E-20 Guest Jan Shade Beach
===
[00:00:00]
Welcome friends to another episode of BDI Create [00:01:00] Today. Today we have a special treat. I'm bringing in one of my very good artist friends who is a professional licensed artist. She is one of the most creative people that I have bumped into in my life. So I am so excited about bringing Jan Shay Beach and introducing you and her creativity to each other.
Jan, welcome to BDI Create today. I am so glad you're here . Take a moment and tell everyone who you are and what you do and where we are talking to you right now today.
Okay, I am Jan Shade Beach. I live in Harvest, Alabama, which is just a few miles outside Huntsville, Alabama.
North central Alabama. We're about a hundred miles from Nashville. So that kind of tells you where we are. I have been licensing my artwork since 1994. So I'm quite the antique in this industry. I've been doing it for a long [00:02:00] time. I've figured out how to make a career out of this and I've loved every minute of it.
There's a lot of fun, young artists I meet and it's fun seeing them get started and asking questions and stuff, and I'm always happy to. answer any questions I might be able to.
One of the things I want everyone to hear from what Jan has already said is that she's been a licensed artist for decades.
I always like to point out to listeners that really, you It doesn't matter the age you are in. It matters the mind that you are in. So if you're someone that's interested in doing art licensing, you can start that at any age. There is no prerequisite about aging for doing something in art.
One of the things I have found interesting about Jan and that we have a lot in common in is that learning has always been a very big part of how. Jan does her work. Jan, tell us a [00:03:00] little bit about, what has been an important part of your learning and how have you incorporated that into not only what you do professionally, but what you do to keep your creativity at a point that it seems like it's staying bubbled up?
Well, two things. Keeping up with technology. When I first was starting out and had to learn Photoshop, I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm never going to learn this. How is this going to happen? Cause that when I first started, believe it or not, I was painting things one by one , if I had to do a cookie tin, I had to paint the lid, paint the sides, I was doing that for multiples and then I was like, Oh, there's gotta be a better way.
So I, Sent my husband to learn Photoshop because he was very tech savvy and because I still had young kids. So I stayed home and sent him to Tampa to take a class and he came home and taught me what he learned. And it was just like a drinking out of a fire [00:04:00] hydrant, but, you just dive in and start doing it.
And the more I tried, the more creative I got, and I couldn't believe what it could do for me. And then it just was like, oh my gosh, now I've got wings. I can come up with all kinds of ideas and incorporate that with Photoshop. So learning Photoshop was a huge eye opener, but that was, a long time ago.
So I still use that in my art all the time. And then most recently Procreate, I added that to, thanks to Beth, I added that to my things to learn, and that was under pressure, and the other thing I do is I love adventure, so I'm always outside doing things, I like to hike, I like to skydive, hang glide all these different things, and I'm a photographer as well, so I take my camera everywhere, and you would just be surprised at the inspiration you get from being outdoors and things that I've taken photos of have ended [00:05:00] up in my artwork, for sure.
I use things for reference and then sometimes I actually use the photos. So it's never ending. Everywhere I go, there's inspiration and I'm always tapping into it. It could just be walking around in a store and I see something and I'm like, And I think, oh, wow, that's a new icon
I went hiking with llamas recently when the llama thing came out, we're like, why would somebody want a llama in their house?
I mean, why would that be a new icon? Always keep your eyes open to new trends, new colors new technology. It's never ending.
Yeah, learning is something that isn't just for kids. When you get older, I think it's almost more important because it's easy to forget that you should learn and then you turn into the person with your hands on your hips going, that's the way we've always done it.
And it You don't want to be that person. You want to be the person that [00:06:00] says, Oh, is there a new way to do that? Let me take a look and see how I might want to incorporate that into what I'm doing. What does that look like? Learning is, something that not only needs to be done when we're young, but even more.
So now a couple of weeks ago, we talked about learning, then unlearning so that you can learn again.
Right. Right. Okay. What's fun is when I can teach my kids something. Now, my son is a true rocket scientist, but when I can teach him something, I just feel like I have really done something, they're dropped photos before they did. I thought that was really cool. So that's my goal, just to keep a step ahead of my kids every now and then on certain things.
