Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Well I hope everyone had Happy Holidays and a wonderful Happy New Year! We didn't have any snow for a nice white Christmas but we had some arrive just in time for the New Year. The holidays were nice if a bit rougher than usual. I was able to spend time with a lot of family I don't get to see very often. It was a lot of traveling around to see everyone. As nice as it was to see everyone it was really tiring. Now I can relax a bit and get back to whatever qualifies as normal for me these days. :)

With a new year it means a new start and tons of new year's resolutions for everyone. I didn't really think too much on what my resolution for the year would be. In the end it's probably just focusing more on my business. By the end of the year it'd be nice to cut my hours down even more at my part time job so I can work more on creating new work and going to more events. As of right now I am working 25-40 hours a week depending on the time of year while also working 20 hours or more a week on my business. The end goal is to not have to work my other job at all and be able to live off of my business but that's more of a long term goal. I don't think I can get that far in one year. But hey, miracles can happen. I'm just going to keep plugging away and we'll see how far I get.

Last month I was not able to do too much in regards to new work as I was working tirelessly on holiday presents for family and friends. They all turned out great. I honestly wanted to keep most of them. I had a thing going with pointillism and stippling for most of the month so I was seeing dots everywhere I looked. But it was worth it.

I also finished setting up my kickstarter campaign for my coloring book. I couldn't decide on a name for it for a while but my husband helped me with that. I decided to kick off the new year right and so the campaign has officially launched as of yesterday so if you would like to support a small town artist and get an awesome coloring book, bookmarks or original artwork please check out my kickstarter campaign for Alexandra's Compendium of Magical Creatures.

Alexandra's Compendium of Magical Creatures

I also finally launched my page on Patreon too. It's pretty awesome. You can have a greeting card of my own design sent to your door every month, or maybe you'd prefer a mini painting. Or maybe you'd like an original illustration. There are a few different options. I honestly had never really heard of Patreon until about a year ago when my husband brought it to my attention. It seems to work out really well for some creators. I have no idea if Patreon will work out for me very well but I figure it's worth a shot. If you don't have use for a coloring book and would rather receive monthly cards you can use or small paintings please check out my Patreon page Alexandra Art+Design Patreon.

In other news I am working my way towards having a more eco-friendly business. The plastic sleeves that contain my cards, prints and original unframed art are all now compostable. I am also switching to all recycled kraft paper envelopes for my cards. The stickers I use for pricing and as a business card will soon be compostable too. I'm working to see what else I can afford to switch over. Art supplies are not cheap and to get eco-friendly supplies brings the price up even more. While I cannot switch over everything at least I can do a little bit to help the environment.

Here's to hoping that 2020 is full of happiness, success and creativity.