Branding and Recycled Shipping Boxes

Yesterday, I was making an attempt to pull off shipping and hazard labels off several recycled shipping boxes that I have received in the past from Amazon.  It was very tough going and the labels were winning.  This frustrations got me thinking last night about a solution and I thought I would share that with you.

First you might ask, "Why not just buy cardboard boxes for my Etsy business?"   I would agree with you if I were shipping out large quantities of boxes each week.  Most of my sales fit into one of the 3 sizes of rigid shipping envelopes and 2 sizes of 1st class mail envelopes.  In 2021, I made it a focus to up my branding efforts when I ship out art prints, cards stickers, recipe cards and other inventory that are rather flat.  Check out all my cute art on my ETSY SHOP - JULIE TOWNSEND STUDIO

* I hand write a small message on the outside of each envelope

* I print cute stickers to have on hand to decorate

* I stamp my own wrapping paper using rolls of painters paper that you can buy at the hardware store

* I cut tiny confetti pieces of my original artwork with my Cricut just to give that extra WOW factor

I have this part well covered and receive positive reviews that specifically mention these little efforts.  5 star ratings is what it is all about!

I just can't at this point buy boxes when they are arriving almost daily at my door.  I break down the smaller boxes or the ones I feel would fit my smaller canvases in and store them in my inventory room.  I even roll up all the brown packing paper and some of the bubble wrap to add to my shipping supplies.  Here I would like to say that I would use the word FRUGAL to describe myself but my kids would tell you that I was CHEAP,

SOLUTION:  I decided to design a full sheet sticker that actually looks like cardboard.  I don't want to wrap the whole box and the Post Office doesn't want you to use shipping paper anymore.  Besides, I have never been good at wrapping boxes!  I then added faint graphic images to make the stickers pretty.  I came up with 3.  The first design is using farm animals of course.  I have to go back and make sure but I think each of these farm animals came from a public domain site and are free to use and since I'm not selling these, I'm good to add them to my sticker.  2nd design was a pattern of flying bees that I downloaded off Pixabay.com and finally, the 3rd design is actually my little bees and doodlebird drawings.  They are all so cute and now I have chooses when covering up nasty shipping labels.

STUDIO PRINTERS - I might make a mention about printer ink here and I get asked often about my printers.   I have 3 printers in my studio - 1.  Canon Pixma Pro 100 (I use this for all my art prints and is expensive to use)  2.  HP 8035 (This one prints cards, stickers and other small items.  Quality is okay and I have it set up on the HPInstaink program for 500 copies a month $18.99)  The ink cartridges are sent to me automatically and are included in the monthly fee.  For a business I think this is a good choice.  My last printer 3. Epson ET 2650 is an Ecotank printer that I purchased probably 5 years ago from Sam's Club.  It came with bottles of ink at that time and I purchased an extra set of ink refills and if you can believe it,  I STILL HAVE INK.  I'm getting ready to pour the last of each bottle into my printer soon.  The print quality is not art level by any means but for all the household printing, packing slips, shipping labels and now these shipping stickers, it's as if I'm printing free. It's the perfect printer for just this type of label printing. I do have to run the print head cleaning utility pretty often but it has been a good investment.

I promise this is the last thing I'm going to mention today about my CHEAP branding efforts.  I just ordered some rolls of brown packing tape that will fit on my tape roller so that I can even cover up the Amazon logo tape and more tape never is a bad thing when it comes to shipping.  I'll let you know how that works.

Cute custom wrapping paper on a budget

 I have started watching a number of artist/Etsy sellers that have regular studio vlogs on YouTube.  They seem of have several characteristics in common- They are all from the UK and they LOVE PINK!  This is just an observation and I'm not saying that you have to paint your creative space pink but I do notice that they are very dedicated to making this part of their branding.  That branding is obvious even down to the packaging of their orders.  Cute PINK stickers and wrapping paper are a must.

I did check into the whole custom wrapping paper option and found that it is rather of an investment.  I mean to get 250 sheets of wrapping paper printed you are talking hundreds of dollars.  I decided for myself this was going to have to be put on the backburner, as I don't feel that my shop is at that level yet in consistent sales.

Does that mean that I'm stuck using dollar store tissue paper on my orders.  NO- I came up with my own branding solution and I'm having a blast with it.  The beauty of having a farmhouse/country niche is that I can easily use ordinary supplies and give them a farm look.  I have a whole box of huge sheets of white packing paper that were given to me several years ago and rolls of brown Kraft shipping paper in the studio and so I decided I was just going to invest in a few rubber stamps.  Down the road I plan on designing my stamps but in the mean time these are working beautifully.  I ordered some on Etsy (I love supporting my fellow creators if I can) and then a few other's I purchased on Amazon or at my local Hobby Lobby store.  

