46. The importance of creating new products | Diane's win-win story

Diane Pagan is sharing her win-win teacher business story today. If you've been optimizing existing products for so long that your creative spark is starting to fade away, this conversation might be the permission slip you need to add some product creation back into your Teachers Pay Teachers work schedule.

Connect with today's guest:

www.theimaginationbox.com

https://www.instagram.com/theimaginationbox

https://uk.pinterest.com/DianePaganUK/

Diane loves to help Upper Elementary and Middle school teachers and homeschoolers deliver engaging art lessons with minimal stress and prep. With over 30 years of experience as a designer, she has presented creative and therapeutic art workshops in many settings, including hospitals, schools, theatres, children's daycare centers, and mental health facilities. 20 years ago, Diane trained as a psychotherapist. The intersection between creativity and well-being is what really excites and motivates her. Her printable art resources reflect her passion, expertise, and commitment to making art education accessible, fun for teachers and students - and, above all, good for our mental health. 

If you are curious about the power of art, The Imagination Box is a great place to start.

These show notes may contain affiliate links.
I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this description.

--> I'd love to support your business

Learn more here

--> Do you have a win-win story to share with the teacher business community?

Apply to be a guest here

--> Let's chat business on Instagram @teacherjaniceva

Reach out on Instagram here

Transcript

[00:00:00] Janice: Joining me for a guest conversation today is Diane. Her passion is for helping upper elementary and middle school teachers as well as homeschoolers deliver engaging art lessons with minimal stress and prep. With over 30 years of experience as a designer, she's presented creative and therapeutic art workshops in many settings, including hospitals, schools, theaters,

[00:00:25] daycare centers, and mental health facilities. 20 years ago, she even did training as a psychotherapist. The intersection between creativity and wellbeing is what really excites her and motivates her. Her printable art resources reflect her passion, expertise, and commitment to making art education accessible, fun for teachers and students, and above all good for our mental health

[00:00:50] big picture.

[00:00:52] This conversation is really special because I work with a lot of teacher business owners who love creating resources as a creative outlet, but struggle to balance that creative outlet with the grownup tasks, as Diane says in this conversation that are part of running a profitable business. Diane is a single parent whose full-time income comes from her teacher business and she needs it to work. She's willing to wake up in the morning and fill her calendar with those grownup tasks that are needed to keep the business running in a healthy way.

[00:01:28] But you'll hear so much joy in this conversation and you will feel that she always keeps creativity as the main thing for students, for the adults facilitating these creative activities, and also for herself.

[00:02:10] Diane, thanks for joining us on the show today.

[00:02:13] Diane: Thank you for having me, Janice. It's great.

[00:02:16] Janice: So I would love for you to share with listeners who might not know about your brand, why you got started with your teacher business back in the day.

[00:02:23] Diane: we are going back probably over 10 years. So my children would've been about five and seven. And like a lot of people I hear on podcasts, we want to change our business so we can be at home more with our kids. And I think for me, having children just absolutely skyrocketed my creativity even more. 

[00:02:48] I felt so passionate about encouraging adults to be more creatively confident, and therefore to be able to do more art with their kids, whether that was at school, at home, you know, in clubs settings, whatever really. Having worked with a lot of adults who's kind of blocks to creativity started in early childhood

[00:03:10] I thought I want to change this and keep art in schools 'cause it's just such a powerful tool for good.

[00:03:19] Janice: When we have kids, we deep dive into the research and all the opportunities and all the activities we could do, but we don't just wanna share that with our handful of kids. We really do want the things that we find that are working really well to be something everyone can benefit from.

[00:03:35] So I think that's a natural thing that a lot of us run into As teacher business owners, you're like, no, we are having creative adventures here, I want that for everyone. And I love that you mentioned the confidence because that's really what you bring to the table as someone who is confident in your creativity and getting to guide your young kids, and you know that not everybody has that same confident foundation.

[00:04:00] How can you make a little ripple effect in the world helping other adults who don't have access to weekly art education anymore? Where do you get started helping them become more confident, leveraging the power of creativity?

[00:04:13] Diane: I think the starting point would be to say everyone is creative. We don't just have to make art that looks like something. It doesn't have to look like a mushroom or a leaf. The creative process can be very abstract. It could be very experimental. I know that's harder in schools than say in a homeschool environment, but I think because

[00:04:37] i've run a lot of workshops from like in hospitals, schools, mental health settings. I think my role as the workshop deliverer, if that's the word, would be to ensure that projects are kind of accessible for all abilities and that everyone in some way will get a positive result. So you don't have to be the most artistic child,

[00:05:06] but I think there is a way of developing activities that everyone can relate to in some way. It may be different than the person they sat next to, but I think that's been the ethos of my store. And

[00:05:19] that's the feedback I get from teachers is, oh wow, there's so many options. Everyone was able to have a go at this and hopefully the teachers won't feel overwhelmed either. They can think, well, I can print this out. I don't need too many, you know, materials, and, um, hopefully everybody's happy and away from their screens for an hour or two.

