#Robayre100Days 2017 Edition and More News

I’m doing the 100 day project again this year. Last year during the project I focused on finishing up a lot of already started stationery projects and getting them listed in my shop.  Here is a link to 2016’s 100 days. It kept me very productive and I enjoyed being part of the community of other creative and prolific makers, so naturally I’m going to participate again.

This year for the 100 days project (starting on April 4th, 2017), I am focusing on getting already existing work (especially patterns) up on POD (Print on Demand sites). Last year I closely followed and was SO INSPIRED by my friend Julie’s posts about artist’s making passive income. I’ve had a Society6 shop (where I upload images and customers can get art prints, or products with my images printed on them)for years, but it is pretty neglected. I also want to finally get some of the patterns I designed printed onto fabric using Spoonflower. I’ve had an account with Spoonflower since they first opened up and I had to be put on a waiting list and be invited to join. And then… nothing. I NEVER actually printed anything. Fast forward to present day and I am using the 100 Day Project to remedy this quandary. I have 2 kind of selfish goals 1. to get a cell phone case of my own artwork for my own phone and 2. order fabric of my own artwork to sew a bunch of things.

On the first day I posted this over on Instagram: I’m laying down some groundwork to help me stick it out. 1. My main focus will be to get my work ready and up on POD sites. I’ve had a society6 shop for years but have not kept it up at all, and I want to finally get a lot of my favorite patterns up on spoonflower, and explore other options as well. 2. If it takes longer than 100 days, so be it 3. If I want to switch up focus on things for a while, so be it. 4. If I only work on something for 15 minutes a day, so be it. 5. Most importantly I want to work on something creative and productive each day. 6. I’m gonna stick with my general #robayre100days hashtag. Here we go!

I immediately dove in and worked on this vintage mail pattern. Cleaning it up, making it a repeatable pattern, etc.

I made it with 4 different backgrounds, pink, blue, gray and white and uploaded it to Spoonflower.

While I had it so close, I figured I might as well set it up as a digital (printable) pdf stationery set and painted a striped watercolor piece in the style of many of my other stationery sets, and uploaded it to etsy.

Next I wanted to work on my barn quilts pattern but before I got too far I realized I should have taken the vintage mail pattern and uploaded it to Society6. That opened a whole new can of worms because it had been so long since I had really dealt with Society6, that I had some learning curves. One thing that was GREAT to discover, was that if you upload original art files that are HUGE, it will enable other products immediately. Before, I had to customize each image to fit very specific dimensions for a mug vs. a cell phone case. Now, I can just re-position things on their website.

Another thing that is pretty great is that since I first opened my society6 shop, they have gone from offering art prints, mugs and cell phone cases, to a huge variety of additional products like towels, rugs, shower curtains, zipper pouches and more. For the next several days I just worked on adjusting the existing 24 patterns I already offered and enabling more products on those, like this handspun yarn, which was the very first pattern I uploaded there and my most popular product so far. I’ve uploaded a few more patterns now and am still doing research. One thing that was shared with me, and was very insightful was a Free Skillshare class on passive income, by top Society6 seller CatCoq, (you just have to create an account and log in to watch). Incidentally, Cat was also interviewed by Julie (mentioned above) in her passive income artist’s interview series. So, that’s where I am now with my 100 Day Project. And if that wasn’t enough, I also committed to participating in the #30Letters30Days project as well.

AND! Tomorrow (Thursday, the 20th) I am participating in a virtual book tour for Emily Neuburger‘s new book “Journal Sparks“. Check back here, and/or instagram and facebook for a peek into a project from the book and a chance to win your own copy.