I’m writing this blog post because I have gotten some inquiries and questions as to how I turned my artwork into calendars. So here is the story of how I turned my idea for a calendar into a reality:
I’ve had the idea for an xtratuf calendar for about two years now. I original thought I would use my photography, but I never seemed to have enough pictures, or pictures of good enough quality. One day I was sitting in my kitchen, talking to my family about business ideas. I need to think of creative ways to make money because I’ll be moving out soon, and I want to have enough money to pay for basic life necessities as well as financing my dream of traveling the world. So I started brainstorming with my family about all the ways I could create a larger variety of products for my art website, and I finally decided that I would create an art calendar out of watercolor xtratuf paintings.
The only problem was, I had no previously finished art that I could use in the collection, and January first was in about 50 days, so I basically started from scratch and cranked out 12 paintings in 4 weeks. It was especially difficult because I had to finish school finals and get ready for a 2 week winter vacation while whipping my paintings into calendar shape before I left. It happened though, and I clicked the order button for over 50 calendars just before we left!
I decided to use vistaprint for printing. After I finished the watercolor paintings, I photographed each painting individually with my DSLR camera in natural lighting, and then I edited/cropped the photos and uploaded them onto my vistaprint account into a calendar format. I looked at some other options for printing but I landed on vistaprint because I found that they had the best prices and I favored the calendar design over the other ones I had looked at. Vistaprint also provides an option for small business commerce and shipping products directly to the customers, which I found very helpful.
I worked on advertising and marketing while I was traveling, and while I got some orders from people I did not know, most of the orders were from family and friends. If you are reading this and you’ve ordered a calendar, thank you so much! I really appreciate your support, you are helping me live my dream!
I can’t tell you how relieved and happy I am to have an actual finished product that I can hold in my hands! I worked for hours in my room, sketching, drawing and painting, and dreaming of when the calendar would be a reality. This calendar was put together under pressure so it could use some improvements, but I am considering it to be version 1.0 :) I have some ideas for next year, like partnering with gift shops, and doing some other creative marketing stuff, but for now I am whole heartedly enjoying the tangible fruit of my labor and dreaming about future endeavors!
Thanks for reading!