Beauty School or cosmetology school as it’s sometimes called, is a very worthy choice of education.

I’m serious.

Do you realize that in many cases, it’s easier to emigrate to a country with a degree or diploma in beauty therapy than it is to gain entrance as say, an architect? I’m not even remotely close to joking here.

It is a career that is in constant demand, owing to the world at large suddenly within the last decade, sitting up and starting to take care of its collective appearance.

Many, many career opportunities abound if you are qualified as a beautician and these include such awesome placements as cruise ship work (hello see the world!), the opportunity to freelance, be mobile, or work from home.

It’s definitely a career worth looking at, even if you’re unsure about your future career choices, because you will be able to begin earning money straight away if you use your head, and find a niche within the market. Combining your beauty studies with complimentary therapies such as Reiki, Aromatherapy and Massage can also greatly improve your earning potential.

Women are always on the lookout for good beauticians and sometimes in fact they’re such well kept secrets that many popular beauty school graduates are booked up weeks in advance.

Solar Energy is one of the most obvious resources that we do not utilize nearly enough.

If popular movies are anything to go by, the fact that we’re in 2010, means that we should all be driving (flying) around in solar powered cars already!

Unfortunately we’re not but there are a lot of awesome solar technologies available to us, even in the form of solar kits to make a drastic difference in the way our lives are run. Just imagine having enough power to charge and maintain your RV, boat or cottage without having to depend on the national grid. What if you could have power wherever you go, with a handy solar kit, there when you need it!

Clean, green, sustainable and silent energy right when you need it? Yes please! Just imagine the cost savings involved when your ambient appliances are all run off-grid powered using solar energy. It definitely is the way of the future, and we should ALL consider unburdening already over utilized state resources so that they can focus on things like cleaning up the gulf of Mexico, improving health-care and education.

Have you installed any green energy systems in your home or office? What do you utilize it for? Do you feel really great doing something for the environment?

Hi, my name is Vanessa, and I’m a chick who likes technology.

I don’t presume to understand everything about it, but I’m not afraid of it, and I love to try and understand new technologies and try to utilize them to improve work efficiency, workflow and ultimately improve the lives of work at home moms (WAHMs) and freelancers all around the world.

Many of my graphic design clients are work at home moms, stay at home moms, bloggers, entrepeneurs and small business owners, all of whom are trying to harness the web in some way to improve their business and lives.

So I’m passing on the bit of knowledge that I’ve gleaned from here in there in the hopes that it helps others.

So. SEO. For those who don’t know the term SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. A search engine is a web based thingamajig that allows you to search for information and products and just about everything else on the web. The most popular of which of course is Google. Another example of one that is gaining in popularity is Bing, which is a Microsoft product.

So here’s the lowdown at its most basic.

Let’s say  you’re an ace at making childrens linen, and you start a business from home making custom linen and develop your own line of products that you want to market on the web.

So you find a designer, get a website made, and then marvel at it’s wonder and beauty.

A week goes by, and you wonder why the phone hasn’t rung, because after all, you just paid a  handsome some, for the most beautiful website in the world. Surely folks should be tracking down your ip address, routing it to the GPS and virtually banging down your door to get their hands on your awesome stuff?

So, you go to Google, type in “Custom Childrens Linen”.

…

…

That’s odd, your website isn’t right at the top of the search results.

But why!? It’s a thing of beauty that website!

Hold on a second, it’s not on the second page of results either!

There must be something very wrong!

Surely after a week the traffic should be streaming in!

In fact your website doesn’t get picked up in the first 3.79245 MILLION results.

But rather than throw in the towel, and can the great business idea that was going to let you quit your dayjob, let me tell you that there is something that can be done to  help you, and that, my friends, is SEO.

SEO is the very thing (along with a few others in hand) that directly seeks to improve your search engine rankings within search engines like Google and Bing.

At it’s most basic, there are several things you can do right up front.

