Me & C. 2.0

Back in December, I closed my booth at The Market at Western Fair so that I could make my business a little smaller - a little less about printing all the time and more about slowly building the business I want (and figuring out what exactly that looks like).

I’m excited to report that I a have a plan. A tenuous plan, but a plan nonetheless. It’s a plan in 3 parts:

Make time for creating things

Plan ahead (no, the day before isn’t ahead)

Be really nice to your email list

(Did you catch that last one? If you’re not currently on my email list, you may want to reconsider. It’s about to get serious.)

Here’s what I’m thinking for the coming year:

My online store will stay closed most of the time, but I’ll open it up for one weekend every 2-3 months. You can order what you want, I’ll print it up, then I’ll close the store again.

When my store was open all the time (and my booth was open on weekends), I was printing every week. Doing it this way will give me more control over when I do my printing and I’ll get a nice break between filling orders to focus on creating and other things.

To keep things manageable, I’ll only be posting a selection of my designs each quarter – best sellers plus a few others.

But if you’re on my email list, you get special access to my full design collection, and other things too. See #3.

I’ll be staying in touch with emails just like this post, keeping my list up to date on what’s coming and pulling back the curtain on, well… me.

What my days look like, what I’m thinking about, how I got here, the many things I screwed up along the way, my inspiration, the stories behind the designs. I’ll be sharing it all.

Some of those posts will also live here on my website, but if you want the full monty, join my list.

Worried about too many emails? Oh, I hear ya.

If you’re not into weekly stories, you can opt to just get the less-frequent, more news-y updates, like “store’s opening this weekend” and “here’s your special password to access all the cool stuff”, speaking of which…

I’ll be giving my newsletter subscribers all kinds of special access.

You’ll get access to my online store one day before everyone else

You’ll get a password to a secret page where I post final stock (at a discounted rate – I don’t do that for just anyone).

On that special page, you’ll also have the option to build your own t-shirt/tea towel/whatever I have on hand! You choose the item, you choose the colour/style, then you tell me what to print on it. The best part? You can choose from any of my designs – we’re talking my full collection here.

I’ll still be popping up at Sunfest and Home County with my goods and I may do a little pop-up at The Market in December if circumstances allow.

I would love to see you when these events come around. I miss hearing your stories!

A selection of my work will still be available at local retailers Purdy Natural a-aaaand the Spruce Moose booth at The Market! So I only kind of left.

If you haven’t been to Purdy Natural in awhile or to The Market, think about swinging by. They’ve both expanded their spaces and wow do they have a lot of good things.

Every once in awhile I’ll hop on to Instagram and run an Insta Story Auction. I’ll post the item(s), you bid what you want to pay, and if no one bids more than you, it’s all yours.

If that excites you, go find me on Instagram and watch for my stories. I’ll be running one auction a week in March leading up to…

my first weekend shopping event March 27-29!

Alright, I’ve used up my allotment of exclamation points here. Suffice it to say, I’m excited about the year ahead.

Have you ever made a big change like this without knowing exactly how it would go or whether it would work out? Or are you more the ducks-in-a-row type? Tell me about it in the comments. I love your stories!