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

As the gift-giving season approaches, sometimes it can be difficult to know what to get for people. When I design a new piece in my shop, I usually have a specific type of person in mind who would like it – for instance, I’ll make something to appeal to gardeners, or a design specifically for a bibliophile, or a print that I think guys who cook would like, and so on. So I thought it would be helpful to break down into categories some things I have designed that could appeal to certain types of people on your gift giving … Read more

It’s week 3 of the hack challenge! And I must admit, it was a close call this week to get a project done. But, ta da, here it is! I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get any project finished for this week’s post done while we are out of town … I had a back up plan in mind, but I’m glad I didn’t have to use it because I wasn’t terribly thrilled about. Fortunately, my sister in law up here in New England was having a craft night at her house this week, and I realized … Read more

I almost started off by referencing “last week’s post” … but since I’m now on the every-other-week schedule for Wednesdays while we are in the process of moving, I guess it was actually two weeks ago! Anyway, in the previous post from this Truth & Evidences series we talked about the problems of where life […] Posted in bible, truth and evidences ‣ ‣ ‣  1. Several of you commented on Friday’s post asking “how are you still blogging while moving?” I can’t claim I’m keeping up with everything perfectly – but RememberTheMilk.com has been hugely helpful. I can plug in tasks … Read more

I’ve been making some changes to The Flourishing Abode, to make it easier for you to use, and to help keep it running! I’m pretty excited about some of these changes, and so I wanted to share them with you. There’s a ton of great stuff I want to tell you about ranging from free classic vintage clothes, to a DIY gallery, to a exclusive deal for my readers, to milkweed kisses. Um, I guess you’ll have to read on to understand that last one. ‣‣‣ First (and this is just a small change, but might make it easier to … Read more

Usually on Wednesdays, I’ve been writing a series on Truth & Evidences, but I’m going to have to postpone that until the beginning of October. Until then, on Wednesdays I’ll probably offer some new Bible verse printables. But first I wanted to be sure and invite any of you who may be in the Boston […] Posted in bible Boston Skyline Photograph by Elizabeth Thomas Photo I’m really loving living in a city again. I love the busy-ness of a city, the variety of experiences. We explored Chinatown last week and tried some delicious new kinds of food … there … Read more

So, as many of you know, we are trying to move to Boston! As you also may know, besides my art prints I also sell some vintage items in my shop as well. What you probably DON’T know, is that I have a huuuuge inventory of vintage stuff – much more than is in my shop – and I do NOT want to move it all to Boston! So … the number of vintage items in my shop has been growing – and I want to have a sale on all vintage items in my shop: 30% off all vintage … Read more

Well, I’ll be perfectly honest – I’m going to be stepping on my own toes for this week’s “Seek the things above” post. It’s about want vs. need. I wish I had more of the attitude expressed here in Proverbs 30: give me only what I NEED. I’m more fond of wants and comforts than […] Also posted in printables, seek the things above So, we’re continuing on in the “Seek the things above” series for Wednesdays … and actually, this time delving into a verse I mentioned last week, but as one of the comments from that post was … Read more

I guess there are basically two sides to this blog redesign series … the artistic side, and the more tech related side. We’ll be kind of jumping back and forth week to week from one to another – this week it’s the artistic. You know, the fun stuff! 😉 I have six blog tips to share plus a worksheet to start making some design choices. So far in this series, we’ve talked about getting a vision for your branding so you can know what you’re aiming for, and then the next week we covered where to blog and how to … Read more

Why is it that we blog? Why not just write in a journal? The specific answers may vary, but in the end it all comes down to the audience – the readers. Maybe you want to make people laugh, maybe you want to offer people help, maybe you want to share stories, maybe you want to draw traffic to make money. It’s all variations on a theme: finding readers. Because if we didn’t want readers, we would just write in in a private journal. So when people land on your site, if they are your target readership, you want them … Read more