1. Keyword Selection: Choose several phrases that you want your customers to find your website with, when they go to google. i.e. “childrens linen” “childrens bedroom decor” “kids custom linen” “cute bedding for kids” my rule of thumb for all my new web design clients, is to pick ten and work on them. Focus. Analyze the results and either keep at it, or move on.
2. Use of Keywords: Then you use those keyword phrases in the content of your website. Not excessively, but repeatedly and in a fashion that is pleasing to read.
3. Blog: Yes, every business needs a blog these days. Why? Because search engines pay attention to fresh content. They are far more interested in websites that post new and exciting content (using your keyword phrases) on a regular basis rather than a static website that says it once, and keeps quiet for all eternity.
4. Links: Inbound links are the best way of improving a websites ranking, and search engine listings. This means that you should be posting content to your website or blog that is so fresh and hot and interesting, that other folks are creating links to it. See how I linked out to the phrase “work at home mom” in the very beginning of this article?  That creates good SEO for the website that I linked to. If a website that is ranked higher than yours, links to you, it counts heavily in your favour, but a link of any kind (except from a spam site), will count in your websites favor.
5. Deep Links: Sometimes you post content, and want to refer back to a previous article that you’ve written, or a category of articles. This is great for SEO if you can refer back to your older articles to keep them fresh. When you link to content that you’ve already posted on your own site in the past in order to help folks find information more easily, it’s called Deep Linking. Take a look at the link I created at the very top of the article on the words “work at home moms” that link takes you directly to an article that I wrote about work at home moms and the challenges they face.

There are a multitude of ways in which search engine optimization can help your website and these five that I have listed have really only touched on the tip of the iceberg. For complete help in this area, you need to enlist the help of an SEO specialist, and usually your web designer can put you in touch with one, or will in fact be working in conjunction with one to optimize your site anyway. It’s not however your designers responsibility to provide this service as a matter of course, and should be requested by you. Also, SEO is not an overnight thing. It takes time, and quality interesting content. If you have those two ingredients then success will surely follow.

By Guest Blogger, Kristi Gaylord

The benefits of being a work-at-home mom are widely known.

We’re are able to spend heaps of quality time with our kids, avoid shelling out fistfuls of cash for an expensive professional wardrobe, avoid lengthy and stressful commutes, and, perhaps best of all, we can work in our pajamas and slippers, workout gear and sneakers, or jeans and a t-shirt.

The personal and creative freedoms associated with working for ourselves are a big part of why we chose this career path.

Yet despite the many positive aspects of this work situation, there are drawbacks to at-home self-employment. Sometimes attempting to work with young children around (or underfoot, or on our laps) is all but impossible. Sometimes we find it difficult to separate the different spheres of our lives since we both work at home and live at work. And sometimes we feel isolated – cut off from the corporate offices, team-building activities, and coworker banter some of us left behind in pursuit of a more flexible schedule.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Evolving technology has enabled WAHMs to stay connected to the “outside world” in ways not available to us even two years ago. Myriad online tools and resources exist to allow us to connect and network with former coworkers, business partners, clients (both current and potential), and friends across the globe with minimal effort.

Here are some ways we can build our businesses, add clients, connect with others in our field, and stay in touch with friends and former coworkers who can help us grow our professional network.

Join the NessWorld WAHM Alliance

If you’re reading this, chances are you know a little bit about what Vanessa is trying to accomplish. NessWorld is an alliance of WAHMs who want to market their businesses to their local communities. Designed to provide WAHMs with exposure, professional opportunities, and networking capabilities, Vanessa will set up your free profile page, and then help you promote it to your network. You can also access tons of helpful articles about running a business from home, including those on how to create marketing opportunities and advice on how to grow your business while maintaining a good work-life balance. Best of all, you can connect with other moms who are awake with the sun and trying to get some work done before the kids get up.

Boost Your Facebook Time

Yes, that’s right. You need to spend more time on Facebook. This social networking website is more than a place to reconnect with the boy who broke your heart in 11th grade and secretly gloat over the fact that you have aged much better than he has. Create a Facebook page for your business, send your clients and friends invitations to join the page, and post business-related updates on your wall (Think: “Working on an exciting new marketing plan for Company X!” rather than “On my forth shot of tequila and still going strong!”). Fill out your profile with links to your work, share articles that interest your clients, and even market your products by posting special offers or packages.

Get LinkedIn

If you’re not already on LinkedIn, you should be. LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site that allows users to create and maintain a list of business contacts. The contacts are called Connections, and users can also see those connected to members of their contact list (similar to the Friend Lists of your Facebook friends). This helps you broaden your own professional contacts or client base. Ask a happy client, or a former manager or co-worker to write you a glowing recommendation to appear on your page, and you have an online business profile available to your entire business network, and their connections as well.