[00:05:40] Janice: Yeah, and we can feel for teachers seeing an activity that looks really great, but it'll only meet some of their needs and they don't have time to prep that activity and modify it up and down and sideways. So that's a way that you can lend your expertise so that it is like print and go and ready for them to do by doing that thinking and really caring for everyone.

[00:06:01] I love that you really lean into the process of art. I come from the music background rather than the visual art, but so much of my sphere professionally was about elite performers and the kids at the top and the kids ready to audition and getting things polished for performances.

[00:06:16] But my heart was always in the general music classroom, making sure music was accessible to everyone because they're going to become the consumers of art and creativity, just for creativity's sake, is of value, and every kid deserves to feel that way. So I don't really care if it's the best product at the end.

[00:06:36] That's not why I'm there. And so I absolutely love that your brand focuses on that confidence and that appreciation of just being creative and how valuable that is.

[00:06:47] Diane: Yeah, you're completely right Janice. And you know, like I say, I've worked with young people in hospitals and quite acute settings whereby that was a real outlet for them whilst they were recovering. And I think the same, kind of way of thinking can go into schools that we don't know what's on the minds of all of those children or how overwhelmed they may be.

[00:07:12] Are they, you know, neurodivergent? Do they struggle with English as a second language? And just to be able to relax and play, um, and maybe learn something about themselves or their peers. You know, it has really been proven that creativity lowers our blood pressure and our stress levels just as does listening to music, playing an instrument, maybe gardening, cooking,

[00:07:40] all of those doing things that this generation of kids. You know, if we take pens and paper away, we are just forcing them into a chair, staring at a screen and that's okay for some of the time, but we really should be letting them get messy. Imagine not knowing what it's like to have glue on your hands.

[00:07:59] Janice: Well, and even as adults, we're hearing the encouragement to be makers and use your hands to do something, whether it's gardening or cooking or crocheting. You do need to have a time block in your day where you shut out the noise of everything else and put the screens away and get your hands dirty.

[00:08:14] And so art is always going to be an important part of that. And we are gonna fight for that because we know how valuable it is. 

[00:08:21] Diane: Absolutely. It just seems to be a worldwide issue that the arts are being reduced more and more in the classroom. You know, you're in the States. I'm talking from the uk, but I just, 

[00:08:33] I hear it everywhere. 

[00:08:35] Janice: We're very testing driven here in the us so funding is tied to tests, and tests are designed for measuring language arts and math. And so everything else gets squeezed out.

[00:08:47] Even my friends that are making science resources or social studies resources, even, they're getting squeezed out and everyone knows those subjects are important, but if they're not tested, they get squeezed out here.

[00:08:59] Diane: Gosh, it's sad, isn't it?

[00:09:01] Because I think, you know, art and creativity can obviously be used across the entire curriculum, can't it?

[00:09:08] Janice: I think that's the exciting place that you come from. I'll help you find space for this. It belongs everywhere. I'll show you the way. You see the opportunity, which is beautiful. So when you were looking for more flexibility, were you in a classroom teaching role before you started your business?

[00:09:24] Diane: No. I'm in my fifties now, so I've had like decades of, creative experience and I started as a branded sportswear designer.

[00:09:34] I did that, worked for brands like Reebok and stuff, and that's what first brought me to the states in, um, the nineties. I kind of burned out of that fast paced area of work and had a real urge to work with people rather than products.

[00:09:51] So I retrained as a psychotherapist 'cause I was really interested in what makes people tick, including myself. I started doing a lot of community art. So my workshops took me into educational settings, but also working with adults, working with young moms, all sorts really. So I am not a teacher by trade, even though I've delivered a lot of creative workshops.

[00:10:15] I'm actually a designer at heart.

[00:10:18] Janice: I think all of that hands-on experience you have though working with people and humans in different settings, that's so critical because you understand what the adults need to facilitate the activity with kids. I think to get access to kids, you end up adjacent to schools, but you see that as so much more than, it's not just the teacher that's involved in, it's not just the art teacher's responsibility to get art and creativity out there.

[00:10:45] And I love that you mentioned young kids because before they even come to school, we obviously want them to have artistic experiences too, right?