Oh, that's so fun. So let's now talking about the learning ideas let's talk a little bit about just inspiration for creativity. Anyone that has a creative passion is always looking for ways to keep that fired up and make sure that, you can [00:07:00] stay inspired with whatever it is you're doing.
tell us a little bit about what you do to stay inspired and and keep ideas flowing into the work that you need to produce.
Usually. I look at everything. I'll flip through magazines. I'll walk through stores. I'll go outside, like I said, sometimes I'll see a new color trend that will spark an idea for a group of something, I do a lot of Christmas, and I've been doing Christmas since 1994.
How many different ways can you do a snowman or a reindeer or Santa? I bet every year you have to come up with a new twist on how to do it. Sometimes I do realistic, sometimes I do whimsical, sometimes I do real graphic. And I think that's another thing that has kept me current because I'm a bit of a chameleon where maybe back in the day, it was [00:08:00] a good thing to be recognized by your style, which is still a, can be a good thing for sure, but I found for myself.
Being able to do different styles and use my photography sometimes and do graphic, do whimsical, do realistic, do some watercolor, I painted acrylic, and then all the things I do on Photoshop not one style works for every company out there. So the fact that I have all these different styles gives me more opportunities with several different companies, because some Don't like to print watercolor because it's too light on their products.
They want something a little bolder that's where acrylic or photography comes in you just have to figure out what works for you and the people you're working with I think that's been able to help my longevity is that I have a lot of different tricks You know keeping balls juggled for different things and [00:09:00] constantly learning new things learning procreate Came about because I was approached to do a children's book and they wanted it to look a certain way.
They wanted it very simple and they wanted it in watercolor. And I, it was going to be 32 pages and I thought, okay, I would love to do that. But the thought of me painting 32 paintings without making a mistake, I was thinking how many am I really going to be doing? I need 32 good ones. So how many would that really take me?
So I saw Beth's class on how to learn procreate. Cause I know procreate had a lot of watercolor brushes where you could do it. You make a mistake, click of a button, you can change it. And I thought, okay, that's what I need to do. I couldn't even start on the book until I took her eight week class. It took me two months to learn procreate.
And then I jumped in and started working on the book. And sometimes you're just, Pushed into learning the technology, but I [00:10:00] welcomed it because I knew it would really help once I got past the book, I could use it on multiple projects. Going forward,
yes, and Jan is one of my favorites procreate stories because she not only took the course and learned procreate from the course, but the book was finished and there it is.
If you're watching this on YouTube, you're able to see the actual book and it is beautiful. Every. single drawing in this book is done in Procreate and Jan was a brand new Procreate user. So I just think this is an amazing example about what you can do straight out of the gate when you learn Procreate.
And Jan was it this book that you put into the competition,
Yes, it won third place in its category in a book fest competition, so that was exciting. My publisher entered it and we won third place, I was real happy about that. And [00:11:00] because I did this book, it led to another book that I also did in Toad Create, this whole Christmas book.
It was a Twelve Days of Christmas, of Southern Christmas. And This whole book was created on Procreate as well.
Yes. Oh, the drawings, the illustrations that she's done in this book, I've seen it.
They're just beautiful. So Jan, we will have to make sure that we have a link to where people could go to find your books.
So if they're interested, they can get them purchased. I'm pretty sure you have that information that you can share.
Now, so let's back up because the story behind how you got This job for the book illustration is also a great story.
Talk to me about that whole story and how that happened.
Okay. I was doing the licensing show in New York City, the SIRTEC show that used to exist up there every spring, and I was walking down one street and I saw this little tree, about this big around, [00:12:00] and it had a sweater on it. That was it. I had my camera with me. I took a picture of it and I just thought, okay, out in the middle of this busy street, there was this little tree on the sidewalk that had this really bright, colorful sweater on it.
I just kept thinking of that little tree. Like why was that done? Who did it? Why? And, but it would just made you smile as you walked by it. So anyway, I went onto the show, came home from the show and I still had that photo of that little tree. That sparked an idea. I found out later that's called yarn bombing.