Get Your Tweet On With Twitter

As it is with the other social media tools, Twitter has radically changed the way we communicate. It’s a great way to let your network of friends and business contacts know about a new project, informally collaborate with others in your field, or reach out to friends when you’re having a tough day at the “office.” Tweets are short (140 characters or fewer), quick, and to-the-point, and can instantly relay information to both your personal and professional networks.

In many ways, working from home sounds like the ideal situation for moms. But staying connected to the professional world many of us left behind is challenging when the demands of our families and jobs eat up most of day. Social media tools allow you to quickly and easily harness the awesome connective power of the Internet and put it to work for you and your business.

So you’re a mom. You have kids, you work from home, and just when everything is going fantastically well, you get a bunch of holidays thrown into the mix, a pile of wonderful work that is both challenging and exciting, and you really have no idea how you’re going to get everything done. Then, one of the kids gets the flu, and well, the craziness ensues.

Welcome to the life of a Work At Home Mom!

Just when women were breaking through glass ceilings in the corporate arena, all over the world, we go and decide that it’s not enough to simply become managers and She-E-Os, but now, we *really* want to have it all, and we go and give ourselves the most difficult position of all.

It’s called, ‘I-Want-It-All’-syndrome, and it affects women who have left the corporate world, to have kids, and then decide to work from home. It doesn’t matter what you choose to do from home, but if it’s work that brings you a much appreciated income, and you arrange your schedule around the needs of your children and spouse, and you have a household to run as well (those without full time cleaners and nannies – yes that’s us!), then congratulations! You’ve just signed up for the ride of your life. A rollercoaster ride that will be absolutely exhilarating in places, downright terrifying in others, and best of all, you-cannot-get-off.

Hurray!

The key, to maintaining at best a sense of calm, and at worst, simply your sanity, I have found, is organisation.

Keeping your life organised through the use both real and electronic diary’s, calendar applications etc is absolutely essential to maintain order.

My own personal system consists of a regular diary in which I plan my day using a pencil.

Call it a first draft if you will. A statement of intent.

It’s also the place where I jot down any information taken down during the day, like telephone number from new contacts etc. It might sound archaic in this digital age, but I prefer to think of it as a fail-safe back up, in the event of a power failure.

From here I transfer any contact details into Apple “Address Book” application, and any appointments into iCal, Apples built in Calendar application.

Even though these are perfectly good standalone applications, they also work fantastically well together, and of course, your mail application also works seamlessly with both of these in terms of accessing email addresses and confirming appointments.

Even better, they can also be sync-ed with an iPhone and also Blackberry (which I do) so you carry all your contacts, to-do’s and appointments around with you in your handbag.

It definitely makes life a lot easier, and a lot less stressful, and you are less likely to forget things if they are easily accessible on an item like a smartphone. I set my reminders with alarms so that whether I am sitting in front of the iMac, or out doing a quick grocery shop, or on a school run, that I am is instantly reminded of tasks which require completion.

It is in this spirit of organisation, and efficiency, that I have decided to set up a weekly posting schedule on NessWorld, rather than trying to keep up a daily post. That way you’ll always know when to tune in for the latest updates, and I have a whole week to work on a post that is helpful, informative and as chock-full of information and news as possible.

Kicking off the weekly postings, which will be on Tuesdays, will be a guest post, from highly esteemed blogger and professional writer, Kristi Gaylord who is a WAHM with a pre-schooler, and toddler twins!

In Kristi’s post tomorrow, she talks about the benefits of social media marketing for WAHMs, and how we can use it for networking to support one another.

Check back tomorrow!

This week I decided to try online shopping. For groceries rather than the kind of items that one would usually shop for online, i.e. dvd’s cd’s etc.

With both kids home during the school holidays, the idea of loading up the car with all assorted paraphernalia simply to pop to the shops for groceries, having to wrangle them both into a trolley and then having no space left to actually put stuff, *really* didn’t appeal to me.

You know what I mean right?

So I thought I would give one of our local stores the benefit of trying out their online shopping facility.

The website in question was easy to use, and fast to figure out the navigation, and I was able to get my shopping fairly quickly.

The whole process really opened my eyes to the possibilities and pitfalls of the concept and I thought that sharing my experience might help others avoid the potholes on the virtual  super highway.

Whether or not you choose to shop for groceries and basic necessities online, boils down to what you find more valuable to you.

