Well hello guys! No, I'm not dead! I just took a very long break from the blog and let me say this: the past month and a half has gone by in a blur.
This year didn't quite start like I hoped it would. It was a bit slow and painful to be honest! We came back from North Wales at the beginning of January and went back to work on the 7th. I think it didn't help me to think that a week had passed already and I hadn't done anything in particular. I was putting quite a lot of pressure on myself to achieve more with my work at the end of last year (still kinda am) and because of this, I felt even worse about starting work again!
Getting back into the swing of things was a bit hard and I mainly felt like hibernating haha. But then I started to feel a lot more motivated mid-January and all of sudden, loads of ideas for personal projects came. Since then, I've been struggling to find a balance between client work (which really is the most important and pays the bills), my personal projects (which are important too as there are so many things I'd like to do!) and my private life (my poor husband and I are not having a lot of time to relax together lately...).
So I've been fighting against time the past month, trying to do everything whilst keeping a schedule that means I won't end up with burnout! I keep thinking: How do people with kids manage? Honestly though, we're working so much that when we're not working, we'd barely have the time or energy to look after a child.
We love to take some time during the weekend to go for a walk, get some fresh air, discover a new part of Bretagne and eat something nice along the way. These moments just the two of us are always so good and we definitely feel like we need more of this and less of work. But you know what, we love what we do so sometimes it's hard to switch off, and when we do, if I'm still at home, I'll find a way to get my iPad and sketch some ideas. Funny isn't it?! It's very hard to have a good balance, but all that said, I'm the happiest I've ever been for a while and it must be that we're doing something right :)
A few photos below!
I've been creating more for social media as well, which has been really good for me as I participated in the #kidsincolorz challenge earlier this month and absolutely loved it! I have more ideas about templates and freebies (wallpapers mainly) that I'm planning on sharing on my stories and adding on my highlights as I'm probably not going to do wallpaper giveaways over here now. I'm still working on getting my new website right but I'm still at the stage of sketches and I only just started to create some custom typography for it, so you'll have to wait a little longer to see it!
You might have noticed as well that I've finally opened my Creative Market shop! Something I've been thinking about doing for a very long time. I've realised mid-last year that having a stationery shop on Etsy wasn't really working for me anymore. The main issue being the fact that I couldn't invest anymore in printing more goods that I wasn't sure were going to sell. I've been having a massive sale on Etsy since then as I would love for my little greeting cards to not gather dust in the spare room! On top of that, Etsy has upped their charges (which means that I'm loosing a bigger chunk on my profit) and shipping from France is getting ridiculously expensive. I mean, people don't want to pay shipping costs that are actually more expensive than what they're buying right?!
So I decided to take a step back, have a real good think about what would make me really happy to create and how I could potentially sell it, and I came up with the conclusion that digital goods was the best idea. There's no need for shipping or paying for prints up front not knowing if it will have any success, and I get to create illustrations and graphics that other creatives will use, which is kind of cool! I'm still at early stages as I have just a couple of bundles available at the moment, but I'm planning on adding more bit by bit :)
I'm so grateful that I get to live from my passion and for Valentine's Day yesterday, I decided to give a big shout out to all my followers. I wanted to send my love to each and every one of you that have been sticking around, following my adventures, supporting me and my work, and motivating me in my every day life <3
I hope you've liked this little catch up, and make sure to follow me on Instagram if you'd like to see what I'm up to!