Two New Stickers

I added two new stickers to my shop this week.

The first one is a line I saw from a friend a long time ago. It’s always a line that has stuck with me growing up as a woman in this world. This is the first time I’ve opted to try for a glitter border too and I think it turned out pretty cool. The sticker is 3x2.5 inches and durable vinyl.

The second sticker is a quote I read a while back from author Glennon Doyle and it’s one that I really relate to.

I will have plenty of these stickers in my booth at Draper City’s Art in the Barn on August 25 and 26 and possibly Draper’s Int’l Arts & Crafts Festival too.

Also remember that any sticker purchases include a free 2x2 inch circle sticker of Sundial Peak. You can read about that one here.

Valentine's Day 2022

Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate! This is not a holiday we typically do anything for; feeling that’s it’s mostly driven by retail companies. That being said, creating fun valentines for school parties has become something I do look forward to each year.

This year my oldest son proclaimed “we don’t do valentines in middle school.” I rolled my eyes at him, but whatever.

At least my second grader still does valentines! We opted to go with non-food valentines again this year right when Sticker Mule was having a great sale on 3x3 inch holographic stickers. So he and I worked on a quick and fun design and I got them ordered. Have I mentioned that he loves bacon?

Next up was some kind of card to put the stickers on to give out at his party. We needed something for folks to know who these were from. I created a 4x5 inch card so I could print four on a page. I added a bacon border that matched the sticker and added his name. I had them printed and trimmed at my local Office Depot and they were ready within an hour.

I LOVE how these turned out! Here’s a breakdown of the pricing:

• 50 vinyl, holographic stickers, roughly 3x3 inch - on sale - $31.10 (incl tax, shipping was free)

• 12 pages printed on card stock (4 cards per page) and trimmed - $11.84

• double-sided tape (we already had some)

• Total: $42.94

That came out to $.89 cents per valentine for 48 valentines. There are only 25 kids in my son’s class, but he will also give one to his teacher, the class aides, specials teachers (music, PE, art, Spanish, etc), and the two administrative assistants. The minimum order for the deal on Sticker Mule was 50 stickers, so even if he only gave them out in his class, we’ll have leftover stickers to share with friends or I can list them in my sticker store for a few bucks.

Overall, this wasn’t crazy expensive and I love coming up with a fun way to do non-food, non-candy, allergen-free valentines.

Product of the Month - October 2021 - Companies

It’s mid-October and I’m running out of products to feature for this series! This may be the last month unless I can think of something to feature next month.

This month I’m sharing some of the companies I patronize to help run my small business.

Blick Art Materials - Blick has been my resource for art supplies since I was in college. Too many times, I would be on a deadline and need a specific color of oil paint, a canvas in a specific size, or some special type of paper. I would head to my local Michael’s and they wouldn’t have the ONE item I needed in stock. It’s something I still see, even after almost 20 years. I know that Blick will have what I need in stock. I’m lucky that I have a brick and mortar store within a 30 minute drive, but they are wonderful with online shipping too. I do have a Hobby Lobby close by, but I’d rather drive out of my way to shop at Blick than to give Hobby Lobby my money.

Office Depot - I have been using Office Depot for birthday invitations, announcements, signs, flyers, and holiday cards for years. I’ve tried Staples, FedEx Office and the UPS Store and I always end up back at Office Depot. The quality and turnaround time have always been wonderful. Their website makes it easy to upload artwork, select print options, and place my order at home. Very often, my order is ready for pickup within an hour. Depending on how quickly I need something printed, they have sometimes been able to print while I wait when I walk in with a flash drive. There have even been a few times where a flyer I needed printed turned out wrong or with some printing errors. They have always been quick to fix it and reprint with no issues.

Sticker Ninja & Sticker Mule - I have been using both Sticker Ninja and Sticker Mule to have my watercolor paintings turned into stickers. The print quality is fantastic and I love that I can choose my size and go with a matte finish. Looking and feeling them side-by-side, you can’t tell the difference!

Overnight Prints - I have had holiday cards printed with Overnight Prints multiple times and I have always been happy with the print quality and price. They are often a few bucks less than VistaPrint and I love that I can opt for rounded corners each once in a while. I have been considering having some calendars printed with them, so stay tuned for that.