Time vs Money

This is the question you should ask yourself:

If you are able to save an hour by shopping online, is that one hour more valuable to you, in terms of using the time to earn money by working on a project (if you’re a WAHM), than if you were to down tools, and go directly to the store to save money by finding bargains and specials that are not online. Consider everything right down to the gas/petrol required to get to the store, the distance travelled, the energy expended etc.

Here are some other pointers that can help you to improve your time management and cost saving ratio as well as some other interesting facts about doing grocery shopping online.

• Make a Menu Plan: Do not deviate from that plan. Download our handy meal planner to help you plan out a weeks meals in advance. It can be used in both Excel or Open Office, and is fully customizable and free.
• Shops with a List: From now on that is your Indian name. Make a list for groceries, based solely on your meal planner (did you download it yet?) and on any additional cleaning materials, other household items you may need. Ladies, chocolate is not a necessary household item, nor can it be categorized under ‘cleaning materials’, no matter how much you’d like it to.
• Do not browse: Browsing unnecessarily leads to spending unnecessarily. Yes the boxes are pretty. Yes the pictures are colourful, but IGNORE them. You have a list. You are “Shops with a List” remember?
• Environmentally Friendly:  Consider that if 20 people shop online, that would otherwise have driven cars to the store, you are actually saving some bad emissions from being released into the air. Yes, the delivery guy still has to drive to your house, but take one car versus twenty? Basic math says you’re helping the environment.
• Temptation Not:  You won’t be tempted by the freshly baked cinnamon rolls and coffee if you can’t smell them right?

The Down Side: There is also a down side of course, and by shopping online, you will not be able to see any specials that are only available in store. Items that might have been marked down are not listed on online grocery store sites, so where you could save quite a bit by buying bananas that are ripe right now, and needing to be sold immediately at rock bottom prices.

• Premium Only:  Sometimes when you shop online at a big online retailer for groceries, all orders are received at a centralized depot, and very often they will only carry the premium brand version of the product that you are looking for. So where at your local store you may have as many as three to four different brands of nappies available to choose from, they may only carry the most expensive premium brand. Ditto Olive Oil. Ditto Chocolate. But chocolate wasn’t on your list though right?
• Expiry Dates: My online retailer has a feature which allows me to send a note to the ‘personal shopper’ who will be picking out the products for me. I use this to instruct them to please select the item that has the expiry date as far in the future as possible i.e. milk/bread/meat.  Failure to do that, results in the products I’m ordering to be expiring within a day or two of them being delivered. Fact.
• Package Sizes: This again, is probably not the same at each retailer, but watch the package sizes carefully. You may be buzzing to discover this amazing bargan! Then when you receive it, you realise that it’s because you ordered the 100g bag instead of the 250g bag. If you aren’t there in person, at least read the fine print.
• Bulk Bargains: Be aware of the bulk bargain trap. Buying the larger item in order to save money, isn’t always cheaper! Make sure you work out the difference in price per pound/kilo/gram before selecting the bulk option. Fact.
• Local Products: This is a thorny issue as we all have it drummed into us that we should buy local products. I understand why. But I do not endorse this when the premium foreign brand is double the quality of the local one, and half the price. Fact. Yes, I’m talking about Tate & Lyle Demerara Sugar Cubes (ZAR 17.99) vs Hulettes Brown Sugar Cubes (R34.99). There is JUST no excuse for this sort of pricing, carbon foot print or not. If local brands want to compete, they’d better do so on equal footing. Charging double the price and hoping to guilt us into buying it will NOT fly with me or any of the other consumers I know.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it on facebook, stumble it, tweet it and share it.

If you are planning on starting a business, then chances are you will need a website, and the sooner the better.

What is the difference between a website and a blog? Nothing really. A blog is simply a particular type of website, and here are a couple of great reasons why you should have one.

1. Blogs are relatively easy to set up.
2. Blogs can be maintained by the owner (that’s you!), removing the need for going to a technical person to babysit it for you, or everytime you need to change something.
3. Blogs that are updated regularly (it’s basically a series of chronological entries, kind of like an online diary) with good quality content, get better search engine traffic (more feet in the door) than websites which are made once, and then left there to languish for all eternity.
4. Using WordPress as your content management system (you will hear people talking about CMS) is the easiest way to have complete control over your websites content, and changing things on your website is about as difficult as composing and typing an email. (i.e. not difficult at all!)
5. Using the blog format, allows customers/clients/people to interact with you and leave comments/contact you for more information, and it encourages conversation and community, these are all things you want in a successful business.
6. Word of mouth is still one of the best promotional tools there is, and a blog can be set up so that your users/visitors/clients can easily promote or send your information to their family, friends and network of contacts.

