051 Maximizing Your Creative Side Hustle: Tips for Balancing Artistic Expression and Financial Gain with Guest Ginger Barlow
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Do you want to strike the perfect balance between unleashing your creativity and generating income from your passion? Are you searching for a way to achieve that desired outcome? Look no further! My guest, Ginger Barlow, AKA my mom, reveals the key to finding harmony between your artistic expression and monetization, allowing you to reap the rewards of both your creativity and financial success.
Passionate quilt designer Ginger Barlow stitches together the art and science of quilting as she strives to balance creativity and monetization in her quest to inspire and teach others, navigating the challenge of finding her own niche in a saturated market.
In this episode, we discuss how to:
Turn your passion into a profitable creative side hustle.
Learn the secrets to balancing your artistic pursuits with monetization strategies for long-term success.
Explore the art of challenging yourself in your passion projects.
Master the art of prioritizing tasks and maintaining a consistent rhythm to maximize your productivity and creative flow.
I wanted something that I could do as a side hustle now and build my brand up, so that when I retire, I can travel around and teach. - Ginger Barlow
Follow Ginger at the CopyCat Quilter on YouTube and head over to her website CopyCatQuilter.com for more inspiration!
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00:00:03 - Regan Bashara
So exciting to do this the day before you're having that procedure done. Okay, so welcome to this week's episode of Money Through Ease. I'm Regan, and I have my mom on the episode with me. I'm going to be interviewing. Hi, mom. Her name is Ginger Barlow. Her name's not mom, but that's what I'm going to call her. Thanks for coming on. This is going to be the first kind of episode with a guest and interviewing them, and people know that I have a math and physics degree. I'm more of, like, a sciency person than I am like a creative. But you're kind of the same way you are sciency mathy kind of person, but you're also very creative. I've known you to be always crafting something. So tell us a little bit about what you do or what you would like to tell us.
00:00:54 - Ginger Barlow
Sure. Well, yeah, I definitely have the math background. Well, actually, neither of my degrees are in math, but I've been a programmer or leading programmers now for over 30 years. So my day job is all math and logic and writing code and, yeah, every minute I'm not doing that, I'm usually some kind of creative something. Whenever I did that one interview, I read a book a long, long time ago about they said people are scuba divers or snorkelers. And then, like, scuba divers are very focused, and they drill down on one thing, and they become experts on that. And then snorkelers, like, to float around, look at the pretty fish. I'm on the pretty fish side because well, outside my job because I love any kind of creative thing. I love to paint, draw, glue, collage. I spun sheet wool into yarn. And it's like after I do one thing like that, I'm like, okay, I've been there, done that. What's next? But sewing and quilting and stuff has always been my main jam. I guess my mom, your grandmother sewed everything we ever wore up through high school, probably. And so there was always a sewing machine in the house and then my grandmother quilted. My mom started that up later, so it just has to be I was thinking the other day, I don't think lived in a house that didn't have a sewing machine ever. Yeah, either my mom's or mine.
00:02:20 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, grandma bought me the sewing machine that I have now, and it's like the most basic Walmart level brand, but, I mean, it does a bunch of different stitches. So honestly, doing a straight stitch is fine, but I can do, like, a bunch of other things too. But I'm not really a quilting kind of person. I don't know. It sounds like it's literally in my jeans to do that. So maybe someday. But for now, if I'm sewing right now, I'm into paper crafting. It's probably going to be me sewing paper. But I remember that you have this photo of you from I think you were five years old in kindergarten and you sewed your first skirt and you're like standing there holding your skirt out and you have super long hair and I've never known you to have super long hair.
00:03:08 - Ginger Barlow
I got my hair cut short when I was pregnant with you and it's never been long again. You would not remember me that way.
00:03:13 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, and I tell people all the time, like my mom is computer programmer. She's been doing that for longer than I've been alive and I guess that'll be over 33 years now. Pretty soon I'm like, I'm about to hit the magic a magic number. I feel like your double number digits are like special years. So I'm about to be 33. So you have a YouTube channel that you just started this year, right? Like in January? Because when I came up there in December of last year, you were telling me that you wanted to write a book like an ebook for quilting to teach people how to create their own patterns, to see a quilt that they like and turn it into a pattern for themselves. And you wanted to write an ebook. And then we started talking about video content and then the next thing I knew you were all over YouTube and you've got a whole camera set up. So tell us about your, I guess, pivot from wanting to write an ebook to going to content creation, especially YouTube, which is a longer form than kind of what I do on TikTok and Instagram.
