Miscellaneous

I’ve been busy busy busy (but I like it!)… I get up early in the morning and I go to sleep wayyyyyyyyy to late… Why? Well, for various reasons… Let me fill you in on the details:

1) I participated in a local market as an exhibitor

A few months ago I was asked to join the Pukema 2015 market in Puurs, a small village in Antwerp. Not only did I get a call from the Pukema organisation, I was also contacted by the organizer of a local fair in Eeklo (10-11th October), and I was accepted for participation in a third fair in Ghent (29th November). I have never been an exhibitor on a market or fair but there’s a first time for everything, right?
With a market and two fairs ahead of me, I started to make my preparations weeks in advance. I had a stock of my cards printed at Moo, had some posters made of my artwork , and prints from a small collection of designs that I’ve made for Etsy. If you know me, you’d know that I always strive for perfection (not always a good quality!) and I wanted to add something extra. That something extra was a collection of vintage style jewelry with pictures from my designs. Jewelry is not really my specialty, I spent a lot of time on making them, but I love how they turned out!

Having a stock of items for sale is not enough, I had flyers and business cards printed, and I thought of ways to present my products in the best possible way, that would reflect my style and the look and feel of my designs.

Because I was so well prepared the building of my stand went very smoothly and quite fast (I had practiced at home). I had everything with me that I needed and that helped to feel confident about myself. I took my daughter with me (because I know she loves doing those things) for some extra help.

The market was not an overall success, I had many viewers but just a handful of buyers. I don’t think that Pukema was the perfect market for me though, Pukema is more about music (there were concerts all day), having a drink with your friends, something to eat, fairground for the kids, some street amusement… I’m expecting more success at the other fairs. Still, Pukema was an unforgettable experience and I had a lot of positive feedback on my designs.

Some helpful tips :

1. Being prepared is not a guarantee for success but it does help enormously to feel confident and calm the nerves.
2. Make sure that your pricing is clear. I found some gorgeous little chalkboards in a dollar store - perfect in the whole concept but most of all: very practical!
3. Have a little notebook with you. It was a great tip that I got from a friend, and I was happy I took her advice. I took some notes from things that I experienced or thought of and wanted to do better next time.
4. A few years ago I bought a chalkboard in a store for just 5 Euros. It’s a great way to present yourself and your business. I saw many people watching it and reading what I had written on it.
5. If the market is outside, make sure you can rent a tent (or if you have one from yourself, be sure to take it). A tent comes in very handy with unexpected showers!
6. Make sure you have a stock of flyers and business cards with you. I may not have sold that much, people did often take a flyer and a business card with them, and you never know what might come out of that!
7. A jar with candies is always a good idea if you have families with kids passing you by. While the kids asked for a candy, the parents took a flyer or a business card.

Here are some pictures:

The chalkboard that I bought for 5 Euros, perfect to present my business!

A stock of flyers and business cards. And a jar with candies! Note to myself: a note with ‘take me’ would encourage people even more to grab them, usually they only took a flyer or business card (or both), after we explicitly told them they could.

My vintage style jewelry. I didn’t really know how to present them, but then I found the wooden tree, the perfect display!

Having my cards spread out on the table was the best idea I had all day LOL. I hadn’t planned on presenting them that way, I was just going to put them in the baskets, but people would never have taken the effort to look at them if I hadn’t spread them out like this.

My daughter, all set and ready. She did a great job in helping me out.

And then we had a few showers… glad that I had rented the tent!

Street amusement with Monsterbob

The streets were crowded, despite the rain.

2) I have been allowed to open a shop at Creative Market

Creative Market is a platform for handcrafted, mousemade design content from independent creatives around the world. I had my eyes on them for quite some time, all the best designers have a shop at Creative Market! You cannot just open a shop though, you need an invite. About three months ago I applied but wasn’t accepted. The message was that they wanted to see more of me and then two weeks ago, I applied again! And was accepted… Still cannot believe it.

I will still sell my designs in the VectoriaDesigns shop, Creative Market is just a second outlet.

I have to make new previews for my products (the format is different than the Etsy format) and I have to make new zip files (no TOU or links are allowed in the zip files). Making new previews and rezipping everything is a lot of work, but I’m nearly there. I’ve already had some sales and a product ‘handpicked’ by the staff. ‘Handpicked’ means that your product will be shown on the main page and that makes for a lot of likes and views for your shop. It was my Worn & Tattered Vintage Newspaper Textures that was handpicked by the staff and yes, it’s on their main page. Just scroll down until you see ‘Handpicked’.