I started this website with one thing in mind. Helping people. I know that people often feel afraid to ask for help, particularly with things of a technical nature, and that’s okay.  I understand how technology scares people who are afraid of messing things up.

You need not worry that you can’t do this, can’t have your own website, because I am going to help you along every single step of the way. If you need a website (if you’re starting a business or have a business, then this means you), then I am going to help you get one, set it up for you, and teach you how to use it.

I am a Work at Home Mom too, so I understand your concerns, the pressures you face (believe me, just typing out this post I had to deal with about 1.7 billion interruptions, including making about twenty pieces of toast “No, don’t cut it like that momy, I want triangles!!”) but aside from all that, I also understand what it is like to be a woman facing a technical challenge, and if I can share with you, the knowledge I have learned, and help you achieve your goals then I am going to do just that.

So What’s Next?

There are two essential ingredients in setting up your web presence.

1.  You Need a Domain Name (your very own .com, .net  etc).

2.  You Need a Hosting Package (a place to put your website up).

So Here’s the Deal

I use StartLogic for most of my webhosting. I have been with them for over 3 years, and have had only compliments for their service.

If you decide that today is the day that you take yourself and your business seriously and you sign up for a StartLogic Pro-Logic Package, then I will install and set up WordPress for you for free.

Here is Why StartLogic Pro-Logic is my host of choice:

• Disk Space: Unlimited (you can store as much information/photos/videos/text as you need to)
• Your Domain Name: Free* (free if you sign up for a year or two in advance, otherwise there is an $8.95 domain name registration charge).
• Email Accounts: Unlimited (everyone in your family can get a you@yourbusiness.com email address)
• Control Panel: Vdeck v 3.0
• Bandwidth: Unlimited (this means that they do not limit the amount of visitors to your site (very important for when you hit the big time!!)
• Money Back Guarantee: 30 Days (excl the domain reg fee, once registered it is yours for a year regardless of whether you use it or not)
• Domains you can host: Unlimited. This means that you can purchase additional domains and add them to your one hosting package – so you can have as many websites as you want all on the same hosting package.

What does it cost?

• 2 Year Plan: US$5.95/month + Free Setup + Free Domain Name (Total Upfront cost = $142.80 – roughly ZAR1035.89 for two years worth of hosting that’s just R43.16 a month!)
• 1 Year Plan: US$6.95/month + Free Setup + Free Domain Name (Total Upfront cost = $ 83.40 – roughly ZAR605.48 for one whole years hosting, that’s just R50.45 a month!)
• Monthly Plan: US $6.95/month + $30 Setup Fee + $8.95 Domain Name (Total Upfront cost $45.90/ZAR 328.28 then $6.95/ZAR 43.77 a month thereafter)

These are great options, because if you have the start up capital to pay upfront then it reduces your costs over the long run. When I started 3 years ago, I chose the third option, because I did not have the extra cash to ‘go big’ at the start. It just goes to show that having a business online does NOT have to cost an arm and a leg to get going. In fact the costs of starting a business online is far far less than if you were to physical premises and stock shelves.

So What Will I do For You, For Free?

• Install and configure WordPress software on your hosting package (i.e. set up the initial website/blog for you)

• Upload 5 themes for you to choose from to start off with (a ‘theme’ is your blogs ‘look and feel’) there are many out there to choose from.

• Install plugins that will give you better visibility with search engines, set up your rss feeds allowing people to subscribe, and another to prevent spam.

• Tell you how and where to login to your wordpress panel,  and get you started creating your online presence.

Why am I doing this for free?

• Firstly, if you sign up with StartLogic for a Prologic Package, they pay me a commission. This enables me to offer you my initial help to you for free. (If you already have a domain and hosting and want help then see my services page for how I can help you)
• I believe in empowering woman to achieve their dreams, this is just a small way that I can help you get started. Being a work at home mom is very close to my heart and by helping other women, and particularly moms, I get to help whole families ! Or at least that would be my beauty pageant speech!

What technical services do I offer that are not free?

Please check out my services page (will open in new window) for more information, so that we can be clear as to what is free, and what is not.

My services include things like importing other blogs into a wordpress installation, personal tutoring via Skype on how to edit your websites content, create posts and make it look awesome, change the themes etc.