00:04:24 - Ginger Barlow
Yes. Well, my purpose in writing the book even is I'm of the age where maybe I won't be computer programming for 20 more years of my life. And so I wanted something that I could do just kind of as a side hustle now and kind of build my brand up or my name up and then be able to change. And whenever I do retire, I'm not working anymore. I would really love to travel around and teach, like I would really love to travel around, do workshops and teach. And so the book would be kind of that a lot of the people that come to guilt and speak and things are from people that have written books and they come and they talk about their books or their patterns or their tools that they created. So I thought, okay, if I wrote a book and get my name out there for that it's so funny, not even like thinking, can I write a book? No, just if I write a book. And so I thought if I did that then that would give me the book and get my name. But then as I started trying to think of the book, I'm like, well, I need to kind of build up in my head an outline of what the book would be or what kinds of things. And so I thought, hey, I'll just do YouTube instead for now and kind of get my name started and find kind of what my jam is and what I would like for my book to be. So, yeah, it started February and then it's so funny because now I've got my idea for a book finally. Yeah, I actually plan to start doing that soon. Start writing that and maybe trying to hire some pattern testers and samplers so that I can get some testing. Because all of this is in addition to my day job. And I do have a life outside of Quilting too, so I'm definitely needing to build up some support for people to help me out with that. I may be doing a book soon, but I really have been enjoying the YouTube. My channel is Monetized as far as ads, and I have a couple of affiliate things, but I'm not making real money yet. I think you really have to get a lot of subscribers and really build that up and also have product and not just affiliate link product. But I'm really not ready to go there yet, so I'm just happy to I get a little ad revenue here and there and I can buy through my own affiliate links. I got to get a cash back.
00:06:45 - Regan Bashara
Totally. Yeah. I think that kind of building your audience and building your brand first, even though it is Monetized, technically, you're probably getting a couple of dollars a month from ad revenue, but building your brand and your audience first will kind of allow you. When you're ready to sell a book or hire people to do pattern testing and stuff, you'll have that kind of built in audience who's already familiar with you. They like your content, they want more from you, and then you can give them something that is actually really curated to what they've expressed they're interested in.
00:07:24 - Ginger Barlow
Yeah, and I know of the ladies that come and spoken at our guild, I always stop and talk to them and there's actually pretty easy ways. If you're slightly known in the industry, there's actually like a global website you can go to and you put yourself in as a teacher and list the kinds of things that you would want to do. But you still need to have something. You need to have something to show that, here's the kind of things that I'll be teaching, or that kind of a thing. But right now it's fun. I'm having fun doing it and I feel like it will lead to that. So I'm happy doing it now. And you're right. I get maybe four or $5 a week of revenue and then maybe a sale here and there. That's not my own sale through my own affiliate link.
00:08:13 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, that's awesome. I always love watching your videos. Like, yesterday you released the five Seam Ripper Secrets, and I've used a seam ripper. I can count on one hand how many times I've used a seam ripper in my life and I'm like, oh, I was doing it wrong. So even sometimes I'll watch your videos and I'm like, man, I learned something today about sewing or quilting, and I think I love that. Your content is not so much about here's, just a pattern for a quilt. Like, you actually go into the geometry of it all. Quilt math is very heavily influenced by shapes and measurements and things, obviously. But can you talk about that kind of inspiration of wanting to teach people how those things kind of relate? We can bring math into it and nobody needs to have a panic attack about it.
00:09:11 - Ginger Barlow
Yes. It's funny, I found some little patches. When you go to retreats, you're supposed to take something to share. And I found little patches, and some of them were little patches you could put on. It said, I love quilt math. And the other ones had, like, the red line. I hate quilt math. I did find that you know how you get these pet peeves and the older you get, the more you get. But I would post some quilts that I had made, and most of mine are very geometric patchwork. That's really my jam. That's what I really can see.
00:09:42 - Regan Bashara
That like, hanging behind you in the video, too.
00:09:44 - Ginger Barlow
Yes. And that one's actually improv, though. That one's not pre planned, but even then, it's all straight lines. I can't not do straight lines for the most part, but I would post some picture of something that I did that I thought was so simple to make. It's triangles and squares and strips, and you would get immediately like, oh, what pattern is that? Can I get that pattern? And I'm like, I made it up in my head. Or I saw a pattern that somebody else made, and it's a bunch of triangles and squares. You can look at it and you can figure out it doesn't matter what sign they're original, but you know, this two inch square is going to need to match that two inch square there or whatever inch you make it. And so that's why I called it copycat quilter, because I wanted to show people how they can look at a quilt. And a lot of them, most of them, if they're patchwork, you can figure out how to make that block or how to make that design yourself. I did get a little criticism at the first about, oh, you're trying to take food out of designers babies mouths. That is not my intention. If I can possibly find a designer or someone who sells it, or if it's in a book, I'm never going to use those pictures without permission. And if I can find one that somebody sold the pattern exactly like what I'm looking at, I just won't do those. I'm not there to kill anybody's copyright, but I feel like my byline should be. You can't copyright a nine patch because it's nine squares in a three x three grid, right? Yeah, that makes sense. I think that probably the geometry of it is one of the things that really attracts me to it because it's like playing with those tanograms. That's what they're called, right? The little wooden shapes that are squares and triangles, and you put them together. Did I not ever buy that for you when you were a kid?
