The Year I Made Things
It all started with one tee.
Last August, I was playing around on a design website late one night and I made a simple graphic tee.
To my surprise, many of my friends and family wanted to buy one for themselves.
79 people.
I was floored.
What began as a small hobby evolved over the year into a passion and then into…a business.
August 27th marks one year of designing with Jesus.
It’s still hard to believe that I’ve designed most of the clothes in my closet. Well, at least the ones I wear on the regular.
PINCH ME.
A lot has happened this year.
And by “a lot,” I mean lots of late nights, not enough sleep, and lots of junk food.
But it’s also been filled with lots of sweet moments in worship.
Can’t wait to tell you the whole story.
Keep reading!!
But real quick…here’s my newest tee in celebration of one year of designing!
The Anniversary Tee is LIVE!
Beauty for ashes. Joy for mourning. Oaks of righteousness. Praise for heaviness.
PART I: TEES
To begin, let’s start with a design story of the tees Jesus and I made this year.
We made 11 apparel designs in 12 months.
I’m super grateful for Bonfire because I get to do the fun part of designing without having to have all of the inventory on hand for potential clients.
If people want to order one, great. If not, I’m not out anything. Win, win!
PART II: DIGITAL ART
Quarantine gifted me with lots of extra time on my hands, just as it did for most of us.
Towards the end of March, SkillShare was offering a few months free so I decided to take up a new hobby - watercoloring.
I bought the supplies, grabbed a History Book from Cageless Birds (a beautiful way to illustrate a visual journal in a leather bound book), and spent hours devouring the watercolor side of SkillShare.
This is where things get a little crazy, but stick with me…
The reason this new hobby of mine shocked me so much is because when I close my eyes, I can only see words and numbers.
I’ve never been able to see images in my mind - just the general outline of a body, or a dog, or a house.
Like, I can’t even see my husband when I close my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to draw him, or almost anything for that matter.
I started praying for the ability to s e e things in a new way.
And He answered.
I started seeing things in a different way - new details and colors.
If you’ve been here for a bit, you may remember this post where I shared some of the prophetic words I received leading up to this year.
On August 4, 2019, one of the words I was given was, “…Your creative thing is really gonna start being more filtered because you look at something and see what it can be or what it was...” and “…You have a lot of ideas floating around in your head and you’re very creative all the time. And it gets to the point sometimes where you’re not sure what to do with it or how to filter it. You can’t see clearly sometimes and it comes out of nowhere. It keeps you up at night…”
This part had confused me for months because I didn’t understand.
I wasn’t staying up late.
I wasn’t that creative.
I had almost dismissed this part, but I’m so glad I’d written down everything so I could reflect on it later.
In January, I heard pretty clearly from the Lord that I was supposed to “lay down my camera.” I knew this meant my photography business.
Again, I didn’t really understand why, but I started listening closely for more direction.
I started passing off inquiries to other photographer friends as they came in, just waiting on the Lord to see what was next.
Well, quarantine was next. And with it, no photo shoots.
So, that’s how I found myself in early April with more free time than I’ve ever had before, new gifts from the Lord, and new eyes.
Pretty quickly, the watercoloring hobby turned digital when I remembered that I had an iPad and an Apple Pencil. A friend of mine kept encouraging me to download the Procreate app and I’m so glad she did!
I resisted for a while because it was $10 and I do NOT spend $1 on an app, let alone TEN. But it is so worth it.
Here are some of my favorite designs (including a few that have never been published)…
part iii: the business
Shortly after designing digital art, I found myself starting a new business.
All of a sudden, everything made more sense - the reason the Lord asked me to put down the camera, the prophetic word about staying up late designing.
First came stickers, then magnets, and then greeting cards.
It was overwhelming and everything moved very quickly, but it’s been quite a ride.
These and more products can be found HERE.
I appreciate every single order I’ve received this year.
Designing with Jesus is so FUN and I’m so grateful to be on this journey with Him.
Have a custom design in mind? Send me a message. I do those too!
I’m so glad you’re here, friend. I’m not sure how you found this post, but I continue to be amazed by the internets. It brings us together in such beautiful ways and reminds us that we’re more alike than different. More united than divided. Whether you spend a minute or an hour on this page, know that Jesus loves you like crazy. Like CRAZY. I’d love to hear how I can pray for you. Would you let me know here?
