Happy Wholesaling

Planning is in full swing for preseason buying for the wholesale gift shows and markets. I’m lucky to be hooked up with a really great sales rep, Karen Sobolesky and Company. Karen and her team are creative, sincere, professional and rep a bunch of really cool lines. I’ve decided to build a wholesale line of my work and reprint the Alaska Animal Alphabet book, print a new line of children’s art prints, design and illustrate a new Alaska children’s activity book, offer new releases of my Art Quilt Patterns along with a couple more of my creations for the wholesale gift market. The souvenir gift market in Alaska is very strong and with proper profit margin planning, creating for selling wholesale is a lot of fun. With a good sales rep it’s also a lot less work for me than me trying to regularly sell retail or only have my work on consignment at Galleries. I still need to put together my wholesale order sheets for Karen and design some custom foil labels for the art prints and books but I’ve had my hands full getting all of the creative components designed and "sample ready" for her showroom. Several of my original designs I’ve decided to scrap. Sometimes right after I finish an illustration or design I really love the work but I've learned I need to have a “cooling off period” and try and look objectively at the work when considering if it will be a good seller for the retail market. Even then, nothing is a sure thing. I’m reviewing the budget and timeline with my printer in Hong Kong for the reprinting of the hard bound Alaska ABC book. The over sea printing costs make it much more cost effective for me to be able to wholesale a professional, hard bound book that will have a reasonable retail price of around $10 each. The activity book, the art prints and patterns are all printed here in Alaska –an important point to most souvenir shoppers. I’m a bit out of practice juggling all of the new deadlines for the various projects I have going on but would rather be working on the wholesale line than packing boxes for the move! 

A Birch Tree at Gus' X-Country meet today near the APU Mosley Sports Center.  The colors were so vibrant they made me happy but made my eyes water! 

Artful Publishing

It’s all Judy’s fault. My creative brain has been on overdrive for publishing another children’s book, or doing custom reprints of my original alphabet books. When Willie

 was born in the late 80’s, I wrote and illustrated the Alaska Animal Alphabet and later the Amazing Animal Alphabet. I wanted to create a “stay-at-home mom” cottage business and self-published the ABC wall friezes and books.  All of my printing was eventually done in Hong Kong at a major children’s book printer. I had the good fortune to travel to China as a designer with a client who was in the toy industry and introduced to their printer, forging an instant business relationship, though the thought of reprinting the books again in China would involve much more energy and time than I have now. Both books and wall friezes were a hit and as a literacy advocate I’ve volunteered at schools

promoting reading, writing and illustrating children’s books. I have a plastic tub filled with the most precious letters written by school children all over the country who have been inspired to create their own alphabets after learning how I made my ABC books. Over the years both have been reprinted a couple of times and as the kids grew and I moved on to other artful ventures and publishing and the books were set aside. Occasionally, I’m asked to illustrate kid’s names in the letters (thankfully I now have them all digital) for birthday or baby shower gifts. In high school an all zoo alphabet I created called AlphaZoo’s provided my gas money as I illustrated family and friends names. It was quite serendipitous that a friend asked me to illustrate (digitally now) a couple of names for them this week, as new baby and sibling gifts and The Alaska Alphabet has been put on the front burner again as part of a 1% For Art Proposal I’m currently bidding on…. I forgot how much I enjoy seeing the names come to life with each animal! When I read fiber artist extraordinaire, Judy Coates Perez of Painted Threads had just published her first book on the e-publishing site of Blurb I’ve been all fired up about the books again! We went to the library today and I was surprised to see my original Alphabet books on the shelf in the children’s section! With the new digital and electronic technology Blurb and other similar sites offer, just about

anything can be self-published at a fraction of the cost and hassle. Check out some of the Blurb staff picks as well as most recently published Blurb titles, those alone are inspiring!

Kristen is home from UAF for a few days and just in time to celebrate Daddy-O and my anniversary! With all the kids in one city at one time we treated everyone to dinner

 at Bear Tooth Grill for our Anniversary on 11/12 (we married on 11/12 so we could remember the date better -though Mom still needs to call us and remind us!). Our hostess took a group shot as we squeezed together in the booth. Will, Will’s cute girlfriend Nikki, Gus, Kristen, Me & Derek are in the group shot. Gus gets a big ‘sis squeeze and Derek 

and I toast the night with a yummy, Spenard Brown Ale! -I know, I know, the last two pictures of me in my Blog I’ve been holding alcohol… tis' the Season!