I have to admit that I've kind of gone a bit overboard on the rubber stamps at this point but they were all so cute and now I have plenty of options.  If the order is primarily goat, then I can pick from several of my goat stamps to create the perfect wrapping paper.  The same goes for cows, sheep, horses and chickens.  Yeah, I have the whole barnyard of rubber stamps now.  It's sort of therapy for me to just stamp up the pages, dreaming of my future art sales.  I can even enlist the help of my grandchildren.  (Got to train them now to be my studio assistance for the future)

My final touch before I seal up the envelope is a sprinkle of pig and cow confetti that I punch out of paper using paper punches.  I've not been able to locate a goat paper punch so if you have one lying around that you never use, let me know.  By the way, my grandchildren also LOVE to use paper punches.  It keeps them well entertained.

Coffee with Julie- 1-4-21

2021 arrived and passed and today we are all resuming our daily lives after the holidays. My shop sales came to a screeching halt on December 9th it seems and since this is my first real year of sustained growth and revenue from my online sales I don't have previous history to judge if that is normal.  I think it makes sense that all the online Christmas season shipping had been done and so I took the time to begin working on my new designs for the upcoming year.  

I received my new iPad Pro 12.9" and my first ever Apple Pencil around that same time as my sales slowed down so I stayed very busy learning how to use this amazing new tool.  I downloaded the app Procreate (seems anyone serious about drawing digitally on the iPad chooses that drawing app) and I have been having a blast ever since.  

I'm currently working on my second "Farmhouse Whimsy Coloring Book" and hope to have it published and available on Amazon by the end of the month.  I'm subtitling this one "All Critters Big and Small" so I can include my mice, bunnies and bees in the book too.  This project has me super excited because I LOVE the passive income that I think self publishing on KDP (Amazon) will eventually bring. 

My first book wasn't published until November 1, 2020 and so for those 2 months of 2020 my sales break down as follows:

Farmhouse Whimsy Coloring Book- A Coloring Book to Make You Smile - 62 copies  COLORING BOOK ON AMAZON

2021 Farmhouse Weekly/Monthly Planner- 21 copies  2021 PLANNER ON AMAZON

Little Farmers on the Go- A Traveling Game Book- 13 copies TRAVEL GAME BOOK ON AMAZON

Branding your business is so important and something that I really want to do this year is wrap most of my orders in cute wrapping paper.  Eventually, I will design my own and have that printed for me but in the mean time, I decided that I would use rubber stamps and both brown (the rolls that painters use to tape off windows) and a whole case of white packaging newsprint paper that someone gave me.  The beauty of having all your designs in a farmhouse/country theme is that you can easily upcycle items around your house and it adds to the homemade primitive charm of the farmhouse motif.  

I ordered this "Tim Holtz Collection- Funny Farm" cling stamps and a few colors of ink pads to get started.  We found some wood to glue the stamps too and Wallaaaah! I have cute farm themed wrapping paper with minimal investment.  I can't wait to start wrapping all my 2021 sales with them.

I will be sharing more about this in detail on my next VLOG- YOU HEARD ME CORRECTLY!  I have started my own YouTube Channel where I show off my new artwork or studio tips.  This will be expanding in 2021 and I'm super excited about growing this new social media connection.  Here is the link to my channel so please consider subscribing!  Julie Townsend Studio - YOUTUBE

Thanks a HOLE PUNCH

I have shared before that one of the little "BRANDING" touches that I use when packaging up my art sales is what I call my "FARM CONFETTI".  I have invested in a couple of paper punches and my favorites are of a cow, a pig and a small heart.  Farm animal paper punches are hard to find and I would LOVE to add a Goat and a Chicken paper punches to my little collection.  You would think these companies would realize how popular farm animals are and get on the "HAY WAGON" and make more designs.

The pig punch is my favorite but, while the PUNCH BUNCH paper punch plunks out pink pigs proficiently (I dare you to say that fast 10 times) it is rather stiff and puts a real strain on the old carpal tunnel.   

On the Punch Bunch website,  they actually sell a lever device that they call their POWER PUNCH for a whopping $60 bucks.  I love my pink pig paper confetti but not that much!

After showing my husband the picture of the "Power Punch", he decides that the thing for him to do is to make me one from all his scrapes of things he has lying around in his garage.  So while it might not be as "PRETTY" as the one selling on the Punch Bunch website, this device works just as well.  

I can now PUNCH PINK PIGS to my hearts content.  I just have to say that my husband is so supportive of my artwork that I just had to do some BRAD BRAGGING today.  THANKS A HOLE PUNCH HONEY!

