RedLetterWords

Me Myself and I

In between an awesome road trip and a visit to the ranch and making custom prints and designing a new line of products for Demdaco this summer and lots of cookouts and birthdays and fun times with friends, I had a headshot taken for some marketing materials for Demdaco .

  
I love this picture.  I went to Clickphotographic.   Mike, the man behind the camera is one of my husband's junior high school buddies and his photography is just so technically perfect with the lighting and composition and he is waaay creative and isn't that brick wall the greatest?  I will blog about that particular wall again soon in greater detail! 

There are a few things you should know though . . . in this picture . . .

I have showered.

I have fresh hi-lights.

Emily did my hair before I left.

and I have been properly photoshopped:)

So just to keep things in proper perspective . . .

here are some less than stellar photos of me

I hope you enjoy them!  My kids sure did:)

me and my poochie have no idea how photobooth works at this point.  When do we smile?

Ok we got photobooth figured out!

I have always always wondered what I looked like with my eyes crossed late at night with no makeup.  Now everybody knows.

What?  haven't you ever had a sour Toxic Waste candy shoved in your mouth?

According to my boys, I am now an official Full Toxi Head.  Not to be confused with an Extreme Toxi Head which they are because they eat 3 of them at a time!

I have just gotten my tickets for The Creative Connection in Minneapolis next month so on the chance that you are reading this and are going there too, or maybe the Relevant Conference and we meet, I will look somewhere in between my headshot and this collection of less than stellar pictures of myself.  And I will be happy with that:)

The best news yet!

So last fall I was busy.  Really busy. 

And then I got an Etsy convo I have been so beyond excited to tell you about!

It went like this . . .

Do you license your work?  Do you want to license your work?  I work for Demdaco

Um . .  let me think . . . . Yes, Yes, Yes!  Yes I absolutely do want to license my work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Many many phone calls and emails later we have a super fabulous line of products coming out!!!  And let me tell you they are sooo unbelievably cute!  I have been sworn to secrecy about the details for another couple of months, but the whole line will be available for sale next January and in retailers nationwide soon after that!!!!  I don't have any pictures I can post yet, but trust me.  You.  Will.  Love.  and I mean Love.  Everything:)

One of the things I do every month is write down goals.  Habbukkuk 2:2   Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets so that he who reads it may run with it. . .  And do you know that I write the same goal every month?   Here is what I write. . . Bring God's glory to lots and lots of people.  And this partnership with Demdaco is definitely bringing some glory!!!!!!!!!

Wow God is taking this to places I had never even dreamed of!!

Can you tell I am beyond excited?!!  

Starting an Etsy Store

I was nervous.  Really nervous.  I was having lots of fun creating prints and playing around with different designs and giving them to friends and family members for birthdays and baby gifts.  I was finding my style.  Well then said friends and family members liked my prints so much that they started to encourage me to put them for sale on Etsy.  So my husband and I had this conversation every day for at least 2 weeks . . 

me.  Do you think I should start an Etsy store?

Tim.  Yes.

me.  Really?

Tim.  Yes.

I already knew the Lord had put the desire in my heart to have His Word in prominent places in our house.  Now I felt He was leading me to put in out there in the world.  After much hemming and hawwing around and generally dragging my feet (quite similar to the process of starting to tell my story on the blog)  I did it with reservations.  What if nobody liked what I had done?  It was my whole heart out there.  What if everybody liked it so much that I couldn't keep up with orders and everything fell apart and everybody was unhappy because mom was too busy and stressed out?  Because I am a wife and a mom and child of God and RedLetterWords was and is my hobby.   

When my mind got to the point where it was quiet enough to hear what the Lord had to say about this, he reminded me of another desire I had in my heart which was to glorify Him with whatever spare time I was given.  And I was reminded that He wasn't going to  give me this desire and vision without providing the means to accomplish it.

I started an Etsy  store in August 2008.  My whole heart was now out there.   And guess what happened?  I got a few incredibly nice emails from some ladies who loved my work:)   They were very encouraging.  And then after about a month somebody bought one of my prints!  I was so excited I went to tell Tim and the conversation went like this . . .

me.  Guess what?  (except I didn't wait for him to guess what)  Somebody bought one of my prints!!!!!

Tim.  Honey!!  that is awesome!! Congratulations!!

me.  What do I do?

Tim.  Send it to them.

I am a sharpie sometimes aren't I?

Wait, don't answer that.

To be continued . . .

In the Beginning . . .

Well I have wanted to write this for soooo long now but I didn't have any idea where to begin.  So, I began.  There.   Is that a start?  How could that possibly even count as a start??

The idea for RedLetterWords started spinning in my head years ago with the desire to have scripture as art in the home.  But in a way that was a little different.  I have lots of friends who write scriptures on sticky notes and post them on their window sills, mirrors, wherever.  Love that! except it never worked for me because my handwriting is absolutely the worst and nobody including myself could ever read them!  So I started to make these . . . and don't you just love this scripture too??  Love that we all can be transformed and move from glory to glory!!  that is good news:)  so back to In the Beginning . . . 

 

This was great for awhile.  I hung them with really cute magnet clips on the sides of a mirror in our bedroom.  But then I realized that I wanted something to be readable from across the room and clearly visible to everyone who ever came into our house.   Because you just never know who is going to be coming over - Hebrews 13:2 says to never be afraid to entertain strangers you might be entertaining angels.  More on that particular scripture in a later post.  Promise.

And then my daughter came home with this that she made in art class

Simple design, black and white, with meaningful words.  It says orange and caffeine - her two favorite things at the time were the color orange and caffeinated beverages of any kind:)  Isn't that the coolest piece of art?  It still hangs on my inspiration board in my scrapbook, craft, wrapping paper, general area of happy messes.

So now with the desire to have the Word in our house, and with a really clear vision of what I wanted it to look like, I sat down to create it.  And how exactly did that happen?  I enlisted an instructor who helped me interpret what was in my head to a printed form.   And then Trial and Error.  LOTS and LOTS of trial and error.  So much trial and error that I sometimes cried and sometimes sighed so loudly just to make sure everyone could hear me.  And then Practice, practice practice.

Here is the first print I ever created.

It was for our mantle at Easter 2008. I loved it!!!

To be continued. . .