As well as graphic design services for designing all the bells and whistles that will make your blog look and feel amazing, and more importantly promote your business brand and identity.

These services are available as individual items, as and when required, but there is also an option for a monthly membership in the works, where I will also perform any upgrades necessary on the wordpress installation (they’re always improving it!) and on the plug-ins that we mentioned earlier as well as sending you monthly graphics to use on your site, tips on improving your blogs SEO (search engine optimization), and ideas for Social Media Marketing so that you can get more visitors and improve your business in every way possible, members also get my monthly newsletter which includes a lot of information about making money online using your website.

More details on this coming soon!

Do you have any reason NOT to take up this offer?

Get your business online host your web site with StartLogic! and start getting customers!

Oh holy smokes! Your business has started, it’s going rather well. Going SO WELL in fact, that you need to dedicate more time to it.

What if that little bit of extra, uninterrupted time, could mean a BIG difference to your income?  (I can hear WAHMs around the world laughing at my use of the word uninterrupted)

What if just having a few extra hours a week of uninterrupted time was all you needed to really break into the next gear, finish that awesome well paying project?

The fact is, that at some point you may need to consider a hiring someone for a few hours of help so that you can complete your major project or assignment.

Some of us are blessed with extended families that are only to happy to take the children for a morning a week, or an afternoon here or there, but there will be that one situation where you absolutely HAVE to get things done, and murphy’s law, that will be the one day, that all your family are busy, or out of town, or ill.

It *will* happen.

So what do you do?

What about those of you who don’t have extended family nearby, or even in the same country?

What do *you* do?

Sooner or later you may need the help of a friendly nanny, baby-sitter, or if you’re really lucky an au-pair.

Moms are notorious stalwarts, and many are taken aback, or even offended at the idea of having to hire someone.

Hello? We are all HUMAN. (Ok, as women we know we’re really super human, but still, we’re not perfect). Why not hire someone, who’s job it is to care for and entertain your kids for a few hours?

I learned a valuable lesson from my youngest son, when I made the difficult, heart wrenching decision to let him go to a playgroup for a few hours for the first time.

I was torn apart.

Completely, feeling like I was a failure simply because I could not do it all, all the time, twenty-four hours a day. Until I realized just how ridiculous that sounded.

At what point did I feel like I HAD to be this perfect person, who did everything?

It really dawned on me how silly it was, when I was packing his little back-pack to go to the playgroup again and he saw what I was doing, and he started clapping his little hands together and shouting, “Yay, Yay, Yay!!” I realised that the person who ran the playgroup, chose this as a career.

She chose it because she loves children.

She chooses to spend her time with 5 little youngsters and making their day as fun, as entertaining, as educational, and as routine as possible. Her absolute mission was to make sure that the kids were looked after as well as if she were their real mother, ha ha, their well rested, imaginative, that never-runs-out-of-patience mother.

Being a mother is something I chose, but reality insists that I also earn an income. My chosen form of income bringing activity is graphic design and photography. It is not child care. Though some aspects of childcare come naturally to mothers, I must admit, that I am absolutely terrible at thinking up fun and games all the time, and certainly not when I’m trying to finish that huge project that demands so much of my attention.

So in the same way that I take my child to the doctor when they are sick, I also choose to take them to a childcare expert when I need time to do what I am good at, and that which allows my children the lifestyle that they enjoy.

So if you find yourself in the position where you are needing childcare, I implore you, do not feel like a failure, think of your strengths and the many advantages that YOU and your strengths bring your family, then make your decision.

If you choose as I did, then this resource below may be of use to you.

Are you a mom who is returning to the workforce? Or are you wanting to leave your day job and pursue something that is more meaningful to you?

Would you like to start your own business, and work your own hours?  Start by ignoring all the sales pitches for get rich quick schemes and focus on getting a real education, while working from home at the same time.

The internet has brought education to the masses more than any other medium in history, and thankfully these days it is a perfectly acceptable form of learning.

There are hundreds of options to choose from, when it comes to your chosen career. In fact, there are so many, that sometimes doing a simple Google search can turn up so many options, that you have no idea where to even begin looking.

Today I’m going to talk about learning to become an Interior Decorator.

Do you have a flair for furnishings, colour and layout? Do people comment positively on your own home decor? Then this may be the perfect career for you, and it is completely flexible allowing you to work from home.

