...on the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

FREE STUFF!

We love gorgeous artwork and pretty things, and we know you do too! Even better, we love it when they're free.

Newsletter subscribers of Design House Prep School will receive some digital pretties such as printables and wallpaper backgrounds for their smartphones a few times throughout our holiday celebration. 

Today, we are celebrating with loose watercolor florals in a holiday laurel arrangement! So check your inboxes and get downloading!

Giveaway of Awesome

Every day of the year, but ESPECIALLY on the holidays, we are so thankful for all of our awesome friends and followers.
In order to give back to everyone in the community, we are running a giveaway contest offering a chance to win one of three awesome prizes! 

The giveaway will run until 11:59 PM EST on December 24th, after which we will choose three winners at random to win one prize each! 

More details for Prize #1 below!

MENTORING SESSION

In addition to the online courses for creative business owners at Design House Prep School, we also love the chance to deep dive into the struggles and goals of creative business owners on a one-on-one basis. Every one of our businesses is just as unique as we are, and getting to know your specific strengths and background can really change the advice we can offer. To that end, Victoria loves to offer mentoring sessions to business owners as our schedule allows. 

One lucky winner of our 12 days of Prep School giveaway will get the chance to sit down with Victoria over the phone or on Skype for 45 minutes, one-on-one, and ask whatever questions they want about their business, really getting a chance to get personalized help on the issues they are facing. 

The winner will be contacted to organize a session in Jan 2018. Can't wait to work with you!

DHPS 12 Days - Giveaway

...on the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

15% off

any class course from SEMESTER I of Design House Prep School, including Class Passes!

If you haven't joined us for DHPS yet, it's an online business school and community focusing on running a profitable creative business.  Courses topics included are Time Management, Establishing Your Creative Process, Finding and Exploring Your Passions and many more.  We also have several creative courses each semester to expose students to new techniques to either further their work or introduce something new.  We're all about recognizing the unique struggles that creative business owners face and approach them in a direct and honest way.  

Courses are always available to view and do not expire.  All students also have access to our private Facebook group, bonus content and live Q&A sessions with Victoria and Karen.

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Simply enter the code "FIRSTDAYOFCHRISTMAS" at checkout for any of the Semester I classes TODAY and receive 15% off your order. First semester courses are:

- Pricing for Creative Businesses I
- Establishing Your Creative Process
- Finding & Exploring Your Passion
- Sketching for Creative Businesses
- Watercolor I
- Marbling
-No Such Thing As a Bad Client

or even better,
- 2016 Semester Class Pass
(for all six classes at an additional 25% discount!)

Any of the courses above are eligible for this holiday discount, and with the way we structured Design House Prep School, these courses provide many of the foundations on which we build our creative businesses in subsequent semesters! 

Click through to check out the courses available and make a purchase!
The "FIRSTDAYOFCHRISTMAS" code is valid only until 11:55pm EST on Dec 16, 2017.

This year for the holiday season (our favorite time of year!!), we're doing the twelve days of Christmas with some goodies from Design House Prep School (yay!!)! 

We have all sorts of goodies lined up for you guys, so make sure you're on our mailing list (just enter your info at the very bottom of this page, or go here!) to receive the full lineup! Students who are already enrolled will get access to all twelve days of awesomeness automatically.

Goodies could include printables, artwork files, giveaways or even some awesome coupon codes!  The 12 Days of Prep School begins December 13th. Look out for us in your inbox soon :)

xoxo, DHPS Team & Menagerie

Sometimes there just isn't enough to go around...

When we feel like there isn't enough work to go around, we end up jumping on any and everything that comes our way.  We live with the feeling that we just don't know when or how or from where our next job is coming from, so we better take what we can get while we can get it.  It doesn't matter if the work isn't what we want to be doing, isn't our style or our ideal budget, we still have to take it.  

So we take it all.  We're overwhelmed, our dream job is making us miserable, we're working insane hours (night and weekends included), we're anxious, we're working with terrible clients, we have no idea why we decided to take on this crazy idea of owning a business.  

...and the worst part?  We're still not really making any money. 

Most creative business owners answer the same...we just have to take on more clients and work more hours. 

 

...short term

When living with scarcity mentality, we focus only on the short term and what we think is available right this very second without any thought to how it will affect us in the long run.

...ignore the long term options

It's extremely difficult to plan for the long term when our short term scarcity mentality has us scrounging for every little penny every day and unable to focus on the long game.

...jealousy and sadness

When we are struggling so hard to make ends meet and dread getting up every day, we end up becoming envious of others around us who seem to be experiencing successes and happiness. The comparison to our own lives breeds sadness and jealousy. 

So how do we overcome living like this??

- We can start by defining the work we want to be doing and why.

- Taking a good look at our target market and making sure our aesthetic and work has a market to sell to

- Building a brand that stands for our aesthetic and price point

- Market to your target market

- Building strong industry relationships
 
- Define your ideal client and seeking only to work with them

- Learn to say no

- Learn to set boundaries

We go into detail in our Pricing for Creatives I course if you're interested in learning more! 

we're so excited!!!!

Our third semester of courses begins this evening!  If you didn't get signed up during our pre-registration, don't fret!  You will be able to register for any of the courses throughout the semester.  However, remember that we have some amazing homework designed to push us creatively and as business owners that we review together during the first two months, so get registered soon!

We're doing a GIVEAWAY!!  

Once you've registered for classes with Prep School, make sure to post your "I'm Attending" badge and use our #designhouseprepschool hashtag!  Post between September 1 - September 14th for a chance to win a styling kit from Prep School, including gorgeous paper types, ribbon, postage, and some surprise goodies! 

We're so excited to open up registration for Semester III courses!  

We also have our past two semesters available for registration so you can get started from the beginning!

use coupon code 'early20' for 20% off all courses, including the class passes!

we'll only be offering the 20% off through September 4th, don't miss out!!

Learning how to say NO to potential business, clients, family, friends and even yourself will help you build a stronger and more successful creative business.

This course is a great companion to the Creative Process, Branding and Pricing courses in knowing who you are as a business owner, where you're going, and how to get there.

Saying no to potential work and clients seems like a backwards way to grow your business, we know! But in this course we'll get into how valuable it truly is and how to use it in your favor to better target your ideal clients, create more time in your work day, only get the work you want, and stay sane through all of it.

We will also explore the delicate and necessary art of "spin" aka the best ways to say no.

This course is a great companion to the Creative Process, Branding and Pricing courses in knowing who you are as a business owner, where you're going, and how to get there. 

Saying no to potential work and clients seems like a backwards way to grow your business, we know!  But in this course, we'll get into how valuable it truly is and how to use it in your favor to better target your ideal clients, create more time in your work day, only get the work you want, and stay sane through all of it.

We will also explore the delicate and necessary art of "spin" aka the best ways to say no.

We start every semester with 20% off for early registration!

Get 20% ALL courses, including class passes, from Friday, September 1 - Monday, September 4

Use coupon code 'EARLY20'

We only offer 20% off once a semester, so don't miss out!

Registration opens FRIDAY!!!!