TEST challenge

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed some rather personal pics going up. And the hashtag #WeBeTest.

There's a very good reason behind it. My lovely friends of The Toronto Etsy Street Team (or TEST if you will) are doing an Instagram challenge for the month of February. For a number of great reasons. To help bring awareness and promote local Toronto makers, artists and vintage curators, for our followers to help get to know us a bit better and for the team mates to get to know each other. We're a team of well over 1000 members now and that's a lot of people to keep track of. Putting some faces and interests to each other helps us all bond. Happy Happy Joy Joy! Group hug time :) Wow, image a 1000+ person group hug. I couldn't be in the middle of that one. I bet it's in the Guinness Book of World Records somewhere though.

But back to us. You can follow along by searching #WeBeTest on Instagram, and of coarse you can follow me for all the challenge and other thunderpeep fun times. And below is a list of the daily prompts we are all following along with.

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Let me introduce you...

When I was younger I LOVED chain letters. I was big into penpals and letter writing though so not a huge stretch.

Then when email came along and spam was invented (you know, those friends who would forward Every Single Funny Joke/Photo etc) I absolutely hated it all. I didn't want to be sent anything that would bring on bad luck in 24 hours if I didn't pass it along or whatever crap it was spewing. Thank god those days are long gone. Or at least they can be hidden in your facebook feed ;)

So when my fellow stationery buddy Queenie of Queenie's Cards sent me an email about participating in a blog hop I instantly cringed. But then I read further and realized this was kind of like those recipe chain letters and I kind of loved those. (who else is in on starting this up with me?)

So welcome to my Blog Hop post!

As I mentioned I was tagged to participate by the uber sweet Queenie. We met a while back at a show and slowly had some email chatting before finally sitting down to chats and eats at The Wren (yes I pretty much go there with anyone and everyone!) She designs an great line of cards over at Queenie's Cards right here in Toronto. She did her first Stationery Show last spring and we're super excited to see her make a huge mark on the Stationery scene.

Check out some of my fav cards

seriously… I love to drop an F bomb in real life, but would never mail one. This card is perfect!

I still own and use a calculator. Word. Love it!

So now… on to me. I have to share some tidbits now.

1. What are you writing/working on?
At the moment I'm prepping for show season (show prep is a full time job in itself!) which starts in about 3 weeks {yikes} I'm launching the new line of stationery on the 13/14 of September at the Danforth East Arts Fair and still putting the final pieces on the Holiday line coming later this Fall. In the longer term I'm just starting on the Polar Nights Collection launching this winter (well I guess November isn't quite winter but it'll feel like it) and even more exciting = my first book. It might have Trolls. And some online workshops. And of coarse all the fabric goodness for my collaboration with Quilter Steff over at Pickled Herring Designs. Oh Yeah and OF COARSE planning my big 40th birthday party this November ;) Man, it's no wonder I have no life, when do I have time to sleep!

2. How does your work differ from others in your genre?
I think thunderpeep stands out because it's very much me and my sense of humour/adventure. The weirdest things tend to come out of my mouth, or I latch on to something someone has said to me that I totally take out of context, and most of that ends up on a card. There are some gorgeous illustrated cards out there but I really love to focus more on the typographic styling of my cards, because it really is all about that cheesy line, telling it like it is! And I love typography. 

3. Why do you create?
Oh gosh. I wouldn't know how to not create. It's just a part of me, I don't even think about it. I'm happiest when I'm lost in the world of design.

4.How does your creative process work?
I don't have a specific process, I'm a very digitally oriented so all finished artwork is created in Illustrator. sometimes I doodle out the beginnings of the design and sometimes I just get down and dirty on the computer. I have a big sketchbook that I'm constantly jotting down sayings or little ideas or doodles and when I'm looking for inspiration I just open to a random page. It's all very organic, which I love, but is sometimes a bad thing, trying to get myself to work when I'm just not feeling it is really tough.

Now, let me introduce you to amazing creative spirits that I'm better for knowing.

First up is Ele from Minouette. I first met Ele through the Toronto Etsy Street Team, she's our Captain. A couple of years back I was invited to become a Leader on the team and I've been able to get to know her a bit better working on various team events (including the upcoming Etsy: Made in Canada show - are you coming?) and now I'm honoured to share a bit of her with you. 

Ele combines her artistic side with her scientific side (because she's also a Marine Geophysicis who's lead an incredibly interesting life so far) in creating lino block prints, fabrics and other goodies.

Magic in Antartica

Polar Bears and Aurora Borealis, 2 of my favourite things

combining Art with Scientific Women - Florence Nightingale

My next uber cool and creative friend is Katie from Heart's Haven. I also met Katie through the Toronto Etsy Street Team and we quickly became show buddies! Katie's an East Coaster at heart, with a whimsical spirit, maker of lovely recycled wears, screenprinted beings and loves greyhounds! Plus her Grandma sounds like the second most awesome grandma ever (no one person alive is as cool as mine was) Here are some of the pieces I love from her collection.