00:11:26 - Regan Bashara
I'm trying to think. I'm like what? I'm sure if I Googled it, I'd be like, oh, yeah. But I'm thinking like wood log cabin toys where you stack them.
00:11:34 - Ginger Barlow
No, these are just flat. These are just shapes, and they're flat, but you can just make them and arrange them into different designs. And I mean, that's exactly what quilting is.
00:11:41 - Regan Bashara
It's the gateway.
00:11:45 - Ginger Barlow
I thought if I could show people how to just figure out those shapes, it's something that comes really easy to me. And I never want to make somebody else's pattern because that's their quilt. But then, like, my mom, your grandma, who will not watch this, she can't do that. She makes it straight by the pattern. She'll buy the fabric that's shown if it can't. And that's what she enjoys doing. And that's fine. She's happy with that.
00:12:10 - Regan Bashara
She is a buy the book kind of lady.
00:12:13 - Ginger Barlow
And so for people who don't want to have to be that way or really enjoy trying to figure things out, I hope that I can help them figure things out and see how to break things apart themselves.
00:12:25 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up about. You are the copycat quilter, but you're not trying to take any sort of revenue away from other people. And I think that what I've always thought about, I can do this for you, or I can teach you how to do it. Some people don't have the teaching skill of it. They can do something. But there's still value in somebody just wanting the pattern or just wanting to buy a quilt. They don't want to actually learn how to make it. They just want to buy it and have it versus the folks that are actually interested in the process. For me, I just started into freaking book binding and paper crafts and stuff, and I'm like, okay, but I'm actually going to make my own paper to bind into the books that I made. I don't need to go out and buy a journal. I want to go through the whole process for every piece of the project. And there is value both in selling the end product to somebody or doing something for them if you're providing a service. And then there's also value in the teaching of it and somebody wanting to I don't I always say to I don't gatekeep the information. I'll teach you how to do bookkeeping, or I'll do it for like you can pick one or the other. And I love that you have always said that and have gotten some pushback in the comments on YouTube about like, oh, well, that's somebody else's pattern that you're taking from them, but you actually reach out to those creators and ask for their permission.
00:13:50 - Ginger Barlow
Too yeah, and I have one coming up, actually two interviews that I want to do, and one is a pattern from a book from like, 1989. But she didn't make a full quilt. She's actually kind of like me about doing the geometry of it and figuring things out and just playing with geometry and designing quilts. And so she doesn't sell the pattern. An old book, I don't know if it's even in print, but I reached out to her and asked her if she would mind one of the block sets that she had in there if I could do it. And she said yes. She said she would love it. And I told her, I'll give you full credit. And I'm also going to try to get her to come on at least for a brief interview and just talk about it because she designs the way that I enjoy.
00:14:30 - Regan Bashara
Right.
00:14:31 - Ginger Barlow
So, yeah, I just feel strongly about that. I'm not going to get into somebody's money and their copyright, but it really is quilting, especially if it's geometric patchwork. There's usually not anything so unique and incredible that somebody can claim it's absolutely theirs. Some of the ones that I do, it's just one of the ones I got criticism on. I'm like, my grandma could have made this in forty s and fifty s without a pattern. So you can't say it's a copyright of somebody that produced a pattern last year. And I would never like I said, I never used their pictures or anything like that either. So that's important to me.
00:15:08 - Regan Bashara
Well, I think that your process through it is being inspired by things that you just see, like whether it's an actual quilt, but then you found the ugly wallpaper at the hotel in Mississippi or whatever, or I can't remember where you were, but you were like, oh my gosh, I have this wallpaper. I'm going to make a quilt pattern out of. Like, you just see things that are inspiring and then there's an enjoyment in the process of figuring it out.
00:15:34 - Ginger Barlow
Too yeah, what was funny about that one, though, was after I did it and I showed you and you said, oh, that's a houndstooth. Yeah. I was like, wow, okay. And I went online and found that Jenny Don and Missouri Star Company, which is like, quilting rockstar, had done a video on that quilt. It was a little different put together than the method that I put together, but it was the exact same block. I mean, it's just the technique of how to get there was different. Mine was probably harder than hers.
00:16:01 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, but that's the fun and enjoyment of it, of the process of figuring it out. Even if at the end you realize that somebody else did kind of do it, you did it a little differently but I appreciate that part of it is just the exploration and diving into what is inspiring you and using that and being creative to make something. I think that's really cool.
