FIRST LIGHT ACADEMY

I am so excited to tell you that in January 2026, I’ll be opening the First Light Academy. I’ve placed the logo above so that you will recognise academy posts. It’s for anyone who wants to start their own business. Not just for crafting, but any business. I’ve almost finished writing my signature programme and I’ll be keeping the pricing reasonable. You’ll get value and all of the tips for advertising and promoting your business, I’ll be teaching the technology and keywords to get your business noticed, plus so much more. This will be taught in five modules all lasting four weeks each. The final module is called fly high, and here I’ll show you how to stand out from the crowd and put your business head and shoulders above the rest.

This was just going to be craft related originally, but I’ve had so many others asking if they can be included, that I’ve adapted the programme so that it suits all businesses whether they are product or service based. I’ll also be adding an extra bonus offer to anyone who signs up and pays for the course by the end of December 2025. So if this is something you are interested in, please email me at dawnscanlon1@icloud.com and I’ll tell you what you need to do to sign up. The programme will be held inside a private but visible Facebook group, which will be a safe space to learn and share together.

If you are a product based business and are looking or will be looking to expand your business, you could add a service. For example, if you make and sell greeting cards in your business, you could add a wedding invitation service to your customers. This is easy to do and you don’t need any special equipment. Circle dies can be used cut from gold mirror car and made into linked wedding rings for your image, as in the photo above.

If you are a service based business and wish to expand, you could add other subjects or services to your range or maybe add a mentoring service. Inside of the academy, we go deeper into these subjects so that your business stands out and gets in front of the people who are looking for what you are offering.

I’m excited to tell you that in the new year, I am going to be expanding the range of toys that I make and sell in my business. We already have the transformer toys, and they are still very popular. But these glove puppets will be added, along with the knitting pattern so that customers have the option of buying the puppet or the knitting pattern, or even both, if they wish. The first puppet is a cat, and that was a request from one of my regular customers. Designing the pattern was fun, and there will be others coming in the new year. Other requests have been for a dog and a rabbit. For the pattern, I’ll add in the extra features for the different animals as I design them. 🌅

Hi everyone. I’m so excited to share with you my very first programme that is designed exclusively for any crafter who wants to turn their passion into a business. In this post, I’m going to share the introduction to the programme to give you a little taster of what’s to come. I’ll also add some graphics that I’ve designed to illustrate the aims of this journey.

Introduction – In this programme, you will learn everything you need to know about starting and running your own amazing craft business. Whether you do paper crafting, sewing, any other needlework, jewellery making or any type of craft that you enjoy, this programme will help you to turn your hobby into a thriving business. You’ll learn how to create a space to work, pricing your items realistically to advertising and promoting your business so that your potential customers know you are there. You’ll learn how NOT to be the world’s best kept secret.

I’ll show you that you don’t have to have everything all figured out before you start. Every business starts with a few ideas of what the owner wants to achieve. In your case, it’s selling your amazing products and/or teaching craft classes.

Starting a business from scratch is a bit like building a snowman. That pile of snow beneath your feet is a collection of your as yet undeveloped ideas of what you want to make and sell. You take a handful of that snow and form it into a snowball.

It’s not perfect, but it’s done. This first snowball represents the first few products that you want to make.

TIP – make the things that you love to make and they will be of good quality. Then you move on to pricing and marketing your items. You’ll learn put other bits and pieces into place such as your preferred social media platforms, business Facebook page, maybe a website, etc.

Now you’ve added a few more snowballs and your snowman is starting to look like something. This is how your business will look once you’ve got other elements in place. We’ll go through all of this and more in the programme.

Once you’ve got the basics in place, you’re ready to start your crafting business. It might not be perfect, but it’s enough to get you started. Remember! DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECT.

If this sounds like a good plan to you, come and join me inside the academy and let’s start building that crafting business you’ve been dreaming of about.

Hi. Today we are going to chat about branding our business. We all know that branding includes your logo, brand colours and patterns and your colour of tissue paper for your bags and boxes etc, but branding goes deeper than that. Yes colours and your logo are importing, as they identify your business. But as well as that, YOU are your brand. Your energy and enthusiasm as you promote your products and services all help to identify your business. Maybe you wear clothing in your brand colours when you are working. As you know, my brand colour is orange, and I always wear something that’s orange. You could cover the cupboard doors and drawers in your workroom or studio with your brand colours. You are the energy of your business, so keep it upbeat and enthusiastic. If customers see a bright and confident person at the helm of a product launch, they will feel that positive energy and be more likely to buy from you. So be your brand, and be bold.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll be showing you how you can extend your brand and your physical and professional presence with the use of your business cards, and other business stationery. So I’ll catch up with you then. 🌅

Following on from yesterday’s post, I’d like to share with you a way to extend how you can amplify your brand. Having business stationery is essential both on and offline. It gives you a recognisable presence and identity. A good tip is to print the name of your business in your principle brand colour and always have your logo on every type of business stationery that you use. Business cards are a great asset to any business as you can hand anyone a card who asks you what you do for a living. Just make sure your business name and logo are on your business cards, as well as your contact details. If you have a website, you could add a QR code to your business cards which takes them straight to your site. All of this is taught inside of the academy, so if you are interested in learning how to amplify your brand this way, please leave me a comment, and I’ll give you details of how you can sign up. Have fun with amplifying your brand. 🌅