In the first few weeks with our new baby I’ve spent much of the day snuggling and nursing in bed. When I had a bit of time for myself, one thing that was helpful in keeping my brain active and out of newborn fog was using Skillshare, an online learning community for creative skills. For only $10 a month you have access to thousands of video classes taught by experts on creative topics from calligraphy and photography to cooking, crafting and writing. Better yet, right now you can get 3 months for only $0.99. Rad! I signed up a couple years ago to take some photography classes and have been a fan ever since. This past week I took a couple cooking classes and the other Say Yes team members took photography, wordpress, and business. Here’s what we learned…
Make Ahead Breakfasts: Our mornings have gotten a bit chaotic with 3 kids to say the least. Jared and I both have a bad habit of not eating breakfast and then scarfing granola bars at 11am before lunch. This class had several (I think 7 or 8) really easy recipes to share in under 12 minutes that you can make the night before like breakfast cookies, broccoli cheese frittata, chia pudding, and slow cooker banana coconut oats (yum!). I love that with Skillshare you could speed up the video a bit so you can plow through them quickly and then use the chapter guide on the right side to browse between subjects. You can also leave notes and comments. Some students took pictures of the foods they made using their recipes which was nice to see how it turned out (I’m so sick of pinterest fails!). I liked the class so much that I also watched their Quick and Healthy Dinners video which was even more brilliant! Some great ideas for really easy dinner that look delicious like a grain bowl (made with ground cauliflower instead of cous cous!) and a simple rigatoni pasta with fresh veggies and a lemon vinaigrette. I’m adding both to my grocery list this week and am excited to try more. We don’t have cable so this might become my new food network replacement. -Liz
Lifestyle Photography: Visual Storytelling: As I am a total dunce regarding anything photography-related, I jumped at the chance to learn about visual storytelling in lifestyle photography. The Skillshare videos are perfect for someone like me who is a mix of audio and visual learning styles, and I really appreciated (and utilized!) the ability to pause, re-watch, and skip ahead the information in the videos. In the visual storytelling class, the teacher focused more on the overarching process of planning and executing a food visual story in 3 to 5 photos as opposed to the nitty-gritty of what camera settings to use or how to edit the photos. But lo and behold! In the comments, the teacher linked to other classes within Skillshare that did teach about those aspects of lifestyle photography. My greatest takeaway from the class was to form a good mental image of the story you want to tell before you start so that once you begin shooting, you are sure to have a cohesive story arc and not get lost or distracted by disjointed shots. I became so inspired by this class that now I try to turn every meal into a visual story – if only my 14-month-old didn’t gobble all the food down first!
-Erica
Mastering WordPress: Build The Ultimate Professional Website: The videos were clear and helpful as I started to literally build my own website. I learned how to pick an optimal domain name, find someone to host my site, and I learned how to navigate WordPresss all under an hour. This video is actually a bit more advanced than your regular “beginners guide” and when I got stuck I reached out to the people who already posted questions and received support within a day. When I reached a bigger more out of my league roadblock I messaged Malik directly. I am excited to dive back in and continue learning from Malik and his offering to SkillShare.
-Kristen
Art of the Start: Turning ideas into High-Growth Businesses: This was a really informative hour and a half! These speakers covered a lot of ground from their years in business. They spoke about everything from writing a mantra for your business to fundraising, pitching and creating a social media platform. This class offered a good balance of both practical advice as well anecdotes from their collective experience. I like the format of the lessons, they are broken down into several parts so you can pace yourself and stop to take notes if necessary. I listened to it in two parts as it was pretty dense stuff. You can post your notes to the group for feedback and are encouraged to do so in the video. Reading some of the comments was also really helpful. I would recommend this particular class to someone who wants to launch a company or a product, not necessarily start a small local business.
-Sarah
Brilliant!
woah just check it out, so much great content. i feel like i need to take a week off and just take classes
Hi Liz,
Thank you SO much for including us in this roundup! That’s me up there in the striped shirt. We’re thrilled you enjoyed our classes. Working with Skillshare has been super fun and interesting – to be honest, we’d never heard of them before they reached out to us. But it’s a very cool community and has connected us with some really passionate and interesting people. And to be noticed by you – we love your site! – is just icing on the cake.
Thanks again!
How fun!
I love SkillShare. That’s how I try to spend my evenings these days with a glass of wine!