00:16:28 - Ginger Barlow
Yeah, I have tons of patterns that I've drawn up that I will never have time to make. And that's actually a little hint on the book that I'm thinking about. It's either going to be like, read me a quilt or Quilt me a story. But I got books, children's books. I've been taking everything out of the library I can get that had quilts in it or like a story around some kind of grandmother's quilt or things like that. And I want to do quilts inspired by those books. So they usually have a picture of a quilt in there, but not like, try to copy that quilt. And sometimes it's like all squares. So it would be a boring quilt to try to copy, but to use the coloring in the books. And maybe if they do have some rough designs and do like a series of eight to ten patterns of quilts that a lot of the quilters are older women with grandchildren, a lot of us. So it's like something where you could make a quilt that was inspired by that book and then read the book with your grandkid, have them be able to cuddle up. But it doesn't look exactly like what's in the book. It's kind of your interpretation of it. So I don't know, it's like stuff like that runs through my head all the time. It would be nice if it could stop, but it's really too very meditative that sitting down and just drawing the lines and trying to figure out and working out the math in it. I know that you did a lot of music, and I've had a lot of music background. And it's really interesting to me, even though your music teacher argued with me how related math is to music because it's all about proportion and relationships and rhythms and repetition or balance and symmetry. Like, all of that stuff is in music too. And I think just my brain must be wired that direction to patterns and repetition especially.
00:18:21 - Regan Bashara
I think there's actually a lot of scientific research or academic research into the connections between music theory and mathematical sciences. My music teacher, I don't know who you're talking about specifically, but Mr. CENO.
00:18:41 - Ginger Barlow
And I think with him, there is an art to it too. And I think his point it was a Facebook post.
00:18:46 - Regan Bashara
Yeah.
00:18:47 - Ginger Barlow
And his point is there's a lot of art and interpretation to it and heart put into it. And the same with the quilt. It's got a pattern and it's got shapes and measurements and precision, but it's also you're picking the colors and you're putting your spin into it. And again, that's one reason I don't want to make anybody else's quilt. I have another YouTuber that I've talked to several times I've interviewed on his channel, and he buys these ones that are kits where everything's precut even. And I'm just like, that would bore me to tears that's somebody else's quilt. It's like you were saying, I could buy somebody's handmade paper and put it in a book, but I wouldn't feel like it was my book then. So, yeah, I'm like you. I want to do the paper. It's interesting. So there's art to it and there's science and math to it, and I don't think they're far removed from each other.
00:19:39 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. What kind of tips would you give somebody that maybe is kind of in the same position you're in, where they have like a day job and that's full time and they're looking to side hustle and monetize like a hobby, something that they're really interested in? Do you have advice or tips for how to balance the creative flow of that and trying to squeeze money out of it at the same time?
00:20:09 - Ginger Barlow
I thought you were going to tell me all that. I thought that's why I'm here today. There's a couple of podcasts that I listen to, and one is called Craft a Career. And she's actually like a quilt designer, and she talks about different revenue streams and all those kinds of things, and I enjoy listening to her. I do want to get better at planning because I do want to have a regular schedule to put out things. And I think that's important because people start looking for it. So I have tried to come up with a schedule in my head of maybe a long form every month and a short in between, a short every two weeks just to keep something going because that's probably the most time I have right now. Yeah, one of the other things is I started this while I'm working, so I have income. I'm not having to depend on it for income. And if you're in that kind of a position, I think you're a lot better positioned. You don't have to be profitable day one.
00:21:05 - Regan Bashara
Right?
00:21:06 - Ginger Barlow
And one of the things I learned on that podcast was she said, if you have the money and I don't know if she said, if you're a side hustle, but she was just basically saying, if you have more money than time than hire. So I know for me, I'm like you, I want to do it all myself. And I could learn. Adobe Illustrator canva. But I don't want to. I want to, but I know that's not where I need to focus. My know, I'm not going to be a better YouTuber if I learn Canva and I learn Adobe Illustrator to design a pattern. So I did develop a pattern. And there are some ghost writers that you can hire who will take your pattern and write it up and it's whatever level, if you just want to show them a picture they can figure it out or like I had the design and I had it in an electric file. EQ eight electric quilt, eight. You can design your patterns in there and you can send them the project file. So they wrote off all the instructions in that thing. So I paid them for that because I want my time to be more now, right now on the artistic and design side where if this was my full time job, sure I'd learn all that and do it myself. So I thought that was really important to hire people to do the pieces. You can if it's your second side hustle thing and you could afford it, even hire someone to do your samples. A lot of people do samples for free because they just want the latest and greatest pattern and there's kind of some ethical things about that because if someone's willing to do it for free then also why are you not valuing their time? Why are they not valuing their time if it's going to take them 60 hours just so a quilt pattern, you may even if they enjoy it, they either reimburse them for fabric or pay them some amount for the time. But looking at those kind of things of what can other people do to leave you to do the artistic fun part that you're the only one can do? Yeah, I'm the only one that can come up with the design in my head, but other people can help me sew it or can help me write the pattern out and that kind of a thing.