Free the Bears! I'm patiently waiting for cool mornings to be able to wear my Bear infinity scarf

Greyhounds and scarf and skin! I'm loving this fuscia

with every broken heart we should become more adventurous - quote from her page not mine!

And to end this gorgeous Blog Hop Post I thought I'd share one last thing that inspires me. Since I'm planning my first vacation in what feels like forever (in celebration of my 40th Birthday) to one of the most magical places on the planet, I thought I'd share one of the insanely creative Lyric videos by my fav of fav bands Of Monsters and Men. If I could live in this video I would!

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stepping back to move forward

now that's not as ominous as it sounds.

 Let me explain.

 When I first started thunderpeep, it wasn't as stationery focused as it is today. To be honest I never really thought it was going to be a greeting card company {and to note I still don't think it is} but that's definitely the side that exploded first. And I'm so grateful for that. But my first love was always surface design. Honestly I wanted my shit on EVERYTHING. You've seen enough posts about the amazing Marimekko to know what I'm talking about {side bar love for the Unikko celebrating it's 50th anniversary!)

right. Imagine a bus with Trolls all over it. Goals people. you have to have Goals!

But seriously… this brings me to something I've been working on for awhile now. If you follow me on instagram you've seen some sneak peeks. Or the words Pickled and Herring.

My good friend Quilter Steff and thunderpeep have been working on a pretty fun collaboration for you. We're combining thunderpeep designs with Quilter Steff patterns. WHat? that sounds crazy.

PickledHerring is the name and patterns are our game. Steff is an amazing quilter and sewer and she's taken some of my most popular designs and made them into quilts. And these aren't your Granny's quilts. No way, these are super fun and modern quilts. Well… let me clarify this. They are quilt patterns. YOU have to do the heavy lifting of sewing the dang thing together, following our pretty pretty instructions.

That's not all. All those hillarious cards you love to laugh over. Well you're going to be able to make them into little embroidery pieces for your home. I know some of you like to frame them, but why not get a little crafty with it. If I can learn to embroider… so can you!

We're launching the whole thing on June 7th at the Toronto Etsy Street Teams Spring Market {click here for those deets if you're in the Toronto area come for a visit} and right after the etsy shop so all you out of towners can start crafting and a blog as well, with bonus tips, tricks and downloads {those are all FREE for our devoted followers and of coarse you non-followers!} I'll blog more about it as all the little pieces continue to come together.

For those of you who've been around from the beginning, you'll remember that for the 2012 Midsummer collection I also launched some fabric lines. I've always loved fabric patterns, but as a non-sewer I never really understood it. Well, let me tell you. I've now been educated in all things fabric related and am so ExCiTeD for all the fabric goodness coming your way. Yes, that's right both the Midsummer and Polar Nights collections will have fabric collections this year {and real honest to goodness collections that will knock your sewn panties off!} 

Ok, that last bit got a bit weird. There may have been some Palm Breeze before this post. And I'm excited for all this goodness.

Check back in later this week - plans are coming together for the Midsummer launch later in June. 

#MidsummerIsComing

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one more show coming up...

I posted about some of the incredibly talented Toronto Etsy Street Team members who were at One of a Kind with me last week. Well this week I'd like to share a bit about our upcoming show. Our First Ever Christmas Marketplace. Saturday, December 14th we'll be hosting a small and intimate affair down around Kensington Market (we're actually at the Church of Saint Stephen-in-the-Fields at College and Bellevue Ave). You may remember that I mentioned I was one of the leaders, and that means one of my responsibilites is creating our awesome graphics. Being as this show was in a church, I wanted to create a bit of a throw-back look to the days of Church basement craft shows (we've come a long way from those days haven't we?) so of coarse I had to give it a Christmas Sweater look - also because I did a lot of research into Fair Isle designs for the Polar Nights collection so my brain was already there!

Here's the lookbook, you can browse through the vendors and hopefully we'll see you there on the 14th.

Oh yeah, Santa Claus is going to be making a surprise visit too. Although I guess it's not much of a surprise if I just posted it eh?

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TEST @ OOAK

I talk a lot about Teams on Etsy, I'm a huge fan of them. I'm a huge fan of community really. Being around other like-minded creatives (or whatever your interests/business is) is one of the best things for my soul. To chit chat about business, creative projects, listening to what others are up to, being able to swap stories good and bad... it all aids in our growth as humans and as business people.

