Hey Reader
Quick news before I teach you anything — Creative Systems Lab is officially open and Session 1 is happening Wednesday, June 24. It’s free, it’s live on Zoom, and 200+ creative business owners are already registered.
If you’ve been hearing me hint at “something I’m building” for the last few months — this is the thing. CSL is the 2x/month live build series where you don’t just learn something, you walk away with the thing actually built and working in your business. Session 1 is AI 101: Why Claude & How to Set It Up for Your Business — and you leave the call with Claude already running for YOUR business, not just a screenshot of mine.
🎟️ REGISTER FOR SESSION 1
📅 Wednesday, June 24, 2026 — live on Zoom, 90 minutes
👥 200+ creative business owners already in
💸 FREE for the live session
👉 creativesystemslab.com
Go register before you keep reading. Takes 30 seconds. I’ll wait.
Okay — now that your seat is saved, let me teach you what this week’s Eduletter is about, because it’s directly connected.
Real talk — I’ve watched a lot of creative business owners try AI, hate it, and quietly give up. Generic output. Sounds like a marketing robot. Doesn’t sound like you. So you close the tab and go back to writing the email yourself at 9pm.
If that’s been your experience, I want to tell you something that took me embarrassingly long to figure out: it’s almost never the tool. It’s that the tool doesn’t know who you are yet.
Every time you open Claude or ChatGPT and start a brand new conversation, you’re starting from zero. The AI doesn’t know your business. Doesn’t know your customer. Doesn’t know your voice. So it gives you the most generic, average, vanilla version of whatever you asked for — because that’s all it has to work with.
The fix isn’t a longer prompt. It’s not a prompt engineering course. It’s a 5-minute setup that you do once and never have to do again. That’s what this week is about — and it’s also exactly what we’re building together in CSL Session 1 on June 24.
The teaching below is the do-it-yourself version. CSL Session 1 is the do-it-with-me version. Same setup. Same outcome. The difference is whether you walk through it alone in your studio or with me on screen and 200+ other creative business owners doing it alongside you.
Either way, you win. But the live room only happens once — creativesystemslab.com to grab your seat.
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Exceptional Illustrations | Lydia's Designer Collective – Romantic Floral
Soft, Romantic, and Completely Timeless White ground, trailing stems, peonies, tulips, tiny berry clusters — this has that heirloom fabric energy where it feels like it's always existed and always will. The loose, scattered placement keeps it feeling fresh instead of stiff.
Classic Toss with Painterly Elegance Multiple bloom types, consistent watercolor style, generous breathing room. The kind of repeat that works at any scale and coordinates with everything. Commercially safe in the best possible way.
Great for Apparel, Bedding & Stationery Dresses, baby bedding, gift wrap, fine stationery. The buyer for this already knows exactly where she's putting it.
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Kristen – Peony Garden
A Crocheted Doily on the Side Table. Peonies Cut from the Garden. That's literally how she described it and I love her for it. This is what everyday objects as design inspiration looks like — not a mood board, not a trend report, just looking around your actual life and asking what if that became a pattern? The blush coordinate and the cream ground florals feel like a whole lazy Sunday afternoon.
Mini Collection with Lifestyle Roots Hero floral toss, tonal coordinate, real-world inspiration. The collection hangs together because the concept is personal and specific — and that specificity is exactly what makes it feel cohesive.
Great for Quilting, Home Décor & Gifting Quilting cotton, throw pillow fabric, gift wrap, fine stationery. Cottage core done with restraint.
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Divoká Tužka | Wild Pencil Studios – Sheep & Clovers
Designed as Stickers. Could Absolutely Be a Pattern. Green ground, fluffy white sheep, clover patches, little fences, scattered wildflowers — this was made for sticker sheets, not fabric. But look at it. Consistent style, varied scales, natural breathing room between motifs. The bones of a toss repeat are already there. It would take almost nothing to make this tile.
And If It Did Become a Pattern... You'd want to keep the green ground — that's the whole vibe. Scale it up for quilting cotton or children's bedding, scale it down for gift wrap or a novelty print. The individual motifs are clean enough to work at any size without losing their charm.
Great for Kidswear, Nursery Décor & Gift Wrap Children's apparel, crib sheets, gift wrap, stationery. Sometimes the best pattern ideas aren't born as patterns at all — they just have good bones from the start.
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Tip #1: Stop Starting From Zero — Why AI Hasn't Been Saving You Time
Here’s what most people do with AI: they open a chat, type a prompt, get a generic answer, edit it for twenty minutes to sound like them, and conclude AI “doesn’t really work for creative people.”
And they’re not wrong about the output. They’re wrong about the cause.
The reason your AI output sounds robotic isn’t because AI is bad at writing. It’s because the tool you’re using has no idea what your business is, who your customer is, or how you talk. So it gives you the most average possible answer — because that’s all it has.
In my experience, the difference between “AI gives me garbage” and “AI sounds like me” is one thing: context. The amount of business-specific information the tool has access to before you ask it to do anything.
You wouldn’t hire a brand new VA and ask her to write a customer email on day one without telling her anything about your business. AI is exactly the same. It’s not that it can’t do it. It’s that you haven’t onboarded it yet.