Or see the rest of my shop here.

3) New designs

Of course I keep adding new designs to my shop(s). These are the latest additions:

Are you planning on throwing a Halloween costume party this year? Then this invitation template and pack of costume contest printables will be the perfect tool!

6 artsy Artist Trading Cards with vintage mushroom images, with grungy textures. The mushrooms were scanned from prints that I found in a box that belonged to my father. In the box were so many old books, magazines, schoolbooks and other fun bits and pieces.

And then this paperpack in warm autumn colours, a bit worn and textured, for an extra cosy feeling, with faded vintage textures and images. With this pack you will get 8 textured/patterned papers and 1 solid paper. They are perfect for your fall or thanksgiving projects!

Among The Shadows Collection - Sneak Peek

Oh yes, it’s coming! It will be available in a large Halloween themed pack at a very affordable price, somewhere in the first half of October. Stay tuned!

That’s it for now. Enjoy your week!

Anja

Last week has been busy and lots of things have happened. My card designs have been activated at Kaartje2Go (and I’ve had sales already - yeah!), I created new designs for my Etsy store and I’ve finally registered for Design Star, a self-paced workshop with Traci Reed at Scrapaneers.

Kaartje2Go

Having my card designs at Kaartje2Go is great! I design, upload, and Kaartje2Go does all the rest: selling, printing, shipping… It took me some time though to adjust my existing designs to the new templates and sizes and I had to provide extra designs for the inside of the cards (people can choose to order a double folded or single card). But I think they look great in my gallery!

My cards are just in Dutch for now, but I’m thinking of offering an English version as well. Maybe not through Kaartje2Go though.

New designs for my Etsy store

I’ve been making some coordinating supplies to existing paperpacks in my Etsy store last week. Creating artsy transfers and word art to complement my Castles & Princesses Paperpack was so much fun, and I’ve also created some artsy transfers for my Mermaid Paperpack. I’ll be offering the transfers with and without the wordart.

They will be added to my store soon, watch out for my next newsletter! In the mean time, here’s a little sneak peek:

Design Star

As for Design Star, it was something I’ve been wanting to do for so long and I’m really happy I finally did. I’ve learnt heaps already. The workshop includes hours and hours of live recorded webinars, informative video-tutorials and PDF handouts. At the end of class, I’ll sit down with Traci virtually in a one-on-one session identifying my strengths and skills, an opportunity that I don’t want to miss. Although this workshop is aimed at scrapbook designers, I’ve learnt so many new things that will definitely improve my regular design work as well.

Enyoing the summer

I know that in many countries schools are starting again, or have started already. But for Belgian students school doesn’t start until September 1. My daughter is going to be 13 in October and she will start her second year in first grade then. My husband is a teacher, and so he’s home a lot as well. We enjoy the extra time that we have together, especially the weekends (my husband works weekends during the school year). I love having them both at home, but at the same time I’m finding it harder to focus on my design work. So I’m also looking forward to having more routine in my daily activities 🙂

On Saturday we had an amazing trip to Pairi Daiza, an animal park. But it’s much more than that. As the ancient Persian name ‘Pairi Daiza’ (‘Enclosed Garden’) would suggest, it really is a paradise! The park flourishes on what were once the grounds of a Cistercian monastery, Cambron Abbey. 135 acres of garden, centuries-old trees, intriguing plants and exquisite flowers from all over the world, architectural treasures (all authentic!) created by artisans from China, Indonesia, Thailand… and finally, 5,000 animals that live and thrive there. Let me share some pictures I made:

The Andalusian Garden

The Karibuni restaurant at the Oasis, surrounded by exotic animals, bamboos, lianas, banana trees, hibiscus, waterfalls, giant turtles, otters, mongooses, hornbills and beos.

The Buddhist temple in the City of Immortals; everything here is authentic and was manufactured in China, by skilled artisans.

And yes, we got to see the giant pandas! To give Hao Hao and Xing Hui a home, Pairi Daiza built a Sichuan mountain, a bamboo forest and a cave with amethysts. The image quality is not so good, but we could only see them behind glass.

Amazing views everywhere you go…

An impressive cascade at the Flower Temple, dedicated to the universe of flowers, in accordance with the animistic principles in Balinese Hinduism that every form of life is of divine origin, worthy of a temple. The water, the cradle of all life, flows along its flank, accompanied by 2 small dragon snakes.

Authentic Thai house (even the columns are original, taken from a house destroyed in a fire).

