Somehow I managed to load the cat video twice and not the dog one. Ooops. Here’s the dog lover notebook video ❤ Merry Christmas to all my fellow animal lovers ❤
Cat Merch updated
I am so thankful that I live in the day and time where technology dovetails to ways of expressing my creativity. I am enjoying creating my animal lover designs way more than I even thought I would.
Having gone through chemo five years ago (seems like ages) and thinking I would just never get the spark of inspiration back again, this is not only therapy, it’s officially my full-time endeavor. I hope folks enjoy the useful merch I’m putting out there ❤
This is my most recent video on Instagram for the Cat Lover Journals. More Cat Merch here.
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Cat Lover Notebooks and Lined Journals
Folks have told me they like the covers I made for the yearly planners but that they don’t use planners. So, I took those covers and made them into covers for journals and notebooks. Ta da!
See the attached and let me know what you think!
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Blessings and Gratitude in 2020
It is not a coincidence that the year 2020 will be surrounded by puns such as “seeing things clearly” and being “in focus.”
Beyond whatever the pundits may come up with, the simplicity of this elegant weekly planner is focused on both helping you keep track of your days and also on prompting you to spend time reflecting on all the good you encounter in your daily life.
With space for jotting notes on your concerns as well as counting your blessings, this exercise in mindfulness and gratefulness for both the great and small things in your life will help keep you grounded and positive even when the world around you is going crazy.
Life is short, beautiful and filled with good and wonder. Don’t miss any of it with our 2020 Planner & Gratitude Journals!
Check out our full flipbook of the interior of this series:
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Updated our Studio page
On my studio page that features all of my dog and cat rescue stuff and my artwork that supports those passions, attempting to change it from “just a blog with links to my stuff” into an actual e-commerce platform has been over four months of consternation trying to make one platform connect to another, plugins sync, blah blah blah. Yeah, well. Bottom line is: Nevermind. I removed the e-comm connections that never worked right and reformatted it back to my trusty blog with links to my stuff!
Great Gift Ideas!
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Cat and Dog Lovers Planners, journals and notebooks, or any of our design merch goin up on our Zazzle storefront, please do pop over and check out the new Merch display.
All of my pet-centric designs help support several local animal rescue groups, so please, please, please go take a look-see! I’ve got Pins and IG posts as well as Facebook posts I would greatly appreciate ya’ll sharing! Veterinary bills for rescue animals can be extreme. Every purchase y’all make of my stuff helps save, heal and re-home pets in need.
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Coloring Planners for Cat Lovers
Because Phoofie.
Way before I was a Crazy Dog Lady, I was a Crazy Cat Lady. In honor of the lives of my coolest cats over the years – Philphil, Shermie and Phoofie – our 2020 Weekly Planners with Coloring Pages for Cat Lovers are now available on Amazon.
Did a full FLIPBOOK video to allow ya’ll to thumb through the entire interior as though you were standing in the bookstore looking at it in person (especially since one cannot always trust Amazon to show the number of pages to viewers that we’d like).
Check them out here:
GET THEM HERE on Amazon today:
Meeowza cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1712204521
Cat Fur on My Clothes , Pawprints on My Heart cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1712204408
Happiness is a Purring Cat on My Lap cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1712204785
Because Cat cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1712203711
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Getting the paws wet
In order for my artwork to raise enough money to be of any help to the animal rescue groups I support, I have to get my stuff “out there” for folks to see it. Self-promotion is not my strong suit. I am helpful for a living, but not in a look-at-me kind of way. It’s always been me encouraging my groups to shine and I stand back against the wall to give them the spotlight like a proud mama. As a musician, I’m not the Diva; I’m the accompanist who makes the Diva look really good when she performs.
So learning how to promote my art has probably more emotional and mental reprogramming hurdles to get past than learning curves on the tech.
Still, my brain is going full-tilt learning how to use ads and boosts and other such marketing jargon for the various platforms my artwork is “out there” on. I boosted my first ever studio post on Facebook this week and am running my first ever ad campaign on Amazon. I have put up posts on Pinterest and Instagram, which means now those platforms are trying to get me to spend more money I haven’t made yet on ads on their platforms. Seriously, dudes. I have to see how the first attempt goes before expanding and I also have to make sales.
Since the whole point of the venture is to learn how to do this properly so that I can then transition to creating products specifically for the nonprofits I work with as fundraisers where the funds go directly into their own accounts and all they have to do is promote what was gifted to them, I need to know how this works. Most likely, I will have to do the whole thing just to get the rescues and churches up to speed and then train someone how to monitor it and keep it going.
I am asking my Caffeinated Music followers, fans and fellow nonprofit folks who “get” what I’m trying to do for their assistance.
If I don’t have a good showing, how in the world will I convince the places I serve that this is a viable idea for fundraising? Churches and animal rescues run purely on donations and the work of many hands of passionate people. I can only donate so many hours in a day, but what I can do is to create something replicable that can be sold with little to no effort on the part of the agency themselves, yet stands to potentially be very successful as a sustaining operation.
I want to keep designing things like the planners, journals and coloring books and am definitely NOT using crappy PLR stuff like the garbage that I see multiplied everywhere. Honestly, lack of originality offends my creative ethic. I design my things from scratch.
What I need is for folks who also have passions for pets and their favourite nonprofit groups to help me make this all work by sharing my Facebook post, my Instagram posts, my Pins, and my BigBlackDogStudio information.
The animal rescue 2020 Dog Lover Planners are out on Amazon at this point. The Cat Lover one with its own set of original artwork is nearly done and hopefully will be up by next week. After that, I am going to do one for Church Music Directors and Ensembles. Not a catchy title, I know, so I have to work on that. I am also compiling the best of my Miss Ryan’s Guides for another whole line for students.
Please will y’all give me a hand up with this major undertaking?
LIKE my studio’s Facebook page and share the posts with your friends, please?
FOLLOW and LIKE my Instagram posts and share them?
Maybe even subscribe to my Furday News weekly mailing list where subscribers get freebie design pages for coloring. Pet-centric, of course!
Maybe even BUY a planner or two? They are under $10 and will make quick and easy gifts for all the dog lovers on your lists. GET THEM on Amazon:
- Dog Fur on My Clothes, Pawprints On My Heart – Blue cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1706202024
- Dog Fur on My Clothes, Pawprints On My Heart – Pink cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1706185286
- Happiness is Sloppy Dog Kisses – Gold cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1706202709
- Salty Paws, Sloppy Kisses Mariner’s Compass: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1706202024
I don’t run ads on my Caffeinated Music domains because I think it looks way more trashy and disruptive than it would ever make a few random dollars. Thank you to anyone to feels my heart’s wish to make this a success for the fur babies and helps out! Mu-wah!!!!!
Next up will be the CAT LOVER PLANNERS!
Four cover options are available on our 2020 Dog Lover Planners!
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