This behind the scenes post is - of course - absolutely outdated but I couldn't convince myself to trash it because it contains all the beautiful things which happened here. So maybe you want to have a look how Digidesignresort was in 2011 when it still was a digital scrapbooking site.
I guess most of you know already that on June, 30th 2011 I had my last day as a private lesson teacher. I closed my private lessons agency to work fully online on my websites. But I'm not alone. In October 2010 my mum decided that she would also be a computer addict and so we simply jumped on the boat together to work on our own. For me, it was a huge step but more than necessary because since I was working as a teacher I wanted to work online ;-).
It was definitely unexpected to do it with my mum but with lots of painful hours of training and grey hair (as she says ;-)) we finally got to a point where she knows a lot of things I have to do on a daily routine. So finally we rented her a new home with a bigger office and lots of storage room, bought some furniture, and never looked back!
Working at home (more or less at home) isn't always easy. We need a lot of discipline to do so and we often need to motivate each other. On the other hand this is our job so I get up at 6 am (mom most probably earlier, she is living downstairs), get myself ready and finally start working at 7.30 am. Yes, every morning. Sometimes life comes in between but then I will work on the weekends as well or in the evening to be able to do all my work.
Still, working at home, on my own, with mum is a huge pleasure for me - I couldn't think of anything else I'd like to do more. Here are some impressions from our office, Mum pulling her hair out 😉
Beside the discipline we need we have a lot of FUN together! There were a lot of things we had to organize - a plan for each of us to do every week as well as a yearly plan.
We do not just work at the Digidesignresort.com site - we also work on several other german and english sites - if you want to have a look check out MaxiandFriends.com (a german site), Scrapideen.com (the german pendant to Digidesignresort), Webbusinesstoolbox.com (about social media and Internet marketing) and TheMacMania.com (free tutorials for all Mac Lovers). As you can see - we are busy adding fresh and exciting new content daily. Beside that - Digidesignresort is our main site and our baby we love from the bottom of the heart. It will always be the first site we care for as it was the first site we created. Beside that Digidesignresort made things possible I never thought would happen - for example I was able to meet friends far far away I just found because of the site. My husband and I did not just visit Maren (Dreamcatcher Designs) who is "just" 700 km away on the Baltic Sea here in Germany but also Nayyan (from Nayyan Design Studio) in California and Nayyan also came here to visit us. The latest "highlight" was Carena's visit here (Carena's Designs). I hope she agrees when I say that we had a fantastic time and enjoyed being together a LOT. We even discovered some interesting things about Germans and New Zealanders we haven't thought of ;-). Here you can see us visiting "Sea Life" in Oberhausen on her first day here in Germany. As you can see we were a bit surprised about the photo that was taken. Still, Carena got it for us as a nice memory and that it is - as we do not have many pictures where we are on all together because Caitlyn wasn't the happiest being on a photo 😉 From right to left you see Carena, her little daughter, my husband and me.
What we got accomplished during the rest of 2011
With lots of hassle, time, and nerves I finally rebuild the Safari Lounge Designer Classes you can now access much easier and also the signup is much easier to handle. We also backed up all our Collaboration Kits on DVDs, each with a special label. We sorted all files, quality checked them and renamed them so the downloads and DVDs are much easier for you to handle. Beside that we were also able to add great content here on the blog - many more tutorials and more are to come!
Finally we expanded the Artist Studio DVDs. Now we do not "just" have the Artist Studio DVDs for beginners with great tutorials but also for our designer members with a fantastic amount of videos, commecial use elements, papers and all commercial use grab bags from 2011. You can check out our Artist Studio Designer DVD.
Plans for 2012
At the time of writing this (January 2012) we are preparing for the Creativa (a HUGE fair here in Germany which takes place once per year) and also exciting new products. There is and will be a lot you can expect from Digidesignresort - not just beautiful, high quality products but also great tutorials, help for beginners, a page with recommended resources and so much more!
As you can see we are still working "just" on our MacBooks and waiting for the new Cinema Displays to arrive. I already have one in my office upstairs but I really can't convince myself to bring it downstairs as I LOVE working on the huge display. Here you can have a look at our organization board - we created a magnetic board with a calendar on it to get everything sorted. Believe it or not - it helped a LOT to stay on track 🙂
I bet there is a lot we forgot to add and I already have some more ideas for the coming year. It will be a good one for sure, with lots of fun! Please feel free to contact us if you have any ideas, problems or suggestions - but don't forget to check out our FAQ section before.
But that's not all - I just showed you what is going on behind the scenes. On the website itself we have a fantastic team and little online family working together. I wouldn't know what to do without Carena, Janet, Monica, our designers, our Beachbabes (YEPP, ALL of them), my friends all around the site - I couldn't handle the work (and the fun ;-)) Digidesignresort is so much more than a website - it's a little community with so many awesome people, I can even say a little family being together to join the fun ways of being creative!
Join the Library
It's FREE!
Inside the Library you can find lots of Printables, SVG files, Patterns, Templates and Material for my video tutorials! It's well worth to join. Try it, it's free.
Oh wow! I love this, Monja. You mom looks so stressed out lol She is doing a wonderful job. Miss you and Stephan very much. Hope to see you next year ? LOVE LOVE LOVE this site!
YES, YES, YES 😀