Everybody, at some time or another has decorated their homes, offices or apartments. That means that everybody is a potential client!

Someone with a little creative flair and skill can make this a career choice, and become successful as they increase their skills. The good news is that learning the skills to successful interior design and decorating is possible for everyone.

Is this something that you would like to see yourself doing?

Do you browse the paint section at your local hardware, and immediately start to imagine all the possibilities as you stand in front of the sample palettes?

Do you wish you could take the sample swatches from fabric and upholstery manufacturers home with you, to touch, feel, and accessorize with?

Do furniture stores send you into raptures of fantastical delight as you plan your ultimate perfect room?

If this describes you, then you could definitely make a career out of being an interior decorator!

You will need to learn about colour, space, layout, theme, mood, how to select measurements, where to source and select furnishings and how to sketch an internal design.

So where can you take a course, that you can complete in your own time, that will not cost a fortune, but will teach you more than enough to feel confident about starting your own interior design business?

Australian College QED is an accredited Australian Educational Institution, and registered with the Australian Council for Private Education and Training (with other numerous other affiliations and registrations).

They offer two options that can be completed via distance learning so you can be anywhere in the world and take this course!

Training materials are mailed out to you, and you can submit your assignments via mail, and in some cases (check for each course) online. They also offer supplemental online training for you. The banner at the end of this article, is clickable and will take you to Australian College QED online for more information.

1. Interior Design and Decorating
2. Advanced Interior Design & Decorating for Professionals

(Certificate INTD05; Diploma INTA16 plus SoA)

Each ACQ course has a tutor overseeing it, so in the case of the interior design course, a professional interior designer/decorator with years of experience is the one marking your assignments and offering very helpful advice and feedback with each assignment that you submit.

The economy is picking up again, and people are more comfortable with spending money, it follows naturally that many people who did not spend money on decorating their homes last year, will be in the market this year, making this the perfect time for you to begin your career as an Interior Designer or to start your own Interior Decorator business.

The banner below will take you to the ACQ website where you can learn about many more courses on offer. They have a wonderful variety, and it is a great idea to do a Small Business Course alongside your interior design course, or perhaps extend your range of services by doing an event management course.

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Being a Work at Home Mom can be one of the most rewarding things that you do.

But we also know how hard it can be all by yourself.

For example, where on earth would you even begin to find investors for your idea? A partner? A service provider?

You’re just starting out and you need to find every possible avenue to market yourself, your product and your idea.  Current Social Networks focus more on YOU the person, as opposed to YOU the business. It can be a veritable zoo of information, and you rarely know which service to use and when to promote yourself.

However, we have found one, thanks to Darren Rowse at Problogger, called You Noodle, which focuses on both. Did we mention it’s free?

YouNoodle harnesses the power of social networking, and showcases start-ups, websites, new businesses and existing ventures.

Giving you an easy to use platform to showcase your ideas whether they are brand new and still in the building phase, or if you are already established and simply wanting to promote your products and services to a unique market of people.

Some of you may wish to keep your ideas to yourself, naturally the fear of being copied or beaten to market is frightening for some, but ask yourself, what guarantee do you have that you keep your ideas to yourself, and someone doesn’t beat you to market anyway? Why not put yourself out there, and put your stamp and your face behind your ‘big idea’ right from the start.

It is about taking ownership of your idea and seeking out like minded entrepeneurs, and more importantly POTENTIAL INVESTORS.  As a WAHM what an amazing opportunity to be able to reach the ears of the people who may be able to help you launch your idea into the stratosphere, all while you are sitting at home.

Don’t forget to connect with NessWorld while you’re there, you can follow NessWorlds’ progress by following this link to my profile and connecting with us there.

Remember if you are going to promote yourself and your business, have your summary, most professional profile photo, and some business graphics ready. If you are in the Cape Town area and need help getting the perfect profile photograph taken, you are welcome to email me to arrange a quick low cost photoshoot (I will offer special rates to NessWorld fans), and of course I can also be of service in getting business graphics designed for you (graphic design services I can offer globally thanks to the wonder of the internet), and optimized for web use, again, please contact me via email with your requirements, naturally I will offer special rates for NessWorld followers and fans.

I started NessWorld as a way of helping other WAHMs (work at home moms) get access to these kinds of professional services at affordable rates (when you have a household to maintain, we know what kind of strain that can put on your marketing budget!) and this is my way of helping out.