00:23:10 - Regan Bashara
Totally. I think also you brought up the ethics of it. Like the textile industry already has so many kind of issues with ethics and basically slave labor, just a few. And then of course the landfills just being full of fast fashion and stuff. So I like that you brought that up. Like looking to grow a business or a side hustle, but staying true to your values and valuing the fact that if someone's going to be supporting you in this endeavor, you're the one with the vision, but there are people providing some sort of labor to kind of help you get there. And I think that's a very important thing for side hustle, small business people to think about because we often look to trade services or products in the beginning because we don't have a lot of capital to put forward. So it's like I'll trade with you if you send me some candles, I'll do your books for a couple of months if you do me like a nice painting for my office or something. We're always looking to trade the capital of labor and time or resources and not necessarily money. Because if you're not starting out with a lot, but that's something to consider, that when you do have the resources and the money to spend on what other people are providing to you, that's important to me. Paying people fairly for their labor.
00:24:32 - Ginger Barlow
It's funny, you know, and I know, like, growing up, we were in churches a lot, and I volunteered all the time. Excuse me. And okay, I feel horse all of a sudden, but like, I attend a Quaker meeting now, and they take turns on cleaning the building. And you sign up to do a cleaning, and it's a small building. It's not a big thing. But I even brought it to them, like, we have the money within our organization. Why don't we pay someone to clean? Because that's giving someone who is a cleaner a job. That's giving them even if it's a small, independent, family owned kind of cleaning business, you're giving them. That where it is, like supporting the economy. It's supporting them. We do a lot of work with refugees. I'm like, Why don't we pay a refugee woman to come in once a week and clean? And she's making money for her family, and all of us that are volunteering are just doing it because but yeah, I see that a lot. And it's interesting, the thing about pattern testers, because even with the ghostwriters that I'm using, they have pattern testers that will test for you, and they do it for free. And they were telling me, like, well, why would you pay somebody? But I'm like, you know, too, it's giving them value. And if you're trading things like you were saying, if you're trading and bartering, that's a form of advertising, because if you have someone's painting in your house, you're going to talk about it, you're going to post online. I think I have a stained glass thing out hanging out in the garden from someone you posted online.
00:26:06 - Regan Bashara
Yeah.
00:26:09 - Ginger Barlow
And I understand I'm in a position where I can financially, I'm in a good position now that all you kids are grown up now that we're out. So I understand that is like a luxury that I have, but that also makes me want to be able to do it because I want to focus on the things that I do. And right now, it sounds vain or whatever to say I have more money than time, but I do. I have a full time job, and I can afford to pay someone to test for my patterns. Well, why would I want to ask them to do that? Just for the joy of being the first one to get to sew my pattern. Yeah, but especially the landfill stuff and everything. Yeah, the textile industry is horrible. The fabric industry is horrible. The pollution and you're right, the slave labor and just awful conditions everywhere. And so it is funny because I'll buy new fabric and collection sometimes, but then a lot of my stuff is scrap fabric because I have the fabric to insulate the house with, and I don't want to be just a constant consumer of it. So I try to do a balance of bringing in more and working. With what I have. And so some of my videos are really color coordinating collections, and then some of them are every piece of scrap out of my room. And Quilters kind of run that gamut, too.
00:27:23 - Regan Bashara
I love the kind of junk journaling thing that I'm hyper fixating on right now because it's very much like and there are people that I follow that I'm just now picking up on recently, like how much they just buy stuff and then they'll do journaling spreads and make books and they're beautiful. And it's like but you used all new products that you bought off of Timu and Amazon and Wish and whatever else crap apps are out there. But for me, part of it is creating every single piece that's going to go into a project. But also, I went to an estate sale a couple of weekends ago and found so much stuff that, you know, when the Baptist estate the old ladies that are running the estate sale at a Baptist church are impressed with whatever you picked, that's when you know you've made it. And they were, like, bringing me up for all of my $8 of stuff, and they were like, wow, you got some really good stuff. I'm like, yeah, I did. But to me, part of it is finding use and value. And the meaning of it is that I saw something that somebody else was willing to kind of discard, and then I get to create something that I really enjoy the process and I enjoy the result. And it's like, yeah, I don't want to be just buying new things constantly. I don't want to participate in that kind of consumer culture, but that's what our culture is. So I love that Quilting allows definitely that. Yeah. Quilting is definitely quilting, though.
