Episode 27 Two Ways You Can Be Supported in What You Do

August 18, 2021 by Carina Gardner

Carina begins today’s episode of Make + Design by telling us about Ink Club, which launched originally on October 1, 2021. Ink Club is for every creative so that you, as a creative, can find community.

The announcement about Ink Club fits today’s podcast topic, which is all about community and, specifically, two ways that having a community can help you feel supported in what you’re doing.

The first way to find support is to join a community like a club, a mastermind, or a membership group. Carina gives us a great example of a community that didn’t work and how starting a community that didn’t work taught her about the kinds of things that a community needs to offer in order to serve its members. To find a community, Carina recommends searching the web for your hobby/interest and the word “community.” Community can help you feel loved, trusted, and supported.

The second way to find community in your life is to build it yourself. With apps like Facebook, Clubhouse, and Instagram Rooms, there are many great ways to build a community.

Finding a great community can help you to level up by giving you a new set of “the five people you spend the most time with.”

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Access to Carina’s Ink Club membership can be found at https://www.carinagardnercourses.com/inkclub.

Carina’s Instagram fabric feed can be found at @carinagardner.
Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY
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**About Carina Gardner:**
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 24 What is Holding You Back

August 11, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina analyzes the kinds of things that can hold us back. It is very natural for us to hold on to things that hold us back.

First, are we able to identify what’s holding us back? Second, can we identify why that thing holds us back? Carina runs us through the categories of excuses and mental blocks that can hold us back.

One of them is limiting beliefs. Based on past experience and incorrect assumptions, we can create beliefs that keep us back from achieving. Ask yourself what kinds of limiting beliefs do you have? In the midst of this analysis, Carina debunks the old belief that “you should only post on Instagram on Fridays.”

Another thing that can hold us back, Carina tells us, is comparison. We can achieve much more when we stop comparing ourselves to others. One way to avoid comparison is to learn to celebrate the successes of those around us. If we’re celebrating, we’re too busy to feel bad about a negative comparison.

The last category of things that hold us back is timing. Sometimes we can be our own best salesperson and talk ourselves into something that isn’t the correct next step. Timing is very important!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 23 The One Word That Will Transform Your Daily Life

August 9, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina tells us about the one little word that will change your life. The word is ACTION. Carina tells us how taking action helps her gain clarity, get unstuck, and build momentum when it comes to starting (or completing!) a project.

Carina also walks us through some of the ways that she takes action to propel her forward. The first way she likes to take action is step-by-step action, meaning that she visualizes each step along the way to complete a project. The second kind of action Carina takes is strategic action. Strategic action starts with visualizing the end goal and then being very mindful about prioritizing the tasks that will lead to it.

As an example on how to take ACTION, Carina walks through the step-by-step process of becoming a designer. She gives three or four examples of what a good first step looks like and then talks through what would come next. The important thing is to TAKE ACTION and commit to that action. She also walks us through a non-design example: planning a typical summer day with kids in the house.

Listen in to hear the biggest way that taking ACTION will transform your daily life.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY
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**About Carina Gardner:**
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 20 What Those Negative Thoughts Are Doing to Your Creativity

August 2, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina takes a look at negative thoughts and negative self talk. In a world where we’re constantly trying to dial our creativity up, freeing ourselves from negative thoughts and self talk can lift a huge burden. Carina talks about the difference between people who get over negativity by diving into a work project and people who are immobilized by negative thoughts.

Carina tends to bulldoze through negative thoughts and knows that her work isn’t as good if she doesn’t first clear out the negative thoughts before creating. She shares some of her healing journey from post-traumatic stress disorder and how therapy helped her to overcome the negativity that had constantly plagued her when she was younger. Carina also shares her tips for dealing with people in our lives who might be negative or say negative things to us. She also talks about the positive things that come from surrounding yourself with positive people who encourage you to reach your potential. Another source of negative thoughts for Carina comes when she has a lack of clarity. Reaching decisions quickly has been a great way for her to overcome negativity. In cases where she makes the wrong decision, she talks about what can be lost as the result of a bad decision and how the learning that comes from mistakes can make the mistake less of a total disaster than it might have been.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 15 We Are What We Do

July 21, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina tells the story of how she trained for her first half-marathon. Adding the consistency and focus of training for a half-marathon shifted her identity from “someone who runs sometimes” to “runner.”

