About MeOr How I got into this!This page is About Me, and my name is Barbara Cederberg. I am a fantasy painter. I have written this page to introduce myself and how I built this site. I have always been fascinated by nature, fairies, fairy tales and fantasy art. As a young girl, my world was filled with fairies, dragons, mermaids, unicorns and other mythical creatures. My earliest memories are filled with idyllic afternoons sitting around rural haystack barns drawing from nature. What I studiedAfter completing High School I took a year of graphic arts and studied layout and design, figure drawing and illustration techniques.I went on to study Art History at the University of Toronto and developed a love of Egyptology and medieval and ancient art forms. WorkingI have been a working mom a lot of my life.I wanted to be a "work at home" mom. I have taken several stabs at that over the years with mixed results. I have worked in consulting, have had a retail store from my home in the country, have taken my products on the road to shows, even dragging my twin daughters with me. Some of these things I have had some success with, but there was always an idea of what working at home should be like, just out of my reach. I wanted to create my artThere were so many times, when I was working at Consulting, for the money, and wishing I had more time for my art.I painted while I was on the phone, and while I was taking care of my girls. I made furniture and took it on the road, just so I could sell the painting on the furniture. I kept thinking there must be an easier way. Find out how I did it at About SBI. Maybe when I retireI kept thinking maybe when I retire, if I can invest enough money to retire, maybe then I can paint whatever I want, and enjoy it without worry.I'll be honest though, the retirement idea was looking a little hard to achieve. Being a single mom and only making the bills has diluted my investments. Surfing the internetI didn't even know how to use email when I started thinking about this.I learned how to surf the internet and found it fascinating, but there was so much more. Then I started thinking that I could learn and I really started to research how some artists got their products out there. The internet and building a website seemed like an idea that might work for my retirement. I knew so little about the internet that I was sure it would take me that long to learn everything I needed to know in order to build it. I love SBIAfter much research and generally learning to get around the web, I found SBI!I looked all over the place, and was tempted by the Get Rich Quick Schemes or GRQ - but I found an organization that teaches how to build a real business on the internet.
Expanding My PassionAs I read over the information I began to understand more about building traffic and creating a site that really gives people what they are looking for.I started to come up with ideas from my passion, and next thing I knew I was creating coloring pages and even delving into the paper doll world that I loved as a child. Realizing that my painting could be transferred to digital scrapbooking blew my mind. Building A Real BusinessThat's what is happening.Wow and I can explain all about how I built this site at my About SBI page. SBI or Site Build It, is a company that hosts my site. They are so much more. Update 2008My site is currently ranking right at the crossing point into the Top 1% of all sites on the internet.I have heard that there used to be 56 Million, and now there are 165 Million sites on the internet. Once I cross over the line into the top 1 million that is apparently the top 1%. This means I am in the top 2% or 3% now! Me? A non-techie artist. Recession?I know that the economy is bad, but honestly I have not seen any difference.Except that my traffic is still going up! I have noticed articles about what to do that is inexpensive for entertainment, and it looks like more folks are hitting the internet. Articles that talk about old projects under the bed. I laugh because who doesn't have a few of those around the house somewhere. Well even scrapbooking was mentioned. Let's face it drawing, coloring and scrapbooking are pretty cheap and very creative hobbies. I have talked with people on the SBI forums and more and more people there are very positively focused. The internet seems to be a way to really take your financial future in your own hands. Not relying on any employer. Sounds good to me. So thank you Internet. Thank you SBI and most of all thank you my visitors. Update Fall 2009Well, I had a moment of clarity and really learned something this past year.While my site was growing, I finally realized and through the help of people in the SBI forums that I had missed something fairly important. My site was too broad. Plain and simple I was trying to win too many big areas of search. So... you may have noticed but I have completely overhauled my site, and I am building two new sites. I have spread out these "gi-normous" topics - coloring, drawing, and I have dropped the Scrapbooking side of things. Since I have narrowed the scope of my site, everything has just taken off. I am very excited by the results and my traffic is really snow-balling now. Thanks SBI, I'm on my way (as a tortoise) to really building a business.See... I did not quit. Barb
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