00:29:00 - Ginger Barlow
Yeah, because I know there's a lot of conversations around. Designers have 40 and 50 new fabrics, and they put out a new collection three times a year, and a lot of local quilt shops can't even keep up with that because you've got that much new stuff coming in all the time, and you can't sell your old stuff, and there's a lot of talk about that. And you really have to find your balance because you're talking about, like, the junk journaling. One of the series that I did was about the panels, and I still have more panels to do. And there's a lot of people that think of that as cheating because it's a pretty printed picture and you just do stuff around it. But the big part of your quilt is done in this picture. And I've kind of thought of that like, well, I didn't do that panel. I didn't draw that cat. Well, now I have. But it's like in our heads, we get fixed on what's the right way or I get stuck on, yeah, but I have to do the whole thing myself or it doesn't count, or those kind of things. I didn't want other people long arming my quilt. So you have the big long arm machine. Long arm. And it's an expensive piece of equipment. It lets you do the sewing, the quilting part yourself. And that's really hard to do on domestic machines. And I felt like I was cheating if I sent a quilt to somebody and they long armed, it like, I didn't do that part. So it is interesting how everybody's got their thing of what the balance is of I did this myself versus I bought it and everything in between that.
00:30:25 - Regan Bashara
I also think that there's for me a lot of fun in the challenge of having limiting yourself to something that's just thrifted. Or somebody could go to Goodwill and pick out a bunch of blouses and then decide that they're going to quilt only using buttons and everything that they found from Goodwill. To me, that challenge is kind of fun. Like you said, kind of like we're not shitting on grandma. Totally. But going and buying the quilt pattern and then buying the exact kit with the exact patterns that they're using in the pattern, that you can compare your final product to, that that's not super fun for me, but it's fun for her, obviously it is.
00:31:15 - Ginger Barlow
And everybody has their thing because even just the process of putting it together, or even if you bought the pattern and you bought the fabric, I know so many people that do that. And that one's not my thing, where I've learned that using the panel, okay, this is kind of fun because it's kind of funny. The ones with the panels, especially when I give them as gifts, people are like, oh, my God, this is so beautiful. And I'm like, all I did was make the blocks around the edges, the pretty picture in the middle.
00:31:40 - Regan Bashara
I bought, I measured, and I cut.
00:31:44 - Ginger Barlow
Yeah, pretty much stuck them together.
00:31:46 - Regan Bashara
Yeah.
00:31:47 - Ginger Barlow
Right?
00:31:49 - Regan Bashara
Yeah. The challenge is a lot of fun for me.
00:31:53 - Ginger Barlow
I think that's one of the things I know we were talking about before, about staying true to what you want your product to be. Because like I said, I have a guy, I consider him a friend that's a YouTuber that we've talked several times and we've done some things together. And for him, buying that kit and the precut fabrics and sewing, he loves it. And that's his Mount Everest, right? And then I see people like that and he has a popular channel. It's kind of funny. He interviewed me right when I first started, and we're like, exact number of subscribers. Like, we exactly just track each other. It's kind of creepy. So his channel, he does a lot of talking, he interviews and he does those quilts. And then there's another one that I told you annoys me. One of these people that's like the five ways to use a plastic bread tag and you're sewing her. I'm like, seriously? Exactly. I mean, seriously, she's got a video. You can go watch it.
00:32:47 - Regan Bashara
And that's not now I'm going to.
00:32:48 - Ginger Barlow
Have to go find that afternoon. For me, that's not what I want to be. But I see her channel is, like, really popular, and she was down around my numbers early this year, and all of a sudden, she's like, 18,000 subscribers. And I'm like, what the heck? Who wants to watch that? But I just, first of all, not compare myself with other people, but also just realize that's not the group that I want. That's not the audience that I want. I want people that are interested in what I'm doing, and that's my thing. And any kind of, like, small business or your own employment, you have to do things your way because that's true to you, and you're never going to be the way that everybody would do it.
00:33:29 - Regan Bashara
Totally.
00:33:30 - Ginger Barlow
I see your advertising and your posts and things like that, and there's a lot of stuff that you do. I'm like, all right, why? But that's you. And I know one of the interviews when someone interviewed you and you talked about your social justice platform and that that's important to you and that's in your business, if that's your thing, you have to do that. Or then you're just cookie cuttering somebody else's bookkeeping business and stay on that side of it. But that's not like, where your heart is. So for me, I've had to watch with YouTube, not comparing myself to other people and trying not to do those kind of videos that some of them are clickbait, but to stay true to the kind of I want to do longer form, I want to do tutorials. I love to do the little drawing and geometrics of, like, here's a square. And it's that's what I enjoy doing it. And I feel like if I am true to that to myself and do what I enjoy doing, that the audience that wants that will come around. And I think there's an audience for that. Quilting has so many different things. There's little niche audiences all around, and I don't even know that that's the little niche. But there are people that want to make quilts without buying a pattern, either because that's their artistic thing, or they can't afford patterns because some of them are ridiculously expensive. There's one that I wanted to do for you. That's little Tweenie Dachshund looks exactly like Archie, same color, even. And it has them like wings, and it has them like a fire breathing dragon. It's the cutest pattern, and it's like $28.