Website Building for Dummies

I have for sometime used Weebly as my preferred website platform.  Generally, I am pleased with the overall look and functionality of my website and I stay diligent on keeping it updated.  I am always thinking of ways to improve it.  My website has undergone many major changes at different times and I'm sure it will be getting overhauled again in the future.  You learn as you go and I'm committed to being a lifetime learner.

One thing I did in the past year was start researching the website of other artists.  You know those successful artists that actually make a living selling their work.  I figured these folks had money to invest in having a professional design their sites and I could learn a lot just by trying to copy their look and incorporating it into mine.  Believe me I see plenty of artist at my level that either have no online presence or it is so poorly done that I feel sorry for them. I may not have the art sales I dream of but it's not because for a lack of effort.  I believe that if you BUILD IT THEY WILL COME!

Template- Weebly has a great many website templates to choose from.  Using a template already designed doesn't mean your website is going to look generic or cheap.  There are plenty of ways to customize the overall look and feeling of your website with custom banners, unique colors and market specific apps.

Since my main focus in my artwork has a strong country and western flavor, I loved that Weebly finally has a old wooden fence background template to choose from.  It is perfect and I LOVE it for my website.  I'm glad they have added a ton of fresh graphics that weren't available when I first started my website.  I also picked a simple white to surround my artwork.  My work is colorful enough and since I love to frame my artwork with a thick black border I think it gives a nice clean look that doesn't compete with the main thing I want you to notice-MY ARTWORK!

Home Page-  You have maybe 2-3 seconds to capture your audience and that is why your home page is SO very important.  I noticed that many artist websites that I looked at had just a few works displayed or perhaps a fast moving gallery that showcased their best pieces.  Usually their name and contact information might also be reflected on their home page.  That was pretty much it. So armed with that I made some major changes.  The bio and artist statement has no place on the home page.  Just beautiful and colorful artwork to entice the viewer to take a closer look.  (Sorry for the blurry iPad screen shot photos(

This is my Home Page of my website at JulieTownsendStudio.com

           My Home Page

ABOUT JULIE- My second tab is called "About Julie".  This is important for any potential customer to be able to learn more about you in depth.  Upon hitting that tab my artist bio and statement will appear.  A side note about this bio- It is important to get a good photo of yourself.  No matter how you feel about it, you are the product and people want to know you personally as the artist.  I had taken a webinar by successful artist, Lori McNee and one of the biggest takeaways that I learned was the importance of using the same well-done profile picture on every social platform.  This profile picture was taken by a fellow photographer artist, Marie Davis.  Several months ago she offered to take free head shots for any gallery artists to use on the gallery website.  This picture turned out well enough that I decided to use it on everything.  This is called branding yourself and I can't overstate the importance of this. Facebook, Blogger, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, Etsy and this website all have the same profile picture.  I even find it very important to have this picture hanging on my gallery wall.  Facial recognition is key and I think I'm the only artist at City of the World that has a picture of myself hanging on the wall.  Sad because I think this is extremely important.

VERY IMPORTANT- GET A GOOD PROFILE PICTURE TAKEN!

I use the same profile picture across all social media platforms

On this page I have it separated into my Bio and my Artist Statement.  Both are very important in understanding who I am as an artist.  If you don't have these written down somewhere I want to urge you today to get working on them.  There are plenty of examples and templates online to assist you and you can always edit make changes as you get more experience.  

My Bio and Artist Statement

Under this tab I have 3 tabs to choose from.

Three Tabs Under the "About Julie"

RESUME- This is a listing of awards and important recognition that I have received since being an artist.  Now most of them are pretty lame compared to many successful artist that have been on their journey longer than I have but you need to keep track and now matter how small add it to your resume list.  It is a great visual of your journey and will help you see your progress as an artist.

CURRENT GALLERY REPRESENTATION- It is important to give your website visitors the ability to visit your work in person at all the galleries that you have your work hanging in.  I've included their address, phone number, contact person and their website.  They market you and it is important that you in turn market them.  It is a two way street and you should at every chance give shout outs and tags to these establishments that let you hang your artwork on their walls.

BRAGS AND NEWS- This is the area I have designated to list quotes and comments from previous collectors or art admirers as they have talked about my art or about me as an artist.  If someone is attracted to your artwork it is important that they know they are not alone and that there are many that feel strongly about what you are doing. I also list awards, past and upcoming events that I am participating in.  Some of the information listed is repeated in my resume but this is in a more informal with colorful pictures and larger font.