[00:10:52] Diane: Yeah, and one thing working with young moms, I realized maybe they lived with their parents still when they had babies and they really weren't comfortable with making a mess. And I realized obviously when I have my babies, that the first kind of exploration of creativity is literally plunking food on your head and smearing it all over your body and chucking it on the floor.

[00:11:19] And,

[00:11:19] I felt okay with that but you know lots of friends who didn't. And, um, so some kids will arrive at school not having played with food or paint. Um, I met kids in my own children's classrooms who didn't even have marker pens or pencils at home and it broke my heart. So there's something very tactile about that I think in child development.

[00:11:46] It's really important to be given that permission to feel those resources.,

[00:11:52] Janice: The sensory experience is huge.

[00:11:54] Diane: That's right.

[00:11:54] Janice: And I think that sometimes when kids are home with, maybe the parents are going down to one income so someone can stay home, they're trying not to spend money on things they don't need to, and I think it's important to connect with those families too, to make them understand that like creativity is all around us.

[00:12:10] Like the food they have and the things they have in their kitchen and the regular everyday things they have around their house, they have everything they need. Or my goodness, the great outdoors, right? So many

[00:12:20] of our creative adventures take us outside. And so that's part of that empowering and making them feel confident that if you step outside into the yard, you have everything you need for a great creative outlet right here.

[00:12:33] Diane: Absolutely. Whether it's like chalk on some paving stones or collecting leaves and printing with them even you could rub mud on them and stick them on a wall and make art that way. In some ways, if you've got too many materials, that's gonna be limiting because I think you can find magic in the everyday.

[00:12:54] I love that phrase.

[00:12:56] Janice: So if you have activities that work and you're able to do them with people in workshops right in front of you, how did you take your business to like the next level so you could share the activities you had with more people?

[00:13:09] Diane: It was all the kind of happy accident really, because I was an early adopter of Pinterest. We're talking about, you know, 2014, 2015, and

[00:13:19] I decided to set up a little blog just to document the work that I do and to encourage parents to do, more art with their kids. And I remember it was the year of the horse, so that must be nearly 12 years ago because it's the year of the horse again next year.

[00:13:35] And I used to spend quite a lot of time in my sports trade days in Hong Kong because of all the factories. So I got a really early introduction to Chinese New Year, which is more called Lunar New Year nowadays. I loved those animals. I ended up creating a zodiac year of the horse printable, put it on Pinterest and put it as a download on my website.

[00:13:59] This was all me making it up on a little homemade Weebly website. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Suddenly hundreds and hundreds of them have got downloaded around the world. And I was blown away. I thought, this is really exciting. And obviously it was for free and then I kept noticing teachers pay teachers, and I thought, what is this?

[00:14:20] And I was looking at it for about a year, whilst developing this kind of blog. And in the end I found a Facebook page. So I got on it and said. Do you have to be a teacher and do you have to live in America to go on teachers pay teachers? And they said no. So a year later I did a year of the monkey.

[00:14:40] I can remember all these animals, so clearly. Put that on Teachers pay teachers as a freebie, forgot 

[00:14:45] about it. Went back a couple of months later and I dunno, about 500 people had downloaded it. And that was the beginning of my store. And again, like everyone who has been going for a while says, you know, nothing was particularly polished.

[00:15:00] Um, there were no covers or

[00:15:03] terms and conditions. 

[00:15:05] Janice: At the beginning you were testing the market, you were figuring out, let me put this on the internet where anyone can get it and just see if it's something people want. Is there a demand for this? Do people need it? Do people want it? I think it makes sense to test the market a little bit before you pour too much into it.

[00:15:22] We could make something with a beautiful cover, but if it's something that no one wants, why are we making it?

[00:15:27] Diane: Yeah, I guess it just told me that people around the world want to print out little activities and get their kids to color them in or decorate them, and that was just so exciting and inspiring. I think the bit that excited me the most was just seeing all the different countries around the world. You know, in the back end of this little homemade website, I just sat and imagined all these children, from all these different countries with my work, and it was magical.

[00:15:54] It was 

[00:15:54] really wonderful. 

[00:15:56] Janice: You had the opportunity to reach them, and you knew people were excited about that experience. What did you make for your first paid offering?

[00:16:03] Diane: Do you know this is a confession. I made an Olympic resource and I did some kind of abstractions of the rings and things like that.

[00:16:12] And, I wasn't aware about the copyright implications.

[00:16:17] Once I realized I took it down. 

[00:16:19] Janice: That's how we learn though. We want to capture something current that people are excited about and searching about, but you didn't set out to infringe on anyone's trademark or steal their intellectual property.

