What's the BIG idea?

Hello Friends!

The last few months have been an exciting time at Artful Sentiments... I've been busy with loads of wholesale orders since the Boston Gift Show - lots of lovely shops to send goodies to before the New England summer season gets underway. I'm printing, assembling, packing and shipping every day!

And in my spare time? I'm so excited to be participating in A Fresh Bunch and the launch of the BIG Idea.

What's the BIG idea? The BIG idea is an innovate print in store program, which you can read all about here, or if you're a stationery retailer, you can find out more at the National Stationery Show - booth 2042, and booths 2806-10. A Fresh Bunch members (including me!) will be there to explain and demo the print in store program, show you catalogs and samples, hand out info and product samples from our participating members.

The print in store program has been a bit of a challenge for me - adapting some of my existing block print designs has required me to learn some new tools, but, oh, I'm having so much fun! I love that my designs will be available, through the program, as invitations, personalized flat notes, address labels and more...

I hope to get a chance to meet you if you'll be at the show - I'll be there Sunday afternoon through Tuesday morning - and I'll be the one wearing the BIG idea badge!

Sneak peek: new artful goodies

.... bookmarks and bookplates!

Here's a peek at just a few of the designs I have in the works, and will be debuting at the Boston Gift Show in March.

Wise Owl

(perfect for the scholar!)

Pirate Ship

(for those who love tales of the sea!)

Cupcake

(for the baker, or birthday girl!)

Lovely Days

Every year I love the process of creating my calendar... each month different, including new designs and old favorites. I design some months with great ease, and others challenge me each year, which is all part of what I enjoy about creating the calendar. I think about all the joys that each month brings - the grand New England snowstorms, the first juicy strawberries of the season, wonderful seaside adventures - and translate those into my calendar.

In addition to a desk calendar, this year I designed a two wall calendars as well. These are hand block printed, and at 11x14" fit perfectly in a standard frame. I had great fun carving the much larger blocks needed to print these calendars, and I'm so happy with them that they'll surely be showing up on new products in the coming year (but you'll have to wait to hear more about that!).

Calendars will be available in my etsy shop and on my site in the coming weeks.

Preparing for the National Stationery Show!

I'm very excited that the National Stationery Show is almost here (taking place May 17-20, in NYC), and that I'll be exhibiting in booth #2547 with five other talented stationers, and members of A Fresh Bunch. I'll be attending on Sunday and Monday, and I'm really looking forward to meeting many of the fabulous retailers that attend, as well as so many amazing designers, and of course, seeing old friends from past shows.

It's been a busy time preparing for the show, but now that my displays have shipped and catalog updates complete, I can enjoy the anticipation as I finish my preparations!

Speaking of catalogs, my updated catalog is available to view or download on issuu, and I've embedded it here so you can take a peek. I just love that you can flip the pages, just as if it was a paper catalog, but without printing all those paper catalogs!

Open publication - Free publishing - More wholesale

If you're attending the show, I hope you'll stop by! I won't be in the booth full time, but would love to meet you if I can... drop me an email (molly@artfulsentiments.com) and perhaps we can arrange a time!

Goods for Goodness' Sake!

Artful Sentiments is proud to be partnering with Goods for Goodness' Sake in their new venture, an online store where profits are donated to one of several charities the shopper chooses when they make a purchase.

The very talented Cathe (owner of Feterie) and Lara (owner of Tiny Tales) have joined forces to create this new store which will feature products from many of the small businesses they have come to know over the years, some (including Artful Sentiments) providing exclusive designs for GFGS.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to visit this beautiful new store, shop a little, and do something good, for goodness' sake!

In need of a beach day

Boy, this has felt like the longest winter! I've been craving warm weather and sunshine, and dreaming of a lovely day at the beach, even if it is too cold to play in the waves.

Many of my wholesale customers are in coastal New England, and each winter I look forward to seeing them at the Boston Gift Show - to me, those four days in late March are the start of the summer season, even though it's barely spring at that point! Each winter I design new coastal inspired goodies that I hope they'll love - this year's designs include the Waves cards, and Waves and Fish pencil tins.

I've been playing with a lot of pattern in my collection this year... which has meant lots of larger, detailed blocks to carve - at least, larger than I'm used to. It's been a great challenge, and has led me in directions that I'm really pleased with.

I'll have more for you to take a peek at over the coming weeks, and look forward to hearing what you think about the new goodies.

More new goodies!

For quite some time I've been considering offering initial note cards, but hadn't come up with a design that inspired me enough to carve 26 intital blocks... until recently. After getting such positive feedback on my new valentines, I decided to do something inspired by those designs. So I now introduce Twig, Blossoms and Vine Initials.

I'm still working on carving all the letters, but here are the first few that I started out with!

(Will be available in the coming week in my etsy shop.)