight is obvious: it’s a big, glass-dome-topped hole in your roof that lets the sun shine in without letting in the rest of the great outdoors. Skylights tend to be large; several square feet or more. All that glass means a whole […]
If you’re making cloth grocery bags to sell, you need to know your grocery bag competitors. Why should a customer fork over $10 for a cloth bag? You have to be able to make a case for your superior, reusable, locally made in the U.S., cloth, lead-free bags. At the head of the pack of […]
This is the third and final post on how Peschel Press handles selling at art shows, craft fairs, and book festivals. The series starts here then moves on to this post. Be prepared to spend the entire day. It can be exhausting, so be ready for that too, with coffee, aspirin, throat lozenges, sunscreen, snackies, […]
Last week we launched the first post in a three-part series on selling handmade crafts. Although it describes how we sell our books and cloth grocery bags, the best practices are applicable to anything you want to sell. Rehearse the Set-Up and Break-down Be organized. This means packing your car so you take out you […]
I came up with the idea to sew and sell cloth grocery bags because we at Peschel Press wanted a space at the Hershey Winter Arts show (first Saturday in November at the high school if you’re interested in coming out and meeting us). Although we write and self-publish our books (thanks to the miracle […]
I taught myself how to sew grocery bags in quantity. I know there are plenty of things that I have missed or don’t understand. There isn’t much information out there about sewing the same thing over and over, especially for the home seamstress. Patterns assume you’ll only make one item and only one at a […]