Thank You: Christmas, A New Year & A Coupon!

Happy New Year! I still can't quite believe it is 2013. What a strange number to have for a year. I always thought we would be flying around in jet powered cars by now. The end of 2012 was so full and busy. I'm really enjoying the beginning of a new year with it's clean, white slate of time stretching ahead of me. It's January 15th and I'm just now feeling like things are back to normal. We had a wonderful time traveling for Christmas, and the shop was very active right up until the day we left town. In fact we even carried some orders in our suitcases to be hand delivered. Now, it is time for planning, for dreaming up new things, for organizing, and for the dreaded accounting for January quarterly taxes.

I owe a big thank you to everyone who supported The Ambrosium this holiday season, and also to those who purchased things from my other shop, PhaedraJean ArtMachine. Thank you for purchasing, for spreading the word, blogging, liking, and giving gifts from the shops. It blessed me to know that so many of you responded to the things I was creating and dreaming up. Thank you, thank you!

 

 

 

I was delighted to watch more Advent Calendars than I ever expected fly out of the shop. One 5 am found me still putting stickers on bags and addressing packages, having been up all night to keep caught up with the orders. A great reason for being up that late (early?) but one I hope doesn't happen too often. I'm so grateful to everyone who purchased a calendar, and I hope that they helped you journey through Advent in a thoughtful way. The calendars are not in the shop anymore, but will be available again after some tweaking and re-design. I'm hoping to have have a 12 days of Christmas calendar available next season, and Advent Calendars with different themes: service, prayer, family, etc. They were so fun to put together, and it was wonderful knowing that other people were turning over their cards each day along with us.

My other shop was pretty busy also and I got to send out many Hobbit and Lord of the Rings prints from PhaedraJean ArtMachine. I know that many of you were excited about giving these as gifts, and I hope the recipients were delighted and surprised! Some new ones will appear soon in the other shop, as I just finished re-reading the book. I am all fired up about putting those good words into prints. I've just added some simple motivational prints to that shop as well. Great items for helping you kick start your year with a bit of pretty visual encouragement.

This year I'm excited about developing items that could be used for each of the seasons of the Church calendar, not just for Advent and Christmas. It helps me to have visual items in my home to remind me what time it is in the year. It centers me see things that tell me that, for example, it's Ordinary Time, and I can turn my heart toward the things God has for me in this season, or that it's Lent, and I'm reminded to pray.  My house is full of quotes, and art, and other little visual items to help me focus my heart and stay connected to Jesus and his Kingdom.

Keep an eye out for things like this to pop up in the shop. Hopefully they will help you travel through Lent, celebrate Easter, delight in Pentecost, and rest during Ordinary time. I'd also love to hear your ideas. What do you want in your home to help you be present to the seasons? What helps you keep a devotional heart during the day? What resources do you wish you could find?

If you purchased something from the shop during Advent or Christmas, or if you received something as a gift, I'd love to hear how it was used in your home or life. I'd also like to hear how you think it could be made better. I'm constantly tweaking ideas and items. Receiving input from people who are incorporating the cards, prints, calendars, and art works into their lives is invaluable to this process. As always, I'm happy to help you in any way I can. If you have questions about items in the shop, or ideas for custom things, please don't hesitate to get in touch!

Lastly, I've added a new coupon code to the shop for everyone who has ordered something this past year. If you're a returning customer, you can enter "backagain" into the coupon code box when you check out & receive 10% off your order! Hurray!

Blessings on your head and Happy New Year!

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas. Not much is known about Bishop Nicholas of Myra, but there are plenty of legends associated with his memory.  One of the stories about Nicholas tells of how he blessed a family with three girls. Here is the tale as told from The Oxford Dictionary of Saints:

"One of the best known of the legendary narratives which demonstrate Nicholas’ love for God and for his neighbor is the story of his provision of dowries for three unmarried young women. The story is told that the father did not have money sufficient for their dowries, so on three successive nights Nicholas threw a bag of money through an open window, thus providing dowries for the man’s three daughters and probably saving them from lives of shame and prostitution."

In honor of St. Nicholas, I will be giving 50% of today's sales from The Ambrosium Shop to a wonderful organization.  The San Jai Network is helping to connect church ministries and christian organizations who are working with women and children in Thailand effected by trafficking and other forms of exploitation.

If you have been waiting to put your Christmas order in, or if you've just remembered some folks you still need to find special gifts for, won't you consider purchasing something from The Ambrosium today? You'll not only be helping a small business, but also a grassroots ministry doing good work amongst those very much in need.

If you'd like to find out more about St. Nicholas, or are looking for resources to help your family learn about the real St. Nicholas, The St. Nicholas Center is a wonderful place to start.  Here is a wonderful book reproduced online at the St. Nicholas Center for Kids: The Life of St. Nicholas by Verena Smith, Illustrated by Emily Probst.  The site has many other books, poems, activities and games. You will also find prayers, recipes, hymns, art, and information about St. Nicholas celebrations around the world.

I hope you enjoy your own special St. Nicholas day!

 These vintage images are available as cards in the shop!

Vintage Wedding Inspired Thank You Cards!

Yesterday I finished working on some new thank you cards for the shop. I was thinking of a particular friend's wedding and wanted to use something that might go with her aesthetic and colors. I just love old paper, especially post cards with markings. And anything with type or calligraphy on it makes my heart sing. The red printed accents of birds, bows, hearts, and flowers come from victorian illustrations. I think they are just perfectly sweet, but not too sugary to make them sentimental. I'm super happy with how they turned out. I can't wait to have them listed in the shop.

These day I'm not able to spend much time at all in my studio. Staying home with Blythe, my little girl, has meant having to find new ways to be creative. To that end I've been slowly teaching myself photoshop.  It's been a great way to keep my brain occupied in the middle of doing the mundane tasks like laundry and changing diapers. Making cards, like these, is becoming a new artistic outlet for the times in between studio visits. Simple tasks to keep me sane. It's almost as good as actually touching the paper and smelling the glue. Almost.

I stumbled upon a treasure trove of vintage Christmas ephemera yesterday and it got me all inspired for Christmas cards. I can't wait to play around with all the fun old things I found. It does feel a bit strange to be making Christmas items in August. Perhaps I'll play some Christmas music just to get in the mood. It's a bit hard to feel very Christmasy, though, when it's 90 degrees outside. Hurry up cool weather! I'd like to wear a scarf again and not melt into a puddle of sweaty mush.