To make this fast, simple, and inexpensive gift, you will need: embroidery floss, earring clips, paper clips, and a clear, quick drying glue like Fabri-Tac. You should be able to find all of these supplies at your local craft store.  Unfold the paper clips so they create even, triangle shapes. Slide the earring clips onto the triangle paper clips and secure the two ends of the triangles together. Secure the ends with clear tape to ensure they stay together. Knot one end of the embroidery floss to one corner of the paper clip. Glue it in place with the Fabri-Tac. Run a dab of glue along the entire base of the paper clip to keep the floss in place. Continue to wrap the floss around the paper clip, creating an even layer of colorful floss. Once you have wrapped the entire paper clip or made your desired design, finish the earrings by trimming off any excess floss and gluing the last strand of floss in place. This is a good homemade gift to make with friends, as supplies like soil and gravel are cheaper in bulk.  You will need a bag of tiny charcoal, a bag of clean soil, a bag of gravel, a small glass or plastic bowl (look for this at your local craft store), a variety of succulents, moss, and any other small decorative rocks or sticks (found at your local nursery or plant store), a small scoop, a set of chopsticks or pencils, and a spray bottle with water. Make a work area by covering a table or the floor with newspapers. Put a layer of gravel in your container. Then, sprinkle a some charcoal bits on top of the gravel. The charcoal will absorb the earthy smell. Add a layer of soil on top of the gravel and charcoal. Make sure it is an inch or two deep, or deep enough to support the succulents. Give the bowl a light spray with the water bottle, and clean the sides of the bowl. This will make sure the soil is moist enough to hold the plants. Then, pat down the soil with your hand. You could also adjust the soil so it is diagonal in the bowl. This will showcase the plants better. Use a chopstick or a pencil to dig a hole in the soil that’s just big enough to insert the plants. Trim the stem of the succulents and plant the remaining stem. For greenery that has deep roots, trim the roots and leave some of them so they can grow back into the soil. Add sheet moss to fill in the holes around the plants. The moss is preserved so it won’t grow, but it will maintain its color and add a nice decorative detail to the terrarium. Finish the terrarium by adding in any small decorative items like stones or sticks. You can also add tiny toy animals or birds. Get creative and personalize your terrarium. To make this heart warming homemade gift, you’ll need a clean milk bottle or a 1-quart mason jar. You can also customize the ingredients to make any variety of bread. For this example, we’ll be focusing on Chocolate Chip Oatmeal bread.  You’ll need: 2 cups all purpose flour, 1 cup rolled oats, ½ cup granulated sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ cup chopped walnuts, and ½ cup chocolate chips. Pour the flour into your bottle or jar. Tap the sides of the bottle so the layer is even and flat. Then, slowly add in the oats, granulated sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon into the bottle one at a time. Tap between each layer so they are nicely distributed in the bottle. Add in the walnuts and chocolate chips as the last two layers in the bottle. Cut a small piece of paper and write down the recipe, as well as the wet ingredients to add to the bottle of dry ingredients (1 ½ cups buttermilk, 2 large eggs, and ¼ cup melted butter). Make sure you also add a note about baking the bread in a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan at 350 degrees Fahrenheit in the oven for about 50 minutes. Feel free to also draw or doodle on the paper as a finishing touch and then stick the paper to the bottle of dry ingredients with tape. This could be the person's favorite recipe for shortbread cookies or a new recipe for dark chocolate brownies that you think the person will like. Look for recipes that involve only a few, easy to find ingredients and don't involve a lot of bake time to keep your gift within budget. This is a great way to make a very personal, one of a kind gift for someone. Use a program like Photoshop or collage software to build a collage on your computer or get really hands on and collage photo copied or scanned photos on a piece of poster board. To make the collage even more impressive looking, get it framed professionally or purchase a frame from a craft store and frame it yourself.

Summary: Create a pair of paperclip earrings. Make a plant terrarium. Build a “bread in a jar”. Make cookies or other baked goods. Create a photo collage.


You will want to reach out to potential customers in ways that make them want to use your business. This is especially important when you are first starting before you have an established, regular customer base.  Advertise in a way that catches customers attention at a minimum and hopefully goes beyond to capture their imagination. Be creative and appeal to the right aspects of the customers you want to use your business. Offer free samples of what you do to the right people, in order to get people saying good things about what you have to offer. Word of mouth (i.e. good PR) is the best way to attract new customers. If you get bad reviews or negative feedback, respond positively and fix the problem. People will be much less judgmental about mistakes if you're willing to fix them. Go to conferences, charity galas, meetings with complementary businesses and anywhere where your customers are likely to be highly concentrated. In other words: get out in public and interact with people. Use your friend's connections to meet people who may be able to help you. This kind of interaction is very important for starting a business. You can't exist in a vacuum after all. Be good at interacting with people. Practice reading between the lines of what people say. Learn how to meet needs they didn't know they had. Figure out how to make people happy. Be charming. Most importantly, be humble. The customer may not always be right but you need to be able to let them think they are. The world has moved online. Any business that wants to survive the next ten years is going to have a website. People will use it to contact you, find your location, learn your operating hours, ask you questions, make suggestions, and maybe even buy your products or services. In having a website and services which are available over the internet, you will be able to expand your service area out across your region or even the world.

Summary: Make use of marketing and PR. Use a little old fashioned networking. Have great customer service skills. Have a website.


On most editors, you can simply go up to “File,” then select your preferred format and quality settings and click on “Save” or “Export.” The program will create a new audio file that includes the changes you made. You’ll typically be given a choice as to which format you want your exported tracks to be in, including the major formats like mp3, WAV and WMA. It may take a few minutes for the program to get the new file ready. After you’ve put the finishing touches on a track, sync it to your iTunes library or transfer it directly to your smartphone or tablet for easy listening. You’ll then be able to jam out to your favorite tunes in good conscience anywhere!  If you use a standalone PC, save completed songs on your hard drive so you won’t lose them in the event that something happens to your device. Give your friends access to your music using file-sharing programs like Dropbox, AirDrop or Google Drive.
Summary: Choose the option to export the new file. Upload your edited songs to your device.