And if you Google yarn bombing, you will see the elaborate things that people do with that. We have a large yard. We have four acres. And in our front yard, we have 84 trees. And the reason I know that is because we have yarn bombed these trees every Christmas since I saw that little tree. We have a high roof line and we put Christmas lights up and, we get them up and then [00:13:00] half of them wouldn't work and everything like that, so we decided to forget Christmas lights.
We're going to do yarn bombs in our yard and put all these colorful things on the trees. That made the neighbors curious of what we were doing, but it has turned into a community thing. People will call me and ask, when are you putting the trees up? They usually go up right after Thanksgiving.
And people bring their kids to take pictures by the trees and all kinds of things, but how it affected my work is I ended up doing, I don't know if you can see this on my iPad. I did a whole group of yarn bomb. Oh my gosh. Those are amazing characters. And these ended up being gift bags, Christmas gift bags and boxes and things like that.
And I ended up having a gift company, turn it into all kinds of ornaments and. trees, little trees for decor. And for everyone who's listening to this and you're like, well, what [00:14:00] is she showing us? They were illustrations she's done of like little sweaters on trees and sweaters on deer and sweaters on snowmen.
Beautiful. And this is a, as you can see, I changed the total color scheme for this ended up being a whole line of fabric for Henry Glass fabrics, one of my licensees. And turned into a whole line of quilt fabric. So I got a lot of mileage, starting with that one little tree I saw in New York City, turned into multiple different products for different companies that I work with.
It just piqued my interest and I just ran with it. So there's a couple things in here. I just want to unpack real quick. One is that Jan wasn't looking for inspiration. She was just walking down the street in New York and saw something and went, huh.
She collected not only the thought but the photo and then secondly, here's the glory of Licensing is that [00:15:00] you can do a few illustrations that end up going on So many different kinds of products.
You mentioned gift bags you mentioned fabric what ornaments and You stockings, tree skirts rugs. So many things, right? A lot of different things. A while back, I can't think of them all, but I got a lot of mileage out of it. And and I, we still do it every year. This past year, a lot of my friends, we had a tree decorating party and a lot of my friends came over and they all adopted a tree.
So they put their own spin on their yarn bomb tree that they adopted in the yard. And. Like I said, we have 84 trees to do in the front. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So Jan, if you have a picture of your yarn bombed trees that you can share with me, I will make sure that gets up on the YouTube version.
So everyone can, everyone just go to YouTube. If I will have a link to it in the show notes, so you can [00:16:00] go and see the pictures that Jan has to share for the yarn bomb. And you'll also be able to watch this video and see that illustrations that she showed us on her iPad and things that she's holding up as well.
Worth listening and then watching again to see all the goodness.
Just the smallest thing can trigger so many results. That is one of the things that I think is important with creativity because During our day, we can go into this autopilot zone and we hardly remember driving to the store or unpacking the dishwasher or walking our dog.
If we always take the same route, we can just do things without thinking. And we probably Walk by many gorgeous ideas because we're, we don't have our artist eyes on. That's a good reason to just perk up and look around and think, if you see something that you really love, take a picture of it so that you can keep thinking [00:17:00] about it and it can grow into a yarn bomb.
Because companies, not one company I worked with. I'd even heard of yarn bombing. So they certainly weren't looking for yarn bomb artwork to create in their products. But when I did it, they just thought it was the coolest thing ever. And it was colorful and new. That's another key thing. I've been doing this a long time.
It's hard to come up with new things for Christmas and a new twist on things. And so they welcomed it. Oh yeah, because it was new and yet not so out there that it was risky. Right. And they were able to look at it and go, oh. That's a touchdown. We're going to make great moves with this. It's gonna be great.
Learning and seeing things like that are, those are pieces of gold. So let's talk a little bit now about while you're collecting those ideas, right? I know something that you've told me about was take a little bit of a [00:18:00] risk. And while the yarn bombs at that, you, there was a little bit of risk involved there, especially with 84 trees wrapping them with yarn, of course.
That is a lot. But with your creativity, I know that is something that you do. You've already mentioned you do a little skydiving, there is risk there. So how do you incorporate ? What have I got to lose? Let's try a little risk. How do you incorporate that into how you.
Cultivate your creativity and how then you pull that into the work that you're going to submit to companies.