GALLERY- Probably the most important tab next to Contact Info-  All your artwork showcased online in one area.  By far this is the place that takes the most work.  I am going to dedicate a second and maybe third blog on this topic.   I will try to share all the steps I go through when adding a new piece of artwork to my gallery. It is a bit involved so watch for my future posts on this subject.


Here I will just state that I have my gallery broken into a number of categories to help a visitor perhaps zero in better on what they are specifically looking for in the way of art.  9 categories to be exact.  I know I'm probably excessive and obviously one painting might be present in 2 or 3 galleries but it's not too much work to add them in multiple places and I will  talk about more in future posts.
1.  All My Available Works- "Whole Enchiladas" 
2.  Down Country Roads- My newest collection all in one gallery
3.  Landscape and Western Gallery
4.  Fur and Feathers Gallery
5.  My Sketchbook
6.  Cowbells & Country Store
7.  A Little of This and That
8.  Poems and Other Silly Things (My collection of poetry)
9.  Gone But Not Forgotten (gallery of sold items that are still available in prints)

 JULIE'S ART BLOG- Yes this blog is connected to my website and visa versa.  I spend a great deal of time blogging about my art and I think it is important that I give my website guests a chance to fall in love with my blog and the same for those blog readers.  

CONTACT INFO-  You have to let them contact you via email.  VERY IMPORTANT- you must reply in a timely manner.

SHOPPING CART- Weebly has an interactive store that allows you to sell items just like if you had a brick and mortar gallery.  You just hook up your paypal account, answer a few questions and then start adding products.  I will talk about this more under one of my future blog posts.

A Herd of Crippled Turtles

Just like a Herd of Crippled Turtles

Yesterday, as I was surfing my Facebook account I came across a post from Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman) had just posted a picture of some burnt toast. When I realized that this picture of "Burnt Toast" had over 1500 shares my mouth dropped.  I just shook my head and thought about the fact that if I posted a picture of some toast that I had burnt,  I might expect a snide comment or two from one or more of my kids, but that would be the extent of my viral TOAST POST.  Of course I haven't published a cookbook or host a cooking show but the fact here is that some people have achieved a level of internet presence that brings them recognition and a following.

Probably one of the hardest parts of becoming a successful artist is the aspect of self promotion.  Now other artist may disagree with me but it has been my experience that many artist do an insufficient job in this department, if they do anything at all with marketing, branding and promotion.  We have all heard the story of the Turtle and the Hare.  We learned as small children, that steady progress towards your the goal is what you want or you will quickly become discouraged or distracted if your expectations for your success are not paced and planned.  It has been my experience that often many artists are like hanging with a group of crippled turtles.  I mean if they are making any type progress towards a goal, it's so slow that you can't see any measurable difference in their success.  They are crippled by their insecurities and not wanting to talk about themselves.  They can be so creative minded that there isn't an ounce of business sense rolling around in their heads.  They are all grouped together just waiting for some miracle from heaven or a gallery owner or a collector to discover them and push them into the spotlight. They have no website, blog or social media presence.  They acknowledge that they need to do this but that is about as far as it goes.  There isn't any MAGIC formula, only HARD WORK!

You may have a fabulous product but unless you are out their always pushing yourself and your art then your chances of ever breaking out from the pack of other qualified and talented artists are about as good as being struck by lightening while witnessing a grand slam at the final game of a World Series.  Surround yourself with positive examples and do your research.

I have been an active artist in a co-op art gallery in the heart of the Las Vegas Art District for almost 3 years now and during that time I have seen a wide variety of very talented artists come and go.  The excitement they have as they are hanging their art on the wall for the first time is usually soon distinguished after just a couple of months of no sales.  Their work, while lovely is non-labeled, hanging in ill-suited frames, if framed at all and no where on the wall can you find their name.  They don't show up for events or try to engage the public if they are present.  Understand that I didn't do all these things at the beginning either but have gradually learned that all are very important.  Some artist can sell their work on their skills alone, but most of us have to sell ourselves first and build a relationship with a potential collector.  The art buyer wants to feel as if they have a personal connection to me as the artist.  They want to know my STORY behind the artwork before they make that decision to buy and it is my job to give them that.

My sales are not where I want them to be but they have doubled in 2015.  With God's help, 2016 has my name all over it...and I'm ready to greet you when you walk into the City of the World Gallery at 1229 S. Casino Center on a First Friday.  My name is hanging on a banner above my work and I my bio, complete with a picture of me is hanging on the wall.  There is also a stack of colorful business cards sitting prominently on the wall waiting for you to just pick one up.

Leave me a comment because I would love to hear any SECRETS to marketing success that you want to share with us STARVING ARTISTS. (At least I have more than BURNT TOAST to eat!)  Check out my website at Julie Townsend Studio.  Follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.