[00:16:29] Diane: no.

[00:16:29] Janice: That wasn't the goal. 

[00:16:31] Diane: So I suppose I took that resource down and so I was just left with the monkey and then I really tuned into my thing and I thought, oh, well, it's back to school now. Um, in the UK it's in September, so I probably missed the, uh, us back to school. But from that point on, I really kind of leaned into my background in sportswear design .

[00:16:53] I didn't realize I was doing that at the time, but I was thinking, what would kids find cool? So I started doing things like cell phones, soccer balls, t-shirts, hoodies, backpacks, and helping teachers learn more about what make their kids tick. And it meant that if you filled in all these little boxes and questions, you could write or you could draw, and it wasn't really unnerving, like producing a perfect picture 'cause it was the sum of all the little doodles that made it work. I just began to grow quite organically from there. And I was really in my happy place drawing pictures for kids and staying at home with mine.

[00:17:35] Janice: I think that's the beauty of the question you asked, do I have to be an active teacher or live in the States to contribute to the teachers pay teachers marketplace? You bring something so fresh and exciting that students deserve access to, and teachers are excited for something new and fresh to do as a unit and offer with their students too.

[00:17:55] So I'm really grateful that, you know, the world is our oyster and the internet is wide open like that. We certainly want people who understand children and are making things that are tested and are going to work really well with them. But that doesn't have to mean that you came straight from the educational program, especially if you're not the one doing the activity with the kids in the end.

[00:18:15] Diane: It's been an absolute privilege to be part of, you know, this community and it wasn't much later that Shelly Rees opened her first course, , she ended up coaching me one-to-one. I think she put an offer out to do some one-to-one coaching, and her input was absolutely pivotal to my business because she could see I had some interesting products, but I had no idea about,

[00:18:40] the American curriculum and all of your terminology. And we really had fun with her saying, what does that mean? So I really began to learn from her, the importance of making sure it reached people and was described in your teacher language. That's something I've had to really tune into.

[00:18:58] Janice: Shelly is the beginning of so many of our stories. She gave us that strong foundation because if you have

[00:19:03] great resources, but they can't be found or they don't look attractive enough for people to click on them and download them, then we're all doing this for nothing. Right?

[00:19:13] Diane: Big shout out to Shelly. She's a legend.

[00:19:15] Janice: She sure is. She's an absolute gem.

[00:19:18] So did your business grow year over year over year? Has it been like a steady uphill at all times?

[00:19:26] Diane: 2019, I think it was probably my best year. I was having such fun, just developing loads of like graffiti projects and stuff like that, and I was just posting them on Pinterest, posting them onto my store, and then 

[00:19:42] Covid 

[00:19:43] hit and everything changed. It impacted me for start because I got Covid on the first day of lockdown.

[00:19:51] And I'd signed a contract to have a new website developed with a store at that time, and oh, I really should have said, no, let's not do this. Um, but I went ahead with it.

[00:20:08] I didn't really know anything about WooCommerce or WordPress. I certainly hadn't looked into the complexities of international sales tax.

[00:20:18] And so I spent a lot of time going down a rabbit hole and I'd have had much more fun kind of recovering and

[00:20:26] just continuing to build what teachers really needed at that 

[00:20:29] time, which was remote. 

[00:20:31] Janice: So how did Covid start to change things for you, aside from life?

[00:20:35] How were your sales once Covid struck? 

[00:20:38] Diane: Everything I do has to be printed. I wasn't part of the, kind of the wave of, um, digital resource creation. So I think my best year ended up being back to school 2021 because I think as teachers were tentatively getting back into school, they probably just didn't want to do anything on a screen.

[00:21:02] They wanted to interact with their children. And then there was the algorithm change and I started to see an absolute nose dive, in my store early 2022. And also Pinterest changed their algorithm and all over The previous time, because I was an early adopter, I did really well on Pinterest and I think 30% of my organic traffic was through Pinterest.

[00:21:28] So that instantly chopped, you know, 30% off of my sales and I think I suddenly thought, gosh, I've got all my eggs in rented baskets, is that the phrase?

[00:21:40] Janice: Yeah, but it's hard. You had multiple search bars, right? You had the TPT search bar, which wronged you with personalized search, and then you had the Pinterest search bar also, so you were to some extent diversified. But yeah, that's true. Both of those search bars did go through a big algorithm adjustment in that same time period.

[00:21:58] And that's almost like the perfect storm, right? With Covid also leaning people towards digital offerings.

[00:22:06] Diane: That's right. Yeah. It's almost like a perfect storm for everything 

[00:22:09] to get shaken up.