Okay. Well, I guess another example of something I've done not too long ago is I heard about a program at Yellowstone National Park called the Helping Hands Program. And I signed up for a five week term to work out there in the park mid September middle of October one year, and it was [00:19:00] the experience of a lifetime being a photographer.
You can imagine being in the park for five weeks. I got to see every corner of that park over and over. I got to meet people from all over the world, people that were visiting the park, people I worked with. Usually college students work at the park during the summer, but when then they have to go back to school in August and September, that's when they need people like myself with a flexible schedule or retired people.
They come in and work the park until closing in November. And so most of the people that were there working were my age and from all over the country and all different occupations. I only had to work four hours a day for five days.
So 20 hours in a week's time, I would work from eight to noon and then I'd have the rest of the day to myself. And then two days I had completely off, so I could go down to the Tetons, I could go to [00:20:00] Cody, we drove all over the place. But one guy came there just to fly fish. And I said, Oh, I've never done that before.
He goes, well, I bet extra waiters you want to learn. And so I learned how to fly fish with a guy from Chicago. And when we got out there, he said, people travel. From all over the world to get to do what you're doing right now. And they gives you goosebumps. You think you're right. The people I met when I was working, they were from every country in the world.
So I took that opportunity. People are like, you're going to do what for five weeks? What are you going to be doing? I don't know. I didn't know until I got there what I was going to be doing. And they give you a dorm room and they're like, well, what are the conditions going to be like?
I don't know, but I'm willing. It's five weeks. I'm willing to try to do it. And what I get in return was so much more than anything I had to give. But that resulted in another, all the photos and [00:21:00] everything I took out there resulted in another line of fabric of all the photos I did of all the animals, I took hundreds and hundreds of photos.
I don't know if you can see all these that have turned into a line of fabric. Again, another reason to come watch the YouTube video because you can see all of the work that Jan did. It's, that's amazing, Jan. And then for paper product designs, I did have a whole other group of products for them. And I've got some samples of those here, they have their mugs and all different things.
These are some of the bear mugs and stuff that I did for them. I have a whole line of mugs and all kinds of products for them. I even did some Long boxes of matches, all kinds of crazy things, and napkins and lunch items, all kinds of things. Oh, and let me show you, here's another. I made a pair of shoes.
Oh my [00:22:00] gosh, we all want your shoes. Oh my goodness, those are amazing. They're made out of my Yellowstone fabric that I made for Henry Glass, and then I took a class on how to make a pair of tennis shoes. And so that's always learning. it was fun. I mean, how many people can say they made their tennis shoes?
So very few. Yeah. keep your options open. Don't be afraid to try something new. I can't even think of an instance where it didn't turn out well that I took a risk and thought, well, I wish I wouldn't have done that. It's always better than I even imagined it could be, the Yellowstone thing, I would do that again in a heartbeat at other parks,
So now I'd like to do other parks if possible. And I don't know, it was just a fun experience. Experience of a lifetime. That's all I can say. Well, a couple of things again, from what you've just said, you not only took the risk, which was to go not knowing, where you were going to be [00:23:00] staying or who you'd be meeting or what you were going to be doing is completely unknown.
And the second thing was. My husband was going to go at first, but then his work, he couldn't go. And I said, I still want to do it. Thank you. We'll go for it. Oh, most of my friends said, Oh, well, if I don't have a friend to go with me or my husband, I wouldn't do it. But you know, I was just set dead on going.
Right. And so the other thing that really is important is. that you took advantage of what you saw and what you experienced and you remembered to record what you did and what you saw and you collected.
I have a creative process that, and one of the, one of the four processes is called realize. And that is when you are looking And collecting ideas so that when it's time to do the work, you've got what you need to do to develop the [00:24:00] product. So if you would have gone out there for five weeks and like, Oh, gee I should have taken more pictures.
I mean, how many times do we say that? I should have taken more pictures, but I didn't. You remember to get your camera out and snap, snap, snap. You're taking the pictures. You also took enough pictures that you were able to do that amazing wildlife collection that then went out to a bunch of your licensees and they were probably like, Ooh, jam.
What else do you have? right. I mean, it's CNS. They licensed it. Who else? I had somebody else. Oh counter art. A lot of, I got a lot of mileage out of that and all my fabric lines I've used for that. So I had that in mind when I went out there, I didn't know what I was going to see, but I took my camera and thought I'm going to have every day for five weeks to go out and capture.
