Instagram for Creatives - Creative Business Talks with Leah Deighton

Last year I met the most wonderful person, who has become a dear friend and inspiring creative connection. Jo Olive and I have joined our combined talents together to form Creative Business Talks.

Our aim is to bring guest speakers who have skills, experience and a beautiful personality to share with you their knowledge and journey. Being a creative and running your own business is often hard and feels like you're all alone; the reality is that our region has the biggest percentage of creatives outside of a major city in Australia. There are lots of us here, in our studios and workspaces. Creative Business Talks will bring us together, with a combined sense of sharing our skills and our love of being small business creatives. Please read more about us over here.

Our first talk to kick off the new direction is something that we believe every small business and creative maker should be an active part of. Instagram is one of the most powerful of social media forums available for us. Since it's inception in October 2010, Instagram has rivaled Facebook so much that they bought the company to stop any competition! The Creative Business Talks team use Instagram daily, to promote their own small business as well as connect with like-minded makers.

Our guest is the beautifully humble Leah Deighton, who runs the curated online store Sang the Bird, filled with handcrafted goodness. Leah's Instagram images share her heartfelt days with the world, and allow her to live her life in the forest while maintaining her website and being a full time mama. Through her Instagram feed, Leah has been featured on the Times daily blog and in print media Flow Magazine, as well as other online features.

Our talk will take you through the basics of Instagram, including beginners how to, Leah's favourite apps to use, her journey and how Instagram has changed Leah's daily outlook on life, as well as made connections world wide. We have personally seen the benefits of Instagram for small business owners, in the creative realm, from direct sales and customer contact through to media and other promotion.

Instagram for Creative Business Talk - Thursday 19th September, 2013. 6.30-9pm. Held at the Tweed River Art Gallery workshop space. $40 per ticket. Includes tea, coffee, nibbles and take home notes as well as the chance to have fun with our little Instagram photo booth session! Bookings available here.

*all images are from Leah's Instagram feed. Please please go and have a look, and check out here blog too.

connected / connections

I am loving and soaking up everything that's happening for my path right now. Letting things evolve and happen and trying really hard to not put emotional energy into bad things, or invest too much into the outcome. It's about the journey. 

And about the daily connections. 

Yesterday really brought it home for me. I spent the morning taking photos with my Hey Maker girls, and chatting about mothering, daughters, child changes. Laughing and sharing mothering help, advice, comfort, and cups of tea and simple avocado on rice thins. 

Then I went for a coffee and yummy lunch wrap in town. All on my own, with my new book (more about that later - so delicious). I barely got to open my book. Moments after my coffee arrived, my neighbour / friend walked in the door. She sat and had her lunch and coffee with me - normally we chat at the bus stop, or school gate, and run off again. 

Then a short time later another up-the-road neighbour (who also happens to be the kids' modern dance teacher, and lives in a converted church) and her friend walked in for coffee. During that chat I discovered that her friend is actually the mum of one of Ari's school friends. The friend he's been asking to visit for the past year; and I've been saying I don't know his parents. 

And then, you wouldn't guess it, but my friend Jo walked in to buy some ground coffee. And while I'd only seen Jo at our Hey Maker meeting hours before, we still had lots to talk about. 

I know I live in a small town, but it's not that small. I guess when you hang out at the best coffee shop in town, where the hostess knows everyone's name (except that group of people who had just climbed Mount Warning, but we know their names now).

How good to have that nice warm coffee shop connection. I walked away afterwards with tears pricking at my eyes - for the good, solid, warm feeling of the connections that have been made since moving back 'home'. It made me think of my mum; and how we couldn't walk down the street without her stopping to endlessly chat to another person who she knew, who she connected with.

*I heard an interesting program on the radio on Sunday, about the i-Disorder: the psychology of technology. And I wonder if it's true, perhaps to some extent; but I think I feel good and real connections with people who I've "met" online as well.

*I love that these flowers, which were on the table at Modern Grocer coffee shop/deli yesterday, were brought in by a customer. Just another reason why living in a small, local, lovey town is a wonderful thing!

hey maker!

So, in my *spare time* lately I've been meeting with some really wonderful, creative, inspiring, energy-uplifting women. We've been talking all manner of good things. 

I could draw this out, you know I'm good at that! Instead, I'm going to jump in and give you the facts. 

We've started a fun, important, lots-of-great-future-ideas creative collective called Hey Maker! My making cohorts are Belinda Smith, Jo Olive & Kathy Egan. Between our own individual businesses, babies, gaggles of small children, and general life we've chatted out some excellent ideas and aims for our little collective. We're gonna be big!

We first got together in response to our town needing a big injection to boost the economy. Sadly there are many empty shops in our small town, and lots of people do not shop local (boo to them!). We live in a beautiful town, in a stunning part of the world. Unfortunately there isn't much respect for the artists and creatives who live here - it feels a little like a hidden resource; despite having one of the top regional galleries in Australia, right in our town!

Our first event is to be a fun, and hopefully messy, pop up gathering. We'll be hosting Potato Print Pop Up in a great space that once upon a time was a laundromat and is now a funky landscape architecture's office.

If you're interested to know more, or even to get involved, check out the Hey Maker! Creative Collective blog or facebook page. We'll be adding more info over the coming weeks. This is a fun, yet important project. We plan on renewing Murwillumbah, just like many towns across Australia have had to renew. If you live nearby come along and help out - have some fun, add to our art installation, and show our town we care!

Check out this lovely little piece in the local news. We've been media famous this week!

**sorry the images are a bit fuzzy; I've had to make them smaller resolution, just so my stupid live internet can upload. For some reason Telstra thinks we're in the middle of no-where and hence gives bad internet coverage.