[00:22:11] Janice: you were diversified. You had a lot of the right things in place. But yeah, that was the big story with Covid, is that everyone shifted on their head and you can't possibly build for a future that you don't know about. 

[00:22:24] Diane: That's right. You can only speculate, can't you? 

[00:22:27] Janice: And when everyone was looking for digital resources, some people pivoted and started making them. Did you make digital resources or did you just come up with a new plan for your printable resources?

[00:22:39] Diane: I remember buying a course, and I thought, oh God, this is so difficult. And I managed a few which sold a small amount, but I kind of realized this isn't me.

[00:22:52] Janice: Yeah, that wasn't your superpower. That's not what you came here to do, and that's not 

[00:22:56] how you wanted to empower people.

[00:22:58] Diane: So yeah, it was quite a turbulent time, I would say after having, you know, a really fun, fun time with my business.

[00:23:07] Janice: Yeah. And did it turn back around? Because some people closed up shop too, right? Some people were like, you know what? That was fun. This is obviously different now. It's not fun anymore. I think I'll go do something else. How did you find the win between what you really wanted to be making and what people seemed like they wanted from you?

[00:23:25] Diane: That's a really good question. Um, I think kind of opting out wasn't an option for me because the majority of our household income comes from my teacher's pay teacher's business. Once I'd kind of settled myself, I think I needed to get grounded, zoom out and just look at the whole picture and think, you know,

[00:23:46] there's a lot of tried and tested products here that are still selling. Where do I want to direct my energy now and what are the gaps that I would like to fill? And I realized I couldn't do everything.

[00:23:59] I made the decision to really focus on my mailing list and my newsletter, so I felt that I could kind of connect really authentically with a bunch of people. That was really important to me. And, um, I think I hide behind my pictures because they're strong images and they kind of speak for me.

[00:24:23] So I had this growing phrase in my head that I had to find my voice. And obviously this is what I'm doing, talking to you, i'm coming out of my box. And I am learning as a designer, learning how to talk about how my products help rather than what they contain has almost been like learning a new language for me.

[00:24:44] But now I can reach out, you know, to a bunch of amazing teachers and homeschoolers and say. I've got this idea, what do you think? Or, I've got a TPT card to give away. And I just love the amount of enthusiasm that comes back to me confirming, whether I'm barking up the wrong tree or this is something, that teachers would really need.

[00:25:09] And so that's kind of where I am at the moment. I've almost come full circle because I love being creative, and everything had turned into an algorithm or a technical hitch, and I just wanna go and get my pens out and play, make things, tell people about them, offer them half price to my mailing list and just, you know.

[00:25:29] Janice: And to connect with other people that believe in creativity and hear what they're up 

[00:25:34] to. The power of connection. Social media has become such a tough space for me in 2025 because I see the bots taking over and people pre-schedule content and let the bots serve up links and kind of takes the social out of social media for a little bit.

[00:25:51] But when I go onto social media, I love to talk with teachers about what they're doing and what problems they have and help them connect and play matchmaker to other people. I love to have those conversations and I'm glad that you view your email newsletter as the same way. A lot of people have their email inboxes overflowing and they feel negatively when emails come in. But if we can learn how to tame our own email inboxes, there are people I love reading their newsletters when they dive in and not enough people reply, but when you really convince people on your newsletter that you do wanna hear from them, and you're a real human, and it's not just like a one way megaphone. You have the opportunity to

[00:26:36] not be creating resources in a void, but actually talk to people who need things and make them what they're asking for.

[00:26:43] Diane: Absolutely. And I will not use AI to create newsletters. But it's so important, isn't it? Uh, now more than ever is to be a real person behind your business.

[00:26:58] Janice: absolutely agree. I'm not excited about the AI wave. I know that that's very controversial. I wanna make personal connections with other people and

[00:27:07] i'm all about being efficient and having good systems, but I don't wanna take the personal touch out of any of this.

[00:27:12] Diane: It's really interesting. I think there will be a real backlash, against this at some point. In my workspace there are, quite a few recruitment, freelancers and they said that local networking is becoming really, really popular again. And I found that really joyful to hear that people actually wanna go and talk to other people who are real and do business that way.

[00:27:39] Janice: I think that's something really positive that came out of lockdown.

[00:27:42] I think there are people who are craving community, whether it's a co-working experience or a workspace where you're working parallel to other people. .

[00:27:50] People just want to be with other people because they treasure that so much more now that it was taken away.

[00:27:57] Diane: That's really powerful, isn't it? Especially for young people I've read, more people are living alone than ever. I. And if you are, you know, working from your apartment all day and you don't happen to go out that night, you don't see anyone.