You’ve heard the phrase “you are what you eat,” but what about the phrase “you are what you do.” I

When you do something every day, slowly and surely you begin to identify as a person who does that thing. Listen in to hear how this mindset can help you overcome imposter syndrome or feeling like you’re not good enough. The mindset shift that comes from changing our daily patterns results in real confidence.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 13 The 3 Best Ways to Level Up Your Designing

July 16, 2021 by Carina Gardner

Today’s Make and Design features three HUGE tips for taking your design work to the next level. Find out how Tip #1 helped Carina to create residual design income so that she is free to focus on bigger projects.

In Tip #2, Carina goes through various ways you might use to find a design mentor. Finally, in Tip #3, we learn how to use our existing work as a gauge for improving and leveling up.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 12 Our Philosophy for Getting Started with Social Media with My Sister Kim Friedmann

July 14, 2021 by Carina Gardner

Carina’s sister and Etsy guru SuiKim Friedmann joins the Make and Design Podcast today to discuss how to get started with social media. Carina starts by telling a “from the mouth of babes” story about advice her husband once received from a seven-year-old that applies perfectly to social media.

Kim and Carina discuss the pros and cons of various social media platforms and give advice on the factors that will help you choose which platform is best for you. Are you looking for community or a place to easily share information? Find out what will work and what may not when it comes to social!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY
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**About Carina Gardner:**
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcam

About Today’s Guest

SuiKim Friedmann is an Etsy guru, coach, and blogger who shares her wisdom on how to build a dynamite Etsy shop at www.suikim.com and on Instagram at suikimfriedmann. Please note that Kim’s website has changed since this episode was originally recorded!

Episode 11 What 3 Questions You Should Be Asking Yourself Every day

July 12, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina explores the three questions that we should ask ourselves as designers every single day. She shares valuable insights into how she approaches a huge list of things to do and uses these three questions to give priority to the most important projects.

Everyday there is so much work to do and prioritizing can be difficult. Here are three questions you can

Question number one has to do with whether a project makes sense financially. Question number two has to do with efficiency. Question number three is about how to compete in the overall marketplace. Tune it to find out what the three questions are exactly! Carina finishes up by running through several scenarios where she applies the three questions to give examples of why these questions are so vital. Sometimes a “yes” on just one of these questions makes it worth doing! A “no” on all three of these questions is a good indication that the project isn’t worth the effort.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 9 Books That Helped Me Save Time

July 8, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina shares some of the books that she’s read over the last year or so that have been tremendously helpful to her. These are some books that helped her change her mind about time.

“168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think” by Laura Vanderkam. Listen in to find out how this book gave Carina a sense that she has more time than she thought.

“When” by Daniel H. Pink. Find out why this book gave Carina permission to take naps when she needs them.

“Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker. The most academic book on this list. Carina now sleeps for eight to nine hours per night religiously as a result of reading this book. Also, find out how this book changed Carina’s parenting style.

“The ONE Thing” by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan. Get insight into how this book taught Carina to block off big chunks of time and how that has helped her.

That’s the list!

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY

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About Carina Gardner:

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 6 Are You Using Your Planning Season Wisely

July 8, 2021 by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make and Design Podcast, Carina comments on the seasonal ebbs and flows when it comes to revenue in the design industry. She gives some tips on how to set up your annual calendar as a designer and how to get the most out of your planning season (hint: it’s great to give yourself a “planning season” during a time of year when you’re less busy with other work). Listen in for more keys to using the powers of intention and planning to maximize your potential as a designer and to avoid the pitfalls and loss of productivity that comes when plans aren’t as thought out.