The beauty of this park and it was just [00:25:00] phenomenal. I just don't be afraid to take chances. Don't be afraid to don't be afraid of failure, even if it wouldn't have worked out and I wouldn't have gotten any artwork out of it, I still had an unbelievable experience nonetheless.
And I mean, if you're talking business, It was also a business write off. Yeah. Because I created art when I was out there. That whole trip And it ended up being a business write off. So when you, sometimes you think of the, you have to think of the business end of things as well as the creative end of things.
If you're sitting listening to this or watching this on YouTube and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, I wouldn't be brave enough to go anywhere for five weeks. Well, don't do something for five weeks. Do it for a weekend or do it for an afternoon. Start small, but get out there and look for something that you think, that would be a little edgy for me to do well, what might that be?
And then challenge [00:26:00] yourself to go out there and give it a try. And then when you're out, remember to absorb what you're doing, and then collect those ideas through your camera. I think one of the great things about life today is that our camera is our phone, and we have it with us all the time.
Back in the day, So many times you'd be somewhere and you're like, dang it, I wish I had my camera, right? How many times did we say that? Because you didn't have your camera with you 24 7. But we do now. There's just really no excuse for not taking a photo when you see something that you think, ah, inspiration is now happening to me.
Take that photo. So many people that, that paint flowers or birds or things like that. I mean, just keep your camera going. Yeah. Butterflies. I mean, look at how much artwork every year, sunflowers, a company like Cracker Barrel that I've done work for in the past, every year they do apples, [00:27:00] every year they do sunflowers, every year do they do coastal.
So if you know that you go to Hobby Lobby and look at the categories they have in on their tables and in their aisles, they usually do bees and you can keep up with it. all the different trends that some of these stores carry every season. And so you can get an idea of. I've never done a bee line.
I'd like to try what twist can I put on doing bees or llamas or whatever it might be when owls were in for several years, back now, mushrooms are in, mushrooms on everything now. at the gift mart and so
I mean, there's always something that I can find that fits my personality or my interest and you just, discard the others. But there is so much out there. If you just look, people stare at a blank page and think, [00:28:00] Oh, what do I paint? What do I do? Well, the stores are telling you what they're looking for.
Go out there and see what they're carrying and look through magazines, update, current magazines will give you ideas. Fashion will give you the latest color trends, because sometimes a lot of those color trends start with fabric and fashion in Europe, and then it makes a wave throughout the world, really, it comes through here and some of those color combinations will give you an idea for a whole new, Product line.
So just keep your eyes open of what's going on around you and you'd be surprised what you come up with. Yep. It's really true. And there's a lot of artists think, Oh, I don't think I could sell anything. There's so many artists selling things, but every artist has a different twist, a different thumbprint, artistic thumbprint.
So yeah, these have been done and done, but. [00:29:00] Bees haven't been done by you yet. Flowers haven't been done by you yet. A lot of people have done sunflowers, but they're always looking for that next sunflower, that next snowman, that next Santa Claus.
So creativity has everyone, everyone is completely different. So you never want to copy anybody, but you want to be inspired by everything. Right. A couple of things I want to touch on too is, I know that a lot of the folks that are listening to the podcast are, a lot of them are creatives and they're working on their hobbies, et cetera.
But there are some people out there who would like to see could my creative passion become a side hustle? Could I become a professional artist or someone who is really trying to break into it or has a small business already? Tell us some advice that you would give a new artist or even an artist that's been around a while.
What's some advice you would give them about [00:30:00] getting their foot in that creative door and getting some traction?
I guess the first thing, believe in your, in yourself. I've always had a lot of confidence and not so much that because I thought I was a great artist. There's a lot of artists way better than I am, but I always had the confidence of my work ethic and my willing to learn new things and to give it my all.
tell me what you need and I will try my hardest to get with what you're wanting. Meet deadlines, do what they ask. There's a they know what they need and when they need it. Those deadlines mean something. So meet the deadlines. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. If you're confused about, if you don't understand what they're asking you, ask if you can have a phone call and go over it again, just so you're clear on what your task [00:31:00] is.
they're working with you because they don't have the creative skills. You've got that. They've got the business in. So you, they're coming to you for your help. You're valuable to them. So you need to value yourself and your creativity. Don't be afraid to fail.