[00:28:13] People are becoming more unhappy just through isolation and lack of social contact.

[00:28:20] Janice: I 

[00:28:21] heard a podcast this weekend that was talking about it from the fitness standpoint that people used to really like one-on-one training experiences with a personal trainer, but that they're leaving those experiences to lean more into group fitness. Because you get there with people who are in a similar walk of life who enjoy a similar habit in their week, and then after they meet for the group fitness class, they all go out for coffee or they all go out for lunch, or they all get together for bingo, or they all get together for something else because people are hungry for community and looking for it.

[00:28:51] And so that's really cool as we think about how to pivot our businesses too, to notice those things and say like, oh, well I have this great activity that you could do, not just alone with your kid, but you could do it in the park with three other families. Here's something really easy to facilitate as an afterschool activity, as something in the summer.

[00:29:10] I think it's really neat to see those trends other places and be like, wait a second. I can help with that too.

[00:29:17] Diane: Absolutely. And how can the kids interact in the classroom in small groups or move around outside, and connect with each other like kids do.

[00:29:30] Janice: Yeah, and I think it's such a full circle conversation. You talked about starting with workshops in different settings and just being creative with people, and then you made resources for people to find on Pinterest or on TPT. But those same resources could still go back in person for workshops and in your community, and you can show other people how to do that too.

[00:29:50] And so it's so exciting to see the things that you want to be making and the things you don't, and just building a path that brings what the market wants together with the things you even want to be involved with.

[00:30:02] Diane: That's a win-win, isn't it? I think we have to love what we do, have a passion for what we do. Otherwise, we're all gonna convey to the end user that it's quite joyless or lacking energy.

[00:30:13] Janice: And the same with your email newsletter. I think when people reply to you and you write back, they can tell in your reply that didn't come from a bot, that didn't come from repurposed content somewhere, that was truly your heart, that you really care about this as much as they do.

[00:30:27] Diane: It's really important, isn't it?

[00:30:29] Because we are humans after all.

[00:30:33] Janice: Absolutely. So when you were in a lower period in this business, it was not as fun to run, right? You were making resources you didn't wanna make, you were fighting against an algorithm which doesn't feel fun, and that doesn't make your workday really enjoyable. What was the first step that you think you took to kind of put things back on the up and up?

[00:30:52] Diane: I think I had to really, ground myself. I think I was in a hurry to do everything and I was kind of quite overwhelmed, so I, I had to slow down and tell myself that it was my business and if I wanted to, make some products again, that would be okay. I think I was chasing so many sort of problem solving areas in the business.

[00:31:14] I just got totally overwhelmed, to be honest. So yeah, I just slowed down, started to really plan probably in more quarterly stages to make sure that I'd done all the kind of grown up tasks, um, you know, like marketing the top five best sellers. But

[00:31:35] I had to stop coming from a place of sort of fear or scarcity and just trust in the process, which I think I'm quite good at. And I think also to accept that, I'm a full-time single parent. I don't think I mentioned that. So my time is limited and I will always put my children first, so to accept that I have enough, I don't have to keep on pushing. And, as a psychotherapist, I have other, avenues of income opportunities. So it's just about, yeah, staying grounded and making sure I love what I do and that that comes across in my work.

[00:32:16] Janice: I resonate with the feeling of enough, so much. I didn't come out here to win the prize, to make the most. You came out here for the lifestyle goals, to make sure you were enjoying the life and each day on your calendar with your children. And so it's important to come back to that and remember. I think it's really exciting to think about your business as a circle.

[00:32:34] At the beginning, we know so little, there is no noise in our ears and we don't feel that pressure. So you just have your Weebly blog and you just have your pins, and you just have your free activity because you don't know that some people have a WooCommerce site, and some people have this, and some people have that.

[00:32:52] It's so much quieter. And then we go, go, go, and we hustle, hustle, hustle, and we add more and more and more. But I think we do always hit a wall and break eventually. And so slowing down, zooming out and being like, how did we get here? Wait a second. What are the things I actually want to add back in?

[00:33:09] What are the things I actually see working? And just that permission slip to say no to all of those other things you've picked up along the way. It's so beautiful to think about how similar that is to the very beginning of your journey and how beautiful and quiet and playful it was.

[00:33:25] Diane: It's lovely to hear you kind of summarize that and say it back to me, because in a way, all of those years ago when I was just testing things out and having fun, I was so relaxed. un-scared because there was nothing to lose. But we build these, you know, little empires, and life becomes a lot more serious.

[00:33:47] And I had really moved away from what really makes me, me.

