Two Weeks In

Hi friends, 

We're two weeks into this online sales business, and I have learned quite a bit already! I'll be using this blog to keep track of my growth, and update those interested in the progression of my business.

Wins:

• Fully functioning website
• Made sales!
• Have some (not all) marketing email automations set up
• Created & launched an additional collection; the "Caribbean Creatures" collection!
• Was accepted into the Jackson Junge Gallery in Chicago, which will be displaying two of my pieces (Blueberries and Black Raspberries); the originals and prints are available for purchase! Opening night of the gallery is November 7th :)

Lessons Learned:

• One of my print providers was Canada based, and all the orders placed including my greeting cards (previously- now it's fixed!) got held up at the border, seemingly to never reach customers! Easy enough fix, since I was able to refund customers and change my print provider. Kind of annoying, and I won't be working with any providers outside of the US until some of the tariff nonsense dies down.
• Battling the lack of storage on my phone as I write, since creating content has been consuming quite a bit of space! Not quite resolved yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out!
• The to-do list for this venture seems to be... endless, but that's because there are endless opportunities for improvement. I'll get there, slow & steady!

Follower count as of October 16th; 

Marketing has had an interesting start; I'm excited to see how the business grows as I gain followers! It seems like my videos do best the more personal they are; so perhaps lots of content creation in my future. 

Instagram- 486 followers

Tiktok- 136 followers

My upcoming projects:

• The Deep Sea ABCs book, a children's book- the first I'll have authored and illustrated- hopefully to be publishing in 2026. Such a big dream project of mine!!
• Finishing my first quilt- I began that project in the early summer this year; it's been thrown aside temporarily, but I do hope to get back to it and finish it for the winter.
• Creating a cat whisker brush or two; uncertain on how exactly I'll be doing this, but I've been collecting them as I find them cleaning for this project. We're getting close to having enough!
• For the website: Holiday cards, potentially other holiday gifts??
• Additional fruit paintings; I'd like to finish a grape vineyard painting I started, and also make an apple painting.

Outside of the art:

I've been attending a few art classes around Chicago- hosted by the Wicker Park Garden Club, Chicago Craft Club, Spudnik Press- I'm grateful for the inspiration and community they've provided! 

Matt & I finally joined a gym together and it's been amazing; it's important to remember what a privilege movement is. We'll also be hauling plenty of apples back to Chicago to squirrel away for the winter on our next trip to NJ- no fruit is quite as good as from my family's farm!

Face painting gigs have been dying down as it gets a little more chilly around here, but I'll still have a few more to finish out the year.

P.S. Leave me a comment with your thoughts, if you've made it this far ;)

Until next time,

Lianna