The fix is small. Five sentences about your business — who you are, who you sell to, your tone, your products, your platforms. That’s it. You write it once. You save it somewhere the tool can reach every conversation. And from that day forward, every conversation starts smart instead of starting from zero.
Try this: Pull up the last AI conversation you had that disappointed you. Now look at the prompt. Did you tell the AI who you are, who your customer is, and how you sound? If not — that’s the answer. And it’s a one-time fix.
More on exactly how to set that up in the Tech Hack below.
Tip #2: The 5 Business Tasks AI Is Actually Good At (None of Them Involve Making Art)
I want to clear something up because I get this question a lot — usually nervously, usually from designers who are afraid AI is coming for their craft.
The AI I’m talking about isn’t for making your art. I will say that again because it matters: not for making your art. Your patterns, your illustrations, your hand lettering, your designs — those stay yours, made by you, the way you make them.
What AI is genuinely good at is the business that runs around your art. The stuff that eats your Tuesday morning and your Sunday night. Here are the five tasks I actually use AI for almost every single week:
- Writing the email I kept avoiding. The follow-up to the licensing rep. The “just checking in” note. The collab pitch I rewrote four times and never sent. AI drafts a version in 30 seconds. I edit, personalize, and hit send. That’s a Tuesday morning I get back.
- Planning a month of content in one sitting. Not vague ideas — actual post concepts, hooks, captions, mapped to my offers and my audience. The blank Notion page used to win every time. Now I show up with the structure already there.
- Thinking through a business decision out loud. Should I run this promo? Is this pricing right? Am I missing something obvious? It’s the thinking partner who doesn’t get tired of my questions and doesn’t charge $300 an hour.
- Turning one piece of content into five. This Eduletter becomes a blog post. The blog post becomes three social captions. A caption becomes a Pinterest pin. Same idea, five places, none of it from scratch.
- Building the SOPs and templates I’ll actually use. Every repeated task in your business deserves a home. AI helps you write the first draft of the system that holds it — the one you’ve been meaning to build for two years.
Notice what’s NOT on that list. Designing. Painting. Sketching. Color decisions. Your voice on a hard topic. Your taste. Your hands.
The actual divide: AI does the business so you can do the art. That’s the deal that’s worth making.
If any of those five hit a little close to home, the Tech Hack below is exactly where you start. And if you’d rather not figure it out alone, Creative Systems Lab Session 1 on June 24 is the live version — same setup, same outcome, but I walk you through it on screen and you ask questions in real time. Free. Save your seat at creativesystemslab.com.
Set Up a Claude Project for Your Business (One Setup. Every Conversation Smarter Forever.)
Okay, here’s the actual fix. The 5-minute setup that makes every future AI conversation 10x more useful.
This is for Claude specifically (claude.ai — free account, takes 2 minutes if you don’t have one yet). I’m teaching the Claude version because it’s the tool I run my whole business on and it does this part better than anyone else. If you’re on ChatGPT, the concept is the same — look for “Custom Instructions” instead of “Projects.” Same idea, slightly different door.
Here’s the setup:
- Go to claude.ai. Sign up free if you haven’t already. (If you have an account and forgot the password, just reset it — this is the most common 30-second tax on this exercise.)
- Click Projects in the left sidebar. Then New Project. Name it after your business.
- Open Project Instructions. This is where your business context lives. Every conversation you start inside this Project will already know what you put here.
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Paste in these 5 things (don’t overthink it — done beats perfect):
- Who you are + what your business does (2 sentences)
- Who your customer is (Just 1 sentence. But be specific)
- Your tone in 3 words (e.g. warm, direct, a little cheeky)
- Words you would NEVER say
- Your main products or services
- Your main platforms (Etsy, Spoonflower, Instagram, your website, wholesale, etc.)
- Save it. That’s it. You’re done.
If you’re staring at a blank box wondering what to write, here’s the fill-in-the-blank to copy:
“I’m [name], a [type of creative] who sells [products/services] to [specific customer]. My tone is [3 words]. My main products are [list]. I sell primarily on [platforms].”
That’s a usable starting point in literally one minute.
Now run one task inside the Project. New conversation, inside that Project. Ask it to write a product description for one thing you sell. Watch what happens. The output will already sound like you because Claude already knows who you are.
The payoff: From this point forward, every single AI conversation you start inside that Project skips the “let me explain my business first” tax. You walk in, ask the question, get an answer that sounds like you. No more starting from zero.
This one setup is genuinely the foundation everything else builds on. If you only do one AI thing this month, do this.
And if you want to do this LIVE with me instead of on your own, CSL Session 1 on June 24 is exactly this setup, built together on screen. Free. 200+ creative business owners already in the room. creativesystemslab.com — grab your seat.
Until next week — keep creating! 🎨
P.S. — Honestly, if figuring out how to use AI has been on your radar but you haven't made a move yet, this is a pretty low-risk way to finally get off the starting line. It's free, it's live, 200+ creative business owners are already signed up — and you walk away with the thing actually set up. creativesystemslab.com — before June 24.
