How is it possible that we're already halfway through the week?! We've been a couple of busy bees, and for busy bees time flies by without notice. We don't live by the calendar. We're ruled by an ever-present bevy of check lists. I keep our general check list written in chalk on the living room coat closet (seen above)...and then me and Aar have our individual lists...mine on pink paper and Aar's on aqua. And at present we've got things in all stages of the drying process. Due to limited space the overflow spills into the kitchen and living room, and since the weather is straight-up summer-like we've also got a bunch of primed wooden plaques out on the deck.
We love love love shipping our art out. Any artist or person in business for themselves knows the joy of seeing stacks of packages waiting by the front door, all taped up, labeled, and ready to travel to their new homes. As I said, the October weather is masquerading as July. We go for nightly walks and for a while there I was really getting into the whole idea of wearing a hoodie on these walks. But now we're back in t-shirts. Last night we walked around town for about an hour and a half and it was non-stop talk. We've got a lot going on right now...many new things developing...and our thing has always been to talk everything out. We verbally exhaust all the avenues and possibilities. It feels good to do this...you talk things out and they shrink...become more manageable...and then you go home and add them to those ubiquitous check-lists that rule our lives! ;)
Life can get heavy. So in better times you have to always count your blessings. Good things abound...we will be teaching in Atlanta in just a few weeks! This means we'll be seeing some of our favorite people in the world, and we're also sure to make new friends. We'll attend the Country Living fair, also my birthday is later this month. And of course...our book will be in stores and all those eagerly awaited pre-ordered copies will ship out next month!!
After our Atlanta trip we've got a whole bunch of new designs that we're going to bring to fruition. These will be ready just in time for Holiday shopping! We'll be doing batches of things that we'll wrap and tie with twine and have totally ready to ship...straight to the gift recipient with a personal note upon request. We will probably have some of our best selling ornaments from a few years ago as well. Talking about making stuff for the Holidays was the most exciting part of our conversation on last night's walk. It's a gift to be able to provide the perfect gift for others. We just have to keep checking things off our lists and we'll be all set create some fab new artwork!
We happily shipped out a bunch of our Instagram inspired pieces this week. Seeing stacks of them totally renewed our love for this collection. Especially, since let's face it, we seriously adore Instagram, and through this simple application we've been meeting so many awesome new friends and customers over the past few months. Things have changed so much in social media in just a few years, and they will continue to evolve beyond our current comprehension. Blogging is drastically changing, as is Facebook. And it's amazing how something as simple as Instagram can become such a huge way of connecting, networking, promoting, your art, business, or whatever. This is a topic Aaron and I have been discussing a lot lately, and I think it deserves it's own blog post.
If you've been collecting our art, you'll notice something new when you flip over your wooden pieces. Just for fun, we designed some new labels.
We hope that our customers know how much they mean to us. In each order we include some old timey salt water taffy in our signature colors. We wrap everything as if they are fresh baked sweets, complete with classic bakery twine. We've been on a roll over here with the making, and the packing, and the shipping, and would love to continue this energy straight through to the new year! And for that very reason we have a little Fall sale going on right now...
Yes, that very special Holiday approaches, and some classic Everyday is a Holiday Halloween prints are now in the shop. Matted and ready to frame.
Incredible that it is October already...Incredible. We are coming up on one year since Hurricane Sandy walloped us, and we really would love to do a little recap of the progress around our little town. We'll see about taking a walk around the different neighborhoods with the camera. Some stuff is Wow!...while other stuff is less wow...meaning no progress at all...just abandonment. But largely, there is some very impressive recovery.
Thanks so much for popping in guys!
Love from the NJ Shore!
xo Jenny & Aaron