[00:33:55] Janice: I think the same thing happens with children too. You talked about the little kids with their sensory experiences smearing food all over their face. I think it's beautiful to be that age. You don't know about taxes and you're not worried about covid and you have no concerns. You're just experiencing life with eyes wide open.

[00:34:13] And I think we were all like that at the very beginning of our businesses too. I know when I work with little kids, I love the opportunity to step back into that world and not worry about all the adulting things and just play. And I think that those early days of business, that's what it unlocks again for us, is the creativity and the play that so many of us lost as adults.

[00:34:34] Diane: Yeah. Gosh. I'll have to really ponder that. I think that's, that's a really big thing and maybe we're all working to get back to that place or to get more of that feeling in, you know, our bigger, more successful businesses where we've got lots more hats than we used to wear and just being experimental and spontaneous.

[00:34:59] Janice: So things sound really balanced for you in your current season. You're making the number you need to make to live life, and you're happy with the tasks that are on your desk. Do you see things kind of just staying on this path until they start to feel sticky again?

[00:35:15] Diane: I've only recently finished a six month journey with a coach because I really felt like I needed some learning and accountability on that aspect, finding my voice, and, because I'm better with pictures than words, and I had a really wonderful time with her. And I'd been trialing a membership which I thought again, would be another interesting arm to my business. It hasn't had the success that I hoped, however, it's got me back into that wheel of content creation. I nearly have a whole new year's worth of product, which I've never done in my life before. Most of my products on my store are

[00:35:59] $4 and under. I don't really have any larger ticket items. I've been kind of playing with the phrase, a year of imagination that

[00:36:06] makes me smile. I think one of the loveliest things I learned was to be like a mad scientist, you know, have an experiment, test it out. And there were a few things I was really afraid of

[00:36:20] and with her encouragement, I just tried them out. And what I realized is it didn't matter if they worked or they didn't, is what I learned from it. And I must say i'm never gonna be a big risk taker. I don't, you know, spend a lot of money on marketing and things like that, but I feel really comfortable thinking, I wonder what happens if I try this and if it's something that doesn't take too long, that's a lot of information to get really quickly about your business if you are okay seeing it flop as well as win.

[00:36:52] Janice: And I think when you're making the right things, you're enjoying it for creativity's sake too, right? If you enjoyed making the activity and you saw even one person get to use it and give you feedback it was worthwhile for you as a creative venture and you helped one person. I think it's about that, enoughness of it all too.

[00:37:11] We certainly want to find the products that have that scalability that lots of people can use and you can make the money you need, but if you're making the right things that you also enjoyed making, that counts for something in creativity land too.

[00:37:25] Diane: Yeah, totally. And when you say, maybe you don't reach that many people, something that I'm really hearing or tuning into at the moment is that you can have a lot more success with a really small engaged audience than needing 50 gazillion, people on your mailing list or following you on Instagram, it's about connecting with those people and hopefully, you know, a percentage of them will convert into customers. And um, I think that's the same as the idea of the networking we were talking about. Smaller communities that are really connected have so much more value than these numbers we were seeking to validate ourselves.

[00:38:07] So

[00:38:08] that's a part of becoming smaller again, in order to become bigger. 

[00:38:13] Janice: I'm excited to hear you dreaming about a year of imagination because I think at the beginning, because you didn't come in from the teacher side, you were nervous to try to make a standards based. What are people teaching in October? Scope and sequence, but so you've worked with so many different populations.

[00:38:31] It's like, well, if I was doing 52 activities this year, here's the way I would string them together. If I was doing 26. If I was doing 10, here's what I would put together. Take what you wish. I'm just sharing my journey. And that's how you talked about your blog at the beginning too, right?

[00:38:48] I'm documenting my experience. And so I think with that playfulness and that curiosity, you're saying like if I was to chain together 10 things, here's what I would do. If you wanna use one of these every month, go for it, but if you don't , it doesn't have to be like the perfect art curriculum.

[00:39:07] Diane: Yeah, you are really great at remembering small details of earlier in the conversation. It's lovely. Um, and I dunno if you would remember it, or even if it might not have been popular in the America, but there was a book called A Year in Provence, um, which is an area in France.

[00:39:25] So this couple went and lived there for a year because they wanted to, experience the unfolding of all the seasons. It really came to me that that's what I'm doing really is wanting to take people on a, creative year to experience all those seasons, whether as it is, you know, poppies for Memorial Day and hoodies, whatever it might be.

[00:39:48] Um. That's just my take on a way of being creative year round, and I would love to be able to populate classrooms with people who were up for it. 

