Uncategorized

I’m very very excited today about a new line of prints I’ve just launched in my shop, and I wanted to share it with you! The theme of the new line is the incorporation of vintage art. By melding vintage illustrations with modern typography and design, it combines into whimsical and fresh pieces of art. The illustrations are old enough (from the 1920’s and prior) to be in the public domain and are no longer under copyright. So I’ve worked them into my new print designs, often altering the colors (most were in simple black and white) and pairing them … Read more

Well, our weekly adventure challenge continues! (If you haven’t seen the challenge post yet, you can see it here.) Last week I shared our pirate nature scavenger hunt, and it was geared more specifically for small children. This time for our second adventure we did an activity which isn’t targeted at any specific age, and can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone. (Although, confession – I cheated a little on the “weekly” this time. I’ve been posting the week after the adventure, but we didn’t go on an adventure last week due to sickness, we are doing two this week … Read more

Well, we are on to week 4 in the Creative Biz challenge! This week we are going to be looking at a couple of topics that came up a LOT in the post where you all posted your creative biz questions: photography and descriptions. A few things have to be in place before really honing those two, though – you have to have a great product, know who your target market is, and be pricing to actually make a profit. Those points are what we have talked about in previous weeks, so now we’re moving on to product photos and … Read more

Packing and getting ready to leave for our move to Boston on Saturday has, of course, been dominating our time lately. But a combination of two things – coming across some forgotten belongings, and the need to take breaks and have some family time – lead to the following fun discovery: We found a handful of glow sticks, and Tim suggested this idea. We turned off the ceiling fan, activated the glow sticks, and taped a different colored stick to each blade. Then we turned off the lights and turned on the fan – it looked sooooo neat! It was … Read more

I love to cook and experiment with new flavors in the kitchen- particularly when I get to try my hand at new flavors from another country. However, the flair of their local fare often comes from ingredients that are easier to obtain there than here. I’m hesitant to shell out a lot of money for some unusual foreign ingredient if I don’t know how to use it very well or even if I will like it! Such was the case, as some of you may know, when I tried to make Hot and Sour Soup. If not, let’s just say … Read more

Well, the Shabby Apple giveaway has ended! And it’s time to announce the winner. Using a random number generator, comment number 38 is the winner, and it is … *drumroll* Congratulations, Rachael! Thank you to all of you who participated, and thank you to Shabby Apple for making this lovely giveaway a possibility! 27-11-2012 April Starr fashion, style

I wish I was a naturally organized person. The whole “a place for everything and everything in its place” idea is wonderful – but the first problem for me is finding a place for everything! Back before the holidays, orders started flooding in for my art and I felt like all I was doing was packaging and shipping orders – and the packaging was taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r. For one thing, I didn’t have a good inventory storage system. Also, every time I needed to package something, I had to go gather all my supplies together. I don’t have a separate studio, … Read more

Well, we’ve reached the end of the 6 weeks for the Creative Business challenge! And for the finale, we’ll be covering the single most asked-about topic from your handmade biz questions: marketing. I left it for last because one of the reasons marketing can be so difficult is because there are other things about your business that have to be in place first to be able to market more easily, and so I wanted to cover those in the first in the series. I hope you found those posts helpful. If you missed them, they lay out groundwork for how … Read more

Black Friday is almost here! Closely followed, of course, by Cyber Monday. I’m very excited to announce that for the entire time from Black Friday through Cyber Monday (11/23/12 – 11/26/12) my entire shop, FlourishCafe, will be buy one get one free. So how does it work? Just purchase the print(s) you are wanting, and then in the “message to seller” section at check out, simply link to the other print(s) you would like to get for free. If you buy one print, you get one free. If you buy five prints, you get five free! The only stipulation is … Read more

Well, at last the burn ban has been lifted!! Remember that fire pit project we did a while back? It’s been a really dry summer here, so there has been a burn ban in effect ever since then … but at long last we had some rain and were finally able to use it! We grilled some polish sausages, and had s’mores … yeah, really healthy, huh? But delicious. 😉 Since I wasn’t able to post pictures of what it looked like with fire in it before, I just wanted to show you how it came out – it sparkled … Read more