growing the business...

Today is my 8th anniversary of marrying Aubrey, and also, the official date that I started my business. Two major life moments that have turned out to get sweeter with age.

It's fitting to me that on the anniversary of starting my company, I reveal a new development in my business. As of a few weeks ago I signed with an art publisher. An art publisher is a company that produces high quantities of art for retailers. As an artist this is an amazing opportunity because I get to create but let my publisher take care of all of the other details such as selling, printing, shipping.

Let me stop here to explain that I'm trying to write this post in a semi-professional way, but for the moment, let me stop, do a dance around my office, squeal a little bit with excitement, and I will now sit back down and compose myself.

This is something I feel is perfect for my brand. Just a few short months ago I made a decision to regroup & refocus on what I truly enjoy - creating art, and building my company. Although I'm beyond excited, I'm also somewhat nervous. For any artist reading this, that feeling should come as no surprise. Even after 8 years of creating art there are always nerves when putting work in front of a new audience.

I'll still be selling prints in my shop, but what this art publisher will be able to produce is unlike anything I can create myself - huge canvases, framed prints - it's amazing and I'm so excited. I'll be updating my website with stores where you may be able to find my work. But for now, I just wanted to announce this huge new development. Yay! xoxo Linds

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running an online shop / prepping for the holidays

A little break from home stuff..... I'm organizing and prepping my office/studio for Christmas.

I know that sounds nuts but for the last 8 years of running my shop I've come to realize that getting ready now helps make my busiest 4 months of the year run smoothly. Although running an online store and a bricks and mortar location are very different - I think one similarity is an online store requires the same "editing" of product and attention to merchandising.  If you walk by a storefront that hasn't changed its window display in 4 months, you tend to feel as though the inside of the store hasn't had any updates either. This is why I like to try to rotate things in the store, so it continually feels fresh.

Now is the time that I start planning out the release of new products, I look over my existing inventory and remove designs that aren't selling. I'm taking product photography (like the photos above), re-evaluate the fonts I use. I look back at when I did sales in previous years and I have notes to what did well. I either plan to do the same sales, or switch things up a bit. This process can take weeks and weeks and although time consuming it is really refreshing.
In the last month there have been some cool new developments with my art. They have yet to blossom into something substantial enough to talk about but the news was enough to make me giddy about the future. This is a nice spot to be in vs, how I was feeling 2 months ago.

I thought I'd post on the process of editing & prepping for the holidays. As running your own online store becomes easier for everyone (way easier than when I started 8 years ago) I thought I'd give some insight into some of the important things to keep in mind in maintinain a store.

Anyways, back to the house. The kitchen has two things left before I can take the reveal photos. The grouting, and adding the valance by the under cabinet lighting. It's hard to finish the little stuff once a kitchen is usable and looks not so bad. You kind of keep putting things off. But I think Aubrey is grouting today, so that will be nice. :)

xo Linds

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Easy as pie thank you cards

Oscar was given some beautiful items for his birthday and I think it's very important to write thank you cards vs. e-mails. I thought that because everyone loves a photo of the birthday kid, I did a photo of Oscar with my favourite colour combination of blue + green preppy stripes. And I got it printed as a "photo" at my local photolab. Even though I run my own stationery studio, sometimes cheap and cheerful works, and is totally appropriate.


You too could do this by designing something to be 4x6 in your graphics program and saving it as a JPG. It's super easy. The photo I used of Oscar cracks me up. He's learning how to wave, so it was hilarious that the moment I got my camera out he started waving at me.

(Photocards by me for my shop PennyPeople.com) Ps, The "We Design - You Print" option is a $25 design fee to design something like this, and then you just print it at your local photolab (No shipping or waiting for an order to arrive so it's super quick)

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