[00:40:00] Janice: I think time bound content is very popular in 2025. I think you just talked about a six month coaching program, and so that's you at the beginning saying like, I'm willing to be curious and see what is possible and take a risk for six months. And the same if we have an afterschool program that meets for 12 weeks.

[00:40:19] I'm not gonna be in this book club forever. I'm just gonna try it for 12 weeks. I'm just gonna try it for a season. I'm just gonna try this new way of planning my meals for 30 days, and see what happens. I think it feels very safe to have some time bound structure. I think if you are just buying a one-time art lesson on TPT, it's like, oh yeah, I should probably do an art lesson later.

[00:40:41] Uh, sometime I should squeeze that in. But it's like, no, like a year of imagination. What if we commit to doing one every month? Then it's like, well, the month is wrapping up. I better get going. I need to prep this 'cause it has like a little bit of structure. I think that can feel safe when you're taking on something brand new.

[00:40:59] Diane: And it can be habit forming, can't it? And I guess if we only do something once the children might have come in from outdoors and they're wet or grumpy and nothing really happens, but the second time it might be a really sunny day. Or who knows? If we don't do something continually, we don't really build that habit or grow the benefits.

[00:41:20] And I guess from a teacher perspective, who is, most of my consumer buyers aren't art , . They're teaching everything. So they're not necessarily an expert, otherwise they'd be doing their own art lesson. So it's the idea, I think that the more art we do with kids, the more creatively confident we can become, and maybe those teachers would then take it home in their own practice to relax or feed it onto their own kids.

[00:41:45] So I kind of think it benefits everybody. 

[00:41:48] Janice: Your story is so inspiring to me. I work with a lot of people who love to make resources or love to make clip art and love the creative itch that's part of resource creation, but the business pieces kind of dry up the creativity and suck the fun out of it for them. And when I hear you talk about your business, I definitely still feel the joy and the creativity being in place.

[00:42:13] Is that hard for you as a creative to balance the two, like your creative needs and the joy and also like the numbers and the business part of it?

[00:42:23] Diane: Massively. I can sabotage and have arguments with myself, I have to try and make myself do the grownup stuff first because i've got enough ideas in my head for three lifetimes or more, and I wish, yeah, I wish I could leave the number crunching and the marketing aside.

[00:42:41] Janice: But the numbers help us decide what to make next. Right? And what task to do next 

[00:42:46] because , we know that we won't finish them all.

[00:42:48] Diane: That's absolutely right. And 

[00:42:50] Janice: Diane, I'm so glad that I got to chat with you today. , This was very cup filling for me on a Monday morning. I just know that there will be listeners of this show that want to connect with you and follow your journey from here. Where's the best way they can connect with you?

[00:43:04] Diane: Good question. I am on Instagram and I'll always, reply to a message or follow back. I think to really connect, probably to drop me an email or join my newsletter.

[00:43:17] Yeah, it would just be diane@theimaginationbox.com. Um, drop me an email and I'm quite a quiet person, but as in quite shy, but I'm a real chatterbox, so I'm happy to have a conversation with anybody who wants to reach out and talk about anything. I love all the friends I've made across the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:43:38] I think you're all an amazing bunch.

[00:43:40] Janice: Absolutely, and just like Pinterest connected you to like this whole world of people that were looking for creative resources, I feel the same way about teacher business. I never would've met any of these people that are running similar businesses, and so many of the ideas that we get to take into our own businesses are because we were inspired by a creative adventure someone else was taking.

[00:44:01] Diane: Yeah, and I think the mutual generosity of everyone being willing to share rather than, you know, in the more corporate world, people hold their achievements very close and their successes close to their chest because they're fearful. And I think that's the most joyful part of this community for me, is everyone's generosity and connection.

[00:44:24] Janice: Absolutely. I love the teacher business space. I think people are very humble about potholes they've stepped into that didn't work because we just wanna save someone else from the same headache. And I think that people also really share what's working for them right now because we all have a common goal.

[00:44:38] We all want to share more activities with kids and make it a little easier for adults to facilitate them, and it feels so good to connect with other people that spend their days in the same way.

[00:44:48] Diane: Totally. Thank you so much for inviting me and yeah, this is my kind of first official speaking on a podcast. 

[00:44:56] Janice: I am so 

[00:44:56] grateful for you stepping out of your comfort zone. I know how difficult that is, but I know that this balance of creativity in business is something that everyone is searching for, hearing that it is possible to find that balance. And your brand connects to so many different people that anytime I can amplify the work that you're doing, I am all for it.

[00:45:17] Diane: Thank you, Janice. You're a star.