SLMPetersen

Last week I left off in the year 2014, where I was building my courage to keep going. I had reopened my Etsy shop and was selling a few things there, as well as by word of mouth. I also started doing some cards for donations, including a really big one for our community in 2017.   As time went on I started working up the courage to put my cards in a local gift shop. I have some great cheerleaders that kept pushing me to keep going. Finally, in 2017 I decided on a name for the business and ordered some business cards. We'll talk about the reason I picked the name later. Then in March of 2019, I bit the big bullet that was way out of my comfort zone and put some cards at Smiling Moose Gifts & Office Supply. I'm not sure anyone realizes what a huge step that was for me, but it was enormous and so worth it. As the quote says "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone" and that couldn't be more true in this case. I was terrified it would be a success and...

For the last four years, I've created custom thank you cards for a couple of 4-Hers. The first year, I was eager to make them, but really had no farm or animal-themed supplies. I created some very basic cute cards with a few background stamps and I used a heart to create a clover. They turned out really cute, but I knew I'd need to add some farm animals to my stamp collection for the next year. In year two, I had cute animals to stamp and hand-color. There was a small challenge of needing a turkey, which ended with me coloring a chicken stamp to try and pass it off as a turkey. I think it worked pretty well. I also created cute pig and sheep cards. The animals were hand-colored with Copic markers and I created layers with die cuts on some fun plaid paper. I was upping my game. In the third year, I snagged a few more stamp sets and received two orders. I had three orders in the third year. I did the same hand coloring with Copic markers this go-round, but I fussy cut the animals...

The reality of my creative work is that I'm human and I make mistakes, sometimes big ones. Take for example a custom card I created a week ago. For a 70th Birthday. Big birthdays deserve amazing cards. Step one was to set about coloring an amazing background of beautiful florals with Copic markers. These kinds of projects take a considerable amount of time and I enjoy every minute of creating them. Coloring is a wonderful way to get lost and forget about a busy day.  It's very therapeutic for me as a maker. Once my beautifully colored background was complete I decided to cut the numbers from the panel. Here's where this big oops happens. I haven't a clue what possed me to cut 75 from the panel, but I did. What's more, the card was a custom creation for a friend who needed it the next morning. There was no time to recolor a second panel and recut it. So, how to fix this GIANT booboo? Well, you carefully pull apart the layers. Next, you tape the "5...

So what made me start this crazy venture and why did I decide to start building it into a business? Where do I even start with this story? I've wanted to own my own business ever since I can remember. While most little girls were playing house I was playing office. I made my dog a co-anchor for my own news programs in our yard and even wrote short stories on an electric typewriter I bought with some birthday money. I've been hoarding notebooks and pens since I was in junior high. The desire to have my own business has always been strong within my soul. In my pursuit of owning my own business, I even tried to buy into multi-level marketing. Once upon a time, I was a "beauty consultant" for Mary Kay. Yep, that's right I tried selling cosmetics to win my freedom from a 9 to 5 job. I learned this was not going to be for me, too much focus on recruiting more people for my liking. So I gave up and went back to the 9 to 5 job. Then in 2007 I got married, left a j...

Let's talk about pen and ink trees.  I've done a few...dozen of them.  I can draw other things, but I don't want to.  This used to bother me.  I used to get very down on myself for not having an interest in drawing something other than trees.  Then I started looking at the artist I was following on Instagram.  Everyone's got a thing.  Some of them are all about faces, then there are the flower artists, and let's not forget the watercolor landscapers.  It finally dawned on me there is literally nothing wrong with always drawing trees! When did this start? Probably about 2014 when I tried to get into the art of Zentangle. I honestly never did really get the hang of Zentangle, but I enjoyed drawing with microns. I started creating letters that had some sort of floral element to them and it kind of blossomed from there. I created watercolor background and drew trees over top of them. I started creating different trees based on the seasons and some let...

This summer you'll be able to find my line of photography cards at Rika's Roadhouse Gift shop.  I stocked 110 cards for opening weekend, with more to come.   The photography is all original and all mine.  Photographs have been printed with a Cannon Selph printer that uses thermal dye-sublimation to print images on heat-sensitive paper. The images are touted by Canon to have an extremely long 100-year print longevity when stored properly.   The selection of cards at Rika's will be exclusively Alaskan, taken during our 9 years of living in Alaska.   I plan to expand this line into the online shop soon.  I'll be including more locations with the online photo cards.  I've been a scenic photographer since high school and will be including shots from our travels and other states we've lived in.

Is there anything more difficult than talking about one's self?  That must be the introvert in me talking. If you haven't read the About Section, then you might not know much about me yet.  I'm Stacy, the SLMPetersen behind Inked Inspirations.  I'm pretty sure I was born creative.  I can't remember a time when I wasn't a maker.   I come from a long line of creative ladies.  My creativity comes from my mom's side of the family.  Crochet and embroidery from the Great Grandmothers and Aunts.  My Grandma was legally blind by the time I came along, but that never stopped her from working on crochet and plastic canvas.  She was also a bit of a seamstress and quite talented as an armature artist.   My Mom is an avid knitter, crocheter, and quilter.  She also dabbles in a bit of painting when no one's looking. It took me a lot of years to become comfortable with calling myself an artist and honestly embracing the title.  I've...