And then an elephant passed by 🙂

Still impressed with this monumental staircase, even if it was our third visit in 10 years. In 1776 it inspired Jozef II, Emperor of Austria, to the following statement: “This staircase is perhaps one of the most beautiful in Europe, but I doubt if it leads to heaven”. Legend says that the monks took revenge by burning a portrait of the emperor at the foot of the tower. That only brought them misery and 13 years later the Emperor classified Cambron as a useless abbey. The French Revolution did the rest. Now the patrimony of the monks of Cambron is listed as national heritage.

Ah, the raptor show… Eagles, buzzards, falcons, vultures and condors fly over the arena from one falconer to another, right past our heads. With the impressive backdrop of church, nave and abbey towers, this is one of my favourite events at Pairi Daiza.

And finally… trying to make some great pictures of the fascinating jelly fish in The Nautilus. Not easy, because they are moving around constantly!

But I think this one is not so bad:

Okay, time for me to go. See you next time!

Anja

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail from a former colleague of mine. I knew that next to her daytime job, she was running a business of her own, offering workshops and mindfulness trainings, relaxation therapy and massages. She was ready to expand her business and needed a new logo, as well as some pattern backgrounds for her new website.

I haven’t made that many logos yet. Maybe that is why I’m still somewhat reluctant to take on this sort of assignment. I know, I know, how can you become good at something if you never practice doing it, right? So I decided to go for it! I was very fortunate to be able to work with Petra. She knew exactly what she wanted and she wanted to have it finished in a relatively short period.

Eventually we came up with this moodboard :

I used the large picture to pick a colour scheme, while the other pictures were just to share the ‘mood’ she wanted to achieve. Petra also mentioned being very fond of the graphic designs in Happinezz magazine. What she particularly liked about it, was the use of beautiful patterns throughout the entire magazine layout. I love patterns, I’ve been using them quite frequently since I’ve started making digital designs for my Etsy store. So I was really looking forward to that!

With all that information I got to work. I made sketches first. I don’t normally do this. Usually I like to start digital right away, but I have learned that making sketches was actually a good way in the designing process. Eventually there was one sketch that she really liked and we worked with that one.

And this is the final logo-design:

Next week I’ll share the patterns I made for Petra’s website and what I’ve learned so far about making patterns. See you then!

P.S. If you want to visit ZENZIJN, here is Petra’s website. And this is her Facebook fanpage.

Last week we spent our yearly vacation in the UK. We rented a cottage in Hunton, Maidstone. First time ever we’ve rented a house in the UK by the way! 16 years ago we saw London, but that was just three days in a hotel. Hotels however are not really my thing, they make me feel somewhat claustrophobic 🙂

It wasn’t easy to find a holiday home in the UK… at least not as easy as it is to find a gîte in France. But I did manage to find a cottage that fitted within our budget. Our trip didn’t go smoothly though. Our ferry was delayed with two hours, on Sunday I was sick from a cold that I had caught on the ferry and on Tuesday we had a car accident.

The Silver Cottage in Hunton was a lovely retreat. Very quiet, at the end of a no way through street, with a gorgeous view on the meadows. The house itself was not big, but big enough for the three of us. We didn’t really sleep very well though… we slept under the roof and there was a window right above us. The curtain didn’t make the room dark enough and so we were always woken up by the (early) sunlight. I mentioned this to the house owners, and they said they would see if they could change that.

Driving left was quite a challenge as well. On Tuesday we were driving on a road with many cars and traffic lights and it was so confusing. One moment I saw red lights, so I told my husband to stop, which he did, immediately… the following moment we were hit by the car behind us - because the lights were not red for us, but green (so we heard after the accident). The fourth car behind us (a lorry) couldn’t stop, so he hit the van, and the van hit the red car behind us, and the red car hit us… It all happened so fast… The man in the van had a head wound and was bleeding (but otherwise he was fine), and the man in the red car behind us was in shock… His car looked awful. I think we got off quite good. There is damage to the trunk, but it still closes and our car is still driving and the lights are okay.

Having an accident is always awful, but having it abroad is even more unsettling. The police came to the scene and they were very friendly, but it was a hell of a job to get hold of all the information we needed for the insurance.

That was the bad news 🙂 The good news is that the trip to Kent was really nice. We enjoyed the lush green landscapes of ‘The Gardens of Kent’ and we have seen some beautiful places.