I'm lucky enough to be part of one incredible team through etsy, the Toronto Etsy Street Team (TEST), and extra honoured that I can also say I'm one of the leaders. The group is full of so many talented people, and I've made some incredible friendships through the team. You may remember hearing about our Team show last June and our first ever Christmas show coming up on December 14th.

At this years One of a Kind show you'll be able to find more than a handful of TEST members and I thought I'd take the chance to show off some of them here, with you, so you can meet some of the amazing talent in Toronto.

1. Avril Loreti

2. Candiware

3. Carolyn Draws

4. Crywolf Clothing

5. Domistyle Aprons

6. Inspired Art Prints

7. Kempton Jones

8. Kid Icarus

9. Handmades by Rovena

10. Simple Smiles

11. MagPrint

12. Westlake Designs

and of coarse thunderpeep designs... but you know all about me ;)

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Learning to listen

A couple of weeks ago I had an event that was going to have super awkward me mixing with media types. I was so nervous... Not only do I dislike small talk and even more so talking about myself, but doing the 2 at the same time on one of the hottest days of the summer. Oh Man.

It just so happens my co-worker was reading Arlene Dickenson's book Persuasion so I asked her for some advice on how to be more assertive and to sell myself to the media, in person (it's a whole lot easier when you have the time to think about what you are going to say) She just looked at me, and in a matter-of-fact voice just said "you already have it, just be you" Her message, you aren't selling yourself, you're letting people get to know you, because you are a reflection of your product.

The one thing I don't have a problem with is being myself. In all my glorious awkwardness what you see is what you get. I like to think, no matter what kind of weird things I might say, that's what people like about me and as a result, what customers like about my cards!

 Another reason I think people are drawn to me and the second lesson my co-worker taught me.... to listen to a person's whole story before you speak. Thank you. That last one is a lesson for us all. Listen. I love to listen to people's stories, but even I sometimes jump to speak before someone is done (mostly because I'll forget what I want to say - my brain tends to run 10 times faster than my mouth!) But it's important, especially nowadays with texting, etc... we are always in such a hurry but taking the time to really listen, not just to the people in front of you, but the sights and sounds of your daily life.

All this being said, it turns out the evening wasn't so bad. Most of the media just came and went. I met some really great other local makers and bloggers, and got to catch up with some of my artsy buddies. Oh yeah, and made a super cute floral crown, which will be perfect for next summer's Midsummer launch!

And.... today's motivational message was brought to you by this awesome cutey I found on etsy

Jedi Master necklace by Rapscallion on etsy

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Tuesdays aren't so bad

Good thing I was lazy on the weekend and didn't schedule all my posts like I'm supposed to, because today I had something exciting to chat about.

I woke up this morning to a wicked storm in my etsy shop and after a bit of digging it turns out one of the friendship drinking card made it onto the Etsy front page while I was snoozing away. Super Excited over here :) Turns out one of the treasuries I was in for the Christmas in July sale got featured. You can see the whole treasury here. (FYI the sale is now on until the end of July - you can still stock up here)

A lot of sellers really focus on making it to the front page but it's never been a goal for me or the shop, mostly because making treasuries is somewhat challenging for me. I get all distracted browsing through too many awesome listings. But in the past month I've taken up a couple of different treasury challenges through a couple of my teams and am getting the hang of it. This particular treasury was made during the Christmas in July teams treasury challenge... win win.

I'm a HUGE fan of etsy teams, they've been a really welcoming community for me (I've met quite of few of my friends through my local Toronto Etsy Street Team) but also a really great resource. Not only do I learn a lot from my teammates, I find I can help others with the things I've learned and I really love that feeling. I've stumble lot's during my journey to set up this little business of mine, and I'm still figuring things out as I go along (still trying to figure out how to ditch the day job and be a full time thunderpeep!) but if I can help one other artists avoid any one of my stumbles then it's all worth it (well it's still worth it because I love my business but whatever, get over it, I said it!)

I'm off for a super cold drink... have an awesome Tuesday evening (or if it's Wednesday while your reading, happy hump day ;)

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The Troll are coming

This photo was taken last June, when I launched the Midsummer collection down at Arts Market. BergTroll had a big impact, just hanging out down in Leslieville!

This year so far has been crazy, and I'm behind on getting this years Midsummer collection going. But this current situation has forced me to plan out my lines better so nothing will be late - which means I'm literally working on Midsummer and Christmas at the SAME TIME. What the hell??????

But I'm excited, because both lines are going to be AWESOME. The trolls are making a second appearance this year, because honestly, they didn't get the attention they truly deserved last year. And they're pissed.... have you ever seen a pissed off troll? It is so not pretty.

So stay cool little peeps, June 1st is damn close. You'll have to come by the Toronto Etsy Street Teams' Springtime Marketplace to be the first to check out the 2013 Midsummer collection (and of coarse all the other goodies we'll have at the show - more on that in a later post).

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