I mean, or don't be afraid to be told no. That happens a lot. I've been told no lots of times, but I've been told yes, even more times. I've been told yes. So that just comes with it. You just have to have the thick skin and say, okay, well, it doesn't work for that company, but that doesn't mean it's not going to work for the second, third and fourth company that I submitted to.
I guess just be professional is the main thing. Be serious about it. this is their business and they're asking you to do business with them. So you can't treat it as like, well, I just don't feel like doing that today. I'm not gonna, I'll be a couple of days late on the deadline.
That doesn't work. So be [00:32:00] professional and meet those deadlines and do as close to what they ask as you can.
So tell us the story of your first job. I know you've got an interesting story about how you got started in licensing.
Could you share that with us?
Well, I had worked with two friends and I had started doing the national painting shows around the country, but like four shows a year. And I designed things. One of the girls painted the samples and one cut out the samples it was a decorative furniture and painting show.
Anyway, I had designed some shelving and we had a lot of samples of that. And I, so we ended up working with this one company and had a deal with them. And that's it. A small licensing deal. Well then fast forward like a year later, I was going through a divorce. And I called that company since that was the only one that we had actually ever had to deal with.
I called them myself and said, told them the situation [00:33:00] and asked them if they needed any work. I said, I need to work and I need, projects. So they invited me up to Memphis. They had me meet everybody that needed artwork. Went out to lunch with one guy and he told me, what he needed. And that resulted in a 2 million deal with Walmart.
And I had eight days to do it. I went home, I had eight days to draw up and paint these items and lo and behold they bought them. And because of that, then that company gave me more projects because they thought, Oh, if Walmart bought it, then. We need to keep her on and give her other projects. So then I kept getting more projects.
So that was my first, it was very lucky, but I tell everybody. I made that phone call. I asked for the work because I needed the work. And [00:34:00] so you can't be afraid. I mean, they could have easily told me no, or we don't have anything. And then, but I wouldn't have stopped there. I would have called other people.
I would have done something that's just my nature, but don't be afraid to put yourself out there. I had nothing to lose at that point. I had only things to gain and I was determined to figure it out. So that's my, crazy story. And the best thing about that story is it was a guardian angel thing.
And I, that came along when I needed the most, and so somebody took care of me, that guardian angel.
I'm not a I'm a believer in hard work and I'm also a believer in having faith and that faith. quite often has to really be part of what you have in yourself. And in order for good things to happen, you have to be there to make them happen.
You have to get out and be brave [00:35:00] about getting your name out there. Yeah. I mean, Sometimes you can have disappointment.
Oh yeah. But I just think, okay, for example, one year I was, I thought the world needed some Christmas sheep and I designed a whole line of Christmas sheep doing all different things. and they all had a play on words, like, the fleece Navidad, or sleep in heavenly fleece, or I've got one here.
Oh my gosh. I'll put it somewhere. I'll find it in a second. Anyway, it was one of my favorite ones. It was called YouTube, and it was a sheep coming down a hill on a sled, and I just thought these were the greatest things ever. And I submitted them to everybody and the world just wasn't ready for Christmas sheep.
So I had all this art and no, I had a few things come [00:36:00] of it but not what I was thinking that this was just going to be the greatest thing. You throw it out. Sometimes you just do things for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned. That's a great story.
Jan, tell us what has been your favorite experience because you were creative?
What is a story that you could share?
Well, one time I was working with Yankee Candle Company and they wanted, again, since I do so many Christmas things, they wanted a reindeer group. I started out sketching them some traditional reindeer in some trees. And they're like, nah, I can get those 20 different places.
And they said, we need something more hip or something. And so I did a line of. dancing reindeer. That's probably been my best selling line ever, because when those came out, they were on everything. I [00:37:00] mean, I had pajamas, and party wear, and gift wear, and Yankee, it was a huge thing in the Yankee candle window of all their stores, all the candle accessories.