00:35:04 - Regan Bashara
I do need that.
00:35:05 - Ginger Barlow
I would probably never finish the pattern because it's not the kind of sewing I like to do. And if I did, I would make one. So for me, I actually did try to pick it apart because I was going to make it for you, but not a video. And I can't even it's, like, too much to even figure out. I'm like, no regular getting the chiwini pattern unless I buy it for somebody else. But it looks man, that's awesome.
00:35:28 - Regan Bashara
I love that. Yeah, I think there's also a balance, like you said, not comparing yourself to other people, but it's good to keep your head down, stay in your lane. Kind of be true to the product that you want to create, but being aware of what other people are doing so that you can be in conversation with what they're doing without participating in it. And I find a lot of inspiration from other creators for kind of how to structure videos or content.
00:35:57 - Ginger Barlow
Right.
00:35:59 - Regan Bashara
I'm not trying to be like anybody else. I'm like, obviously this is working for them and their audience. Maybe I can try something similar to that or just respond with what I think about everything is content now. So you responding to what somebody else is doing, can be content. It gets a little meta after a while. You're like, I'm not going to film my entire life so that people can just watch me do mundane things all the yeah, but it's true.
00:36:26 - Ginger Barlow
You can learn from I do read about how to title your videos and apparently on YouTube, people like emojis in the video. So I are in the title of the video, so I put emojis know those kind of things. I guess if I was against that or felt strongly, I wouldn't do that either. But I'm like, okay, I'll stick emojis in, put emojis.
00:36:46 - Regan Bashara
I'm having a ton of fun making your YouTube thumbnails. That is so much fun for me to make it so clickbaity and ridiculous because that is catching the eye. And people also kind of start to associate that with your certain brand. There's people that I see that are creators with thousands and thousands of people that are subscribed and every thumbnail pretty much has the same kind of elements or structure to it. And so you start to develop a calling card, basically that your brand recognized.
00:37:21 - Ginger Barlow
That's your brand. Yeah. So, I mean, those kind of things, sure, I'll do things that have proven true for other people and even then there's people that have very serious looking thumbnails or goofy ones and it's like, okay, I'm okay with the goofy ones or the brighter busier. I think it's but even then, I guess that kind of goes with your content too. Because if your content is very structured and that kind of thing, maybe your thumbnails would need to be because it's like those themes go together where my quilts are a lot of sew by the seam of your pants. So it's like, okay, well, then my thumbnails can look a little that way too because that's my style and that's kind of the theme of my videos. So I do like read and the research and things like that, but I always do it with an idea. Yeah, but what do I really want? What do I want? Am I doing that because it's going to get the things or does it fit into my scheme, into my brand and all that kind of thing?
00:38:19 - Regan Bashara
I love that. I want to thank you for being my first interview guest on Money Through Ease. Is there anything that you'd like to share with the audience and also let us know how we can support your work and follow you on all the things.
00:38:35 - Ginger Barlow
So right now I'm only on YouTube. I do have a very small private Facebook group. It's very inactive, but it's grab the name on Facebook.
00:38:48 - Regan Bashara
Am I in it? Let me in.
00:38:57 - Ginger Barlow
So I'm really limited right now, mostly just strictly Facebook. I mean, YouTube. I did get a website. I have copycatculture.com. And then I also am dabbling on the creating mom pat, which is kind of funny because it's the opposite of my channel. I'm saying don't buy patterns and here's some patterns. But I do have people ask, so I'm like, okay, well if they're not going to get the point of I just showed you how to make it without a pattern, okay, you can buy a pattern from me. So it's just there and it's like really? I've asked my guild members to join my YouTube and things like that. So if people know people that quilt or want to learn, I would love to do a series. My neighbor next door wants to learn to quilt and I would love to do some shows with her, showing her how to quilt. But she's got two kids and just too busy. We'd be doing it in the middle of the night.
00:39:44 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, two very small children. Right. There is no time or energy for that right now.
00:39:51 - Ginger Barlow
Part of it is I just have to you and I were talking about put my ideas done on paper and figure out which ones are the priority and which ones are going to be the big pals now because I have just way too many of them. Maybe I should learn to sell ideas to people. It's a great idea. Yeah.
00:40:10 - Regan Bashara
I literally have my Google Keep Notes app. Basically on the iPhone, it's a Notes app, but then it's like Keep on the Android. But I have different categories of ideas. So it'll be like short form content ideas, podcast topic ideas, shit that I got to remember to do this. So as things are just running through my head, I'm like, oh God, I'm never going to remember this and I have to just put it there so that at least it's in one place. But I am that type of person as well. That just I'll have five ideas every hour and I just need to write them down. Most of them are not going to get done. And there is a level of skill in determining what's going to be worth seeing through to the end.