Mpix - Mpix has been my go-to for high-quality photo printing for years and last year I started having some of my watercolor paintings professionally printed by them. The print quality is amazing and I love that they offer a paper that has a slight texture for their giclée prints.

SmugMug - I have been using SmugMug for years for photo storage and backup. I pay an annual fee and have unlimited storage for photos and videos. I had a hard drive completely die on me last year, but I knew I had a ton of photos backed up on SmugMug. I can easily set up different galleries and share them with friends and family so they can download them at full size or custom sizes; which I can’t do via email all the time. I can set the security so that it’s completely hidden from random internet searches and I can set up a password-protected gallery if needed. It’s been a wonderful tool to have.

Creative Market - Fonts, graphics packs, brushes, Lightroom and Photoshop presets and actions, fonts, templates, mockups, fonts, website themes, and stock images. Did I mention fonts? Creative Market is a wonderful resource for any designer. Their freebies on Mondays are really nice too.

What are some websites you use for your small business?

Redbubble Store Merch

As much as I love being able to sell stickers of my artwork that I order and mail myself, I have been wanting to offer my artwork on a few different products. But I don’t want to have to buy the equipment to print on these items and then stress about shipping them. I already stress about the stickers and small prints I have, and they are pretty small!

So I have been looking for websites that will let me upload my artwork and sell fun items and I can make a few bucks when something sells. I sell a few t-shirt designs on Zazzle and I literally make $0.40-$0.60 on each shirt that gets sold. Yeah… that’s it. But it’s a place that people already know about to find fun t-shirt graphics.

So I’m giving Redbubble a try. I have set up a store with five paintings of my artwork. You can check it out HERE.

I’m just starting with a few right now. And once I have a handle on how it works, I may start adding new artwork that can also be printed on apparel. I love that you can get my paintings printed onto a coffee mug, magnet, water bottle, or a drawstring backpack or a throw pillow.

This artwork here on a drawstring backpack may be a new one for my fans. I made this painting of Delicate Arch from Arches National Park last year and gave it to a friend for her birthday. I am thinking of doing another sticker series like I did for “I heart Public Lands” and feature National Park Service sites and #npslover on them. I’m hoping to see more national park sites in the coming years so I can get more photo reference.

Anyone know of any other sites that work like this? I would like to sell prints through Redbubble, but they don’t let me pick and choose the print and poster sizes, and my images are too small for posters. I would like to sell greeting cards too, but they are grouped in with posters. I also would LOVE to find one site that does everything I want and not have multiple different websites where I sell merch…. someday.

Hike it Baby 30 - April 2021

Hike it Baby 30 is here! What is this, you ask? It’s a challenge to get outside with your family every day for 30 days during the month of April. Hike it Baby is a nationwide nonprofit that aims to support families with young children to get outside and explore; no matter what that outdoor exploration looks like. Every April and September, they host a 30-day challenge and fundraiser that encourages and supports families getting outside every day for 30 days. Families who join and make a donation get to join a Facebook group where everyone shares their adventures and supports one another. They are also entered into drawings to win prizes from sponsors and everyone who joins the challenge gets a sticker that is unique to that challenge. Adventures can be in your neighborhood, backyard, local park, beach, lake, paved trail, or in the woods or mountains.

It’s been my privilege to get to design the stickers for these fundraisers since late 2017. Last September, I created a sticker that embraced the uniqueness of spring 2020 by showing a city park rather than a remote wilderness. For this April’s challenge, I continued that theme with a city fishing pond. The hammock and fishing pond was where my family spent a lot of our outside time in 2020, so it was special for me to create it in watercolor.

In addition to the sticker, Hike it Baby had me create a Spring Workbook for participants to use during the challenge. We grabbed some of the activity sheets that I created in the past and added a few new ones along with a spiffy, spring cover. I really love how it turned out.

30 flowers to color for 30 days.

Lastly, we almost always have a t-shirt campaign to go with each HiB30 and this time is no different. I was asked to make our sticker artwork into a t-shirt design that coordinated with previous t-shirt designs and there is a campaign with Bonfire for t-shirts, tote bags, and mugs. Check it out!

I cannot wait to see what we can create for the next Hike it Baby 30 challenge this coming September.