But it was a set of eight dancing reindeer doing really hip moves, and That was probably one of the most fun things I've ever worked on because how well received it was,
all she had to tell me is she didn't want the traditional, she wanted something a little more edgy. And it just I just flipped the switch and thought, okay, well I'll give you something edgy.
And I gave those to her and loved them. And with some brighter colors, more of a lime green and red versus the traditional Christmas, green and stuff like that. And. Just that little bit, that buyer knew what she wanted. She didn't know what she wanted, but she knew what she didn't want. Yeah.
So that's all she had to tell me, is, everybody can, anybody can give me a traditional [00:38:00] reindeer. I need something different. And you do have a lot of characters that I like. So give me something edgy like that. And so that's how that came about. And that's probably been my best selling line ever because it was on everything.
Okay, these are, these were the set of reindeer. Those are amazing. So that just went on every kind of different handle accessory that they had.
But anyway, that's what that turned into, and it was on everything. And I also just came across the sheep. Oh my goodness, yes, we need to see the sheep.
Here's my YouTube guy that I just thought was hilarious. Sleep in heavenly sleep. Those are so sweet. I think you need to resubmit because those are awesome. Anyway, sheep thrills going down. Oh, joy to the world. [00:39:00] You'll see him again, I promise. Oh, yeah. They will be. We'll find out something to do with these things. Oh my gosh. Those are great. Those are great.
Well, Jan we could talk for a long time, tell everybody where they can find you. What are you doing right now that people need to know about? And also how can they find you?
I'm going to make sure that the information that Jana is going to share will be in the show notes. But just what are you working on right now and what can we look forward to? Right now I'm working on some, these laser cut. Cards that I'm creating. I've been doing this a whole series. These are every day that I did and now I'm creating a line of Christmas cards.
With the same flavored cup look to them. Those are so cute. So I'm working on that. I'm working on another fabric line. I'm working on gift bags and boxes for spring Christmas of 25.
Oh, and the thing that is near and dear to my [00:40:00] heart, I hope I can make this happen, is since I do love adventure, I love trying new things.
All kinds of things. And I know a lot of artists are, don't always like to get outside their comfort zone, but I would like, I'm working on creating an artist retreat that will combine art and adventure, and it's not going to be anything crazy, like jumping out of an airplane or anything like that, but it could, it'll be something fun and something that, isn't too crazy.
You would be surprised that the self confidence that it builds. when you accomplish something and after it's so exhilarating, after you
do it, you just think, gosh, I can't believe I just did that.
So it gives you, I don't know, the confidence to just try things and not be afraid and share it with your friends. And that's the fun part I think would be. Every retreat I've been to, we all just end up laughing half the night and having so much fun together. So it's like, why not introduce.[00:41:00]
all my friends to a little bit of adventure along with all the other art stuff that we always do. So that's good for that. Okay. That is really cool. And everyone, when Jan has information about when and how to register, I will follow up and make sure that everyone hears about that. Cause that will be.
Really awesome. So Jan, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy creative day to talk with us here on the BDI podcast. You are welcome. Thanks for having me. Yes, you're a creative treasure and everyone probably has something that you have made in their house and they don't even know it.
Yeah, I was at a baby shower last weekend. And a lady was there taking photographs and the host introduced me to this lady and It came about that I designed quilt fabric. She goes, I just made a quilt. [00:42:00] And I said, well, I designed for Henry Glass. Have you ever heard of them? And she said, yeah, I think the fabric I used was from Henry Glass.
And I said, and it was Christmas fabric. Long story. It was my fabric. And she gave me a picture of the finished quilt. It was like, what are the odds of that? You just never know. You never know.
Whatever your passion is. Just keep at it, have a little bit of confidence, pick up that phone, climb that rock, take pictures of those yarn bombs, whatever it is that you see that intrigues you. Get out there, push that envelope a little bit, be brave and confident with yourself and you never know where it's going to take you.
Everybody's passionate about different things. So whatever you're passionate about, let that come through in your art. I mean, because that will be the best art you make. Indeed. It's something that you're passionate about, so figure out what that is. It's very true. Well, Jan, thank you so much for taking time with us today.
This has been [00:43:00] so much fun for me. So everyone tune in again next week when we are going to have more information about creativity. Until then, stay creative, my friend.