00:40:54 - Ginger Barlow
Yeah, that's definitely going to have to be something that I need to work on because I'm still working and to make sure I'm doing the things that I want to be doing. There's a really good podcast. His name is Dave and it's Dave's Craft room. He's the most creative, crazy, quilter person. And he recently came out and know that he was going to change his content to be, like, every two weeks instead of weekly because he said, like, the big things that he wanted to do, he couldn't do it that fast. And so he caught himself doing things that weren't the big things that he's great at. I told him one time he made a pattern, somebody else's pattern. I'm like, Dave, I'm disappointed. You are way too good to make somebody else's pattern. I need to work on that myself and figure out what are the important things because I will chase squirrels all day. I probably have 1215 quilts going in this room right now.
00:41:51 - Regan Bashara
Yesterday it looked like I want to work on yeah, yesterday it looked like a craft fair, like, exploded in my house. And I was like, this is just the way I like it, though. I was doing, like, jelly print painting.
00:42:04 - Ginger Barlow
Which oh, I've done that. I've done that. That's fun.
00:42:07 - Regan Bashara
I don't have a jelly bat, but I do have plastic bags, and it basically works the same way. Okay, cool. So we can just sit here and go off on 15 different tangents.
00:42:18 - Ginger Barlow
Anyways, just like we were saying, it's easy to go off on tangents. And I really do want to get myself on a schedule, but I don't want to make it work either. This has been a really challenging year for me health wise, you know, and it's been frustrating that I haven't gotten a good rhythm going because every time I turn around, something stupid happens that was totally out of the blue. And so I really want to get to where I can get that rhythm going. And so early, like, probably maybe six, eight weeks ago, I was kind of like, oh, do I really want to keep doing this? But I really do.
00:42:50 - Regan Bashara
Yeah.
00:42:51 - Ginger Barlow
And I need to plan so I can get my rhythm going because not even because I've invested, I think it's a good plan for me to do this to where I can do something I enjoy teaching, and I need to keep doing this to get there. So I'm looking forward to get more of a rhythm. And I hate schedules and plans, but I really need to do that too. At least how frequently I'm going to put out content and that kind of a thing so that I can get that built up. Yeah, and YouTube's. Interesting. The more videos you have, the more watches you get. One of my first videos, the one that I get a couple of hundred watches a week, and I'm just like, okay, let me figure out what I did. Magic in that video so I can repeat that.
00:43:33 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, interesting.
00:43:34 - Ginger Barlow
But then those people come binge watch too. Like you can tell you get more watches on that video and then you'll see other watches. So I just need to get a lot more content out there that's good content that I want to create that's not just clickbait.
00:43:47 - Regan Bashara
Yeah.
00:43:48 - Ginger Barlow
And the steam ripper thing, the steam river thing, I actually wrote that up months ago and it was so smart.
00:43:55 - Regan Bashara
I was like, I had no idea. You just cut the bobbin thread or the needle thread and then you just pull. I was like, okay, I wish somebody.
00:44:04 - Ginger Barlow
Had told me that for a while. And I think I'll rotate like quilt kind of videos and then things like that. Doing a shorter because that was a shorter one and didn't take a long time to produce and yeah, I think.
00:44:17 - Regan Bashara
That can be like the gateway for people to binge your other content. Like you said, the little trick and hack videos. And it's so important that when you do have things that come up that require you to rest because you're human and we all live in bodies that are not immortal and we have to take time to rest. And just know that even if you are considering stopping or whether or not this is going to be sustainable for you, give it time. Give yourself time and space to rest. And know that if it's something that you really want to be doing you'll eventually, hopefully get to the point where you have energy again and you have time and space to do it.
00:45:02 - Ginger Barlow
Sewing and quilting is my happy place. I am most happy whenever I unfortunately I work in this room and that's my sewing, my sewing room is like eleven x 18 and this is like three foot the priorities. Yes. And it's funny after one time I was really sick earlier this year. Regan came in one day and I was so and he's like, well I guess you're feeling better. And so it does bring me a lot of joy and energy so it hits me a lot of different directions. So I do want to stay doing this. And even the time I was feeling kind of like, do I really want to? It was a real quick turnaround to yeah, I really do, I really want to stay in this and like you said, I just need to adjust it to what works at the time and just be patient. And I have quite a few years before I retire so I've got the time to do it.
00:45:48 - Regan Bashara
Yeah, it's okay if you have a day, an off day that you're just like I just don't know if this is going to actually work out. Sleep on it, give it a minute, make sure that you're rested, go eat a snack, drink some water, make sure that you're nourished and then come back to it. Thanks. So much for being on and sharing the content creation kind of experience. The side Hustle experience with the audience and make sure if you're listening to Go Follow My Mom on YouTube at the.