Leeds Castle (Monday 13th July)

Leeds Castle is 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Maidstone (where we stayed). It was once owned by the legendary King Henry VIII. The last owner was Olive Paget, the daughter of Almeric Paget, later Lord Queenborough, and his wealthy American wife Pauline Whitney. In 1931 Olive became Lady Baillie, through her third marriage to Sir Adrian Baillie. She transformed Leeds Castle into a luxury retreat, with no expense spared. The couple divorced in 1944. Olive died in 1974 and she wanted the castle to be open for the public after her death. Leeds Castle now belongs to the Leeds Castle Foundation. It’s a 15 minutes walk through the park before you get to the castle, but there is so much to see on The Woodland Walk. Some pictures:

The Queen’s Bathroom - how romantic is this!
The Maze - a difficult one! We couldn’t find the entrance to the center and the mysterious grotto, so we cheated and went in through another passage, but sshhtt don’t tell anyone 🙂
The lovely flower garden

A view of the castle on our way back to the entrance.

Hever Castle (Wednesday 15th July)

Ah … Hever Castle … Definitely my favourite of the whole week! Anna Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, grew up here. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside. But you can see pictures on their website. The castle was impressive, but the gardens were even more impressive! We simply didn’t want to leave… Let me show you why!

The entrance to the castle

The entrance to the Italian Garden - my absolute favourite! It was created between 1904 and 1908 by Joseph Cheal & Son, turning marshland into this spectacular garden. It was designed to display William Waldorf Astor’s collection of sculpture and statuary.

See-through ‘windows’ to other parts of the garden.

The walk through the Italian Garden leads to the lake where you can take a boat.

Tangerines!

Flowers everywhere

The romantic stairs that lead to the Anna Boleyn Walk around the park.

My daughter taking a selfie…

Whitstable (Thursday 16th July)

On Thursday we went to Whitstable, a charming town by the sea. We loved walking through it’s streets full of independent craft and gift shops, galleries, delicatessens and fashion shops. Some pictures!

We parked our car at about 20 minutes from the center but we enjoyed the walk along the the “Tankerton Slopes”. First thing we saw were these colourful beach houses.

The center has some really cute shops… Like this charming bookstore, with three storages of cards and books. I came home with lots of inspiration!

Quite expensive, but totally irresistible: The Clothes Horse. In addition to Noa Noa, the shop sells clothing brands such as Sandwich, Bohemia,Darling, and the Scandinavian clothing brand Cream as well as many jewellery lines and homeware. I was tempted, but didn’t buy anything by the way.

The Tankerton Slopes - the rough ground between Marine Parade and the sea. It is home to one of Britain’s rarest plants, Hog’s Fennel.

The water was quite cold and there was a strong wind, but she insisted on bathing her feet 🙂

Canterbury (Friday 17th July)

We finished our week with a visit to Canterbury. We were impressed by the cathedral, had fun at Canterbury Tales and we ate Fish & Chips on the Butter Market.

The very impressive ceiling of the cathedral

The stairs are leading to the Trinity Chapel

The Cloister connected the different parts of the monastery when the Cathedral was home to a community of monks.

The Canterbury Pilgrim’s Hospital of Saint-Thomas dates from the 12th century

Impressive, this shop of vintage clothes!

Canterbury Tales - A visitor attraction that brings Chaucer’s famous tales of medieval misadventures to life through sound, smell and sight. This was great and we even had a Dutch audio guide.

Ending our day at The Old Butter Market with Fish & Chips 🙂

Despite the difficulties we had, I feel refreshed and I’ve found so much inspiration in the things we’ve seen. I have some great ideas for my Etsy store, so stay tuned!

You can buy my postcards and greeting cards at Maison Saints & Bullies in Oostende. But for those of you who don’t want to go all the way to Oostende, I have found a way to sell my cards online.

Through a friend of mine I came across Esell.io, a software that allows small business owners to sell their products directly on social media or through their website. I thought it was perfect for my needs at this moment.

This is my store https://on-a-whimsical-adventure.esell.io/

For now you can only use Paypal to make your payment, but they are working on making payments by credit card possible.

As soon as you have made your order, I will receive a notification by e-mail and I can send your cards!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

Image from The Graphics Fairy

If you’re celebrating,
Happy Easter!
Zalige Pasen!
Joyeuses Pâques!
Fröhliche Ostern!

I have recently finished a management course, to prepare myself for my life as an independent graphic designer. I got word today that I passed my exams! It wasn’t an easy course, but I have learnt so much and it feels good to be able to finish it with style 🙂