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Trends and styles come and go, what was in decades ago, went out of style only to come back in with a twist. One of those trend you need to watch for if you are surface designer and commercial artist is the "Mod" trend because it's been making a big comeback as of late. Probably as an extension or followup to another big design trend : Mid century modern. For a few years now, the late Millennials and Gen Z have been on a retro kick, probably trying to get a feel of a "simpler" time through the style and fashion trends of their parents and grand parents, this is the reason why the 50's, 60s and 70s aesthetic has seen a massive revival. Plus, all the vintage stores and thrift stores are now full of gems belonging to those decades in just the same way antique shops were filled with stuff from my great grand parents' time when I was a teenager. But what is mod? Mod is described as a subculture that started in London in the late 50's and early 60's, in term of fashion and style, it's the era of psychedelic patterns, and colorful geometric designs. Think mini dresses with stripes or checkered pattern in contrasting bold colors, bold geometric designs in every colors imaginable, swirls, circles and more. If you are above the age of 35 at the least, and definitely if you are a child of the late 70's and early 80's, I bet you had at least one grand parent, or even your parents having some decor elements from that period into their home, and you probably saw your parents pack away swirly pattern mini dresses, and checkered pants away. I myself remember an accent wall at my paternal grand parent's place that had a wallpaper with intertwined circles in a color palette similar to the one I used to create that Mod inspired pattern on this Society 6 credenza. While it was definitely not the style of my grand parent's era and the rest of the house was done in a more mid century style, that accent wall was in the bedroom my uncles shared and this was totally a type of style in vogue with the baby boomers when they were kids. My bedroom growing up was more of 70's style but had some of those geometric elements from the mod era still very much present : avocado green geometric wallpaper and orange carpet anyone? key elements to remember as a designer today In terms of colors, that style era was pretty much "anything goes" the pastel tones from the 50's still existed but got replaced by bolder tones in those same colors and as a surface designer and artist today, you need to pay attention because these colors are coming back in force. Just look at the bold yellows, pink, orange and green making a comeback in the fashion world and take your cue from it. If you have a teenage girl either as your daughter or as a relative, watch how they shop for clothes, or simply visit the teenager and young adult section in a clothing store, you are bound to see a rainbow of colors in those bold hues, paired with classic Mod patterns. Just this weekend, my daughter bought a bunch of Mod style sweaters, and bell bottom pants. The sweaters are a 60's colors and pattern meet the 90's cropped cut and as a 13 years old, she qualifies as late Gen Z, this is the generation that is just now getting their purchase power and you definitely want to pay attention to what they are into if you are in commercial art and design. Their lot is really into exploring what they perceive as "simpler times" through the aesthetic of that time, be it with the cottagecore trend or the Mod one. If you ask me, the Mod trend is an easy one to adapt to our time and as a color lover myself, I totally see the appeal. Working with geometric patterns and elements is actually a lot of fun, and because the 60's color trends are so wide, you are bound to find a couple of colors that are a match made in heaven with your own branding and style. So, if you haven't yet keyed on that trend yet, now is really the time to start exploring it because it's really starting to peak and will probably be around for a few years with it's bold checkered patterns and psychedelic swirls. If bold colors are not entirely your thing, just explore the 70's aesthetic instead which still has many of the geometric elements but with a more muted palette than the one from the early 60's

Every now and then, I buy some of my artwork on Society6 products to check the quality and use them in my everyday life. A few months ago I reviewed their water bottle. Back on the old blog I did review their Apple watch band, carry-all pouch and cutting board (don't worry they will be reviewed again here...soon) This time around, I bought two of my designs as iPhone though cases taking advantage of one for the biggest cyber week flash sale deal they had which made them shipping to India worth it. Back then they were 60% off but quite frankly, this is one of their product I would buy even at full price because so far I don't think I ever had a phone case that high in quality...EVER! I place the order on November 17th and it was marked as printed and shipped on November 18th with an Australia Post tracking number as they have a production partner there that probably cater to the whole Asia pacific region. For India this is also good news as usually parcels from Australia aren't subjected to custom fees the way even tiny items of low value from the US are. Past experience told me that the delivery would take 10-15 days to my home in Mumbai. Since this time around it was shipped from Australia, I got regular emails from Australia Post about my order, one of which was that it landed in Mumbai and was waiting custom clearance, that was exactly a week after placing the order, on November 24th and the parcel was dropped in the lobby of my building on November 26th by the India Post officer assigned to my area, and was told by email later that same day it got delivered. Which I knew already as I picked it up on my way out to the dentist. It arrived neatly packaged in a cardboard box and each phone case was wrapped in a protective pouch as shown in the picture above. I ordered two iPhone 11 cases and opted for the "though" variant rather than the slim case. I'm the least prone to dropping phones in our family but there have been a few instance of my cat sending all electronics devices off the furniture or my dog knocking my phone off my hands so I ALWAYS opt for cases with some sort of cushioning and raised edges, better safe than sorry. Choosing which designs to get on my new cases was the hardest quite frankly in the end I opted for the "Blush pink and navy floral fishes" and "Mint and gold spring floral pattern" (both links are affiliate links by the way). Those cases have a glossy finish which I LOVE, because all the cases I managed to get printed in India over the years had a matte finish I didn't quite like. Matte cases pick up all the dirt and just scratch the same way as any cases. Since I went with the "Tough" case, they come with a silicone sleeve liner that fit snuggly around the phone and in the case. The black silicone sleeve is what give the raised edge and protect your phone's screen if you place your phone face down. The print quality is as usual superb, Society6 can really be trusted in that department, all the colors are very close to the on screen version of the artwork, which in this case is also a digital design. It's a known fact that there will be a tiny difference in colors between the on screen file and the print version, but some companies, like Society6, are able to make that difference near to unnoticeable. If I really wanted to nitpick at this point, and for the sake of an honest review I will, I'd say that the navy blue on the fish phone case is quite darker than my original on screen color, but again, that kind of thing is expected to happen, especially with dark blues that are close to black in the first place. Over the years I dealt with enough bad phone case printing in India (muddy colors and all) that the fact a Navy blue background looks closer to black than navy is really not a problem at all. On top of them being printed perfectly, and having a glossy finish, I really LOVE the fact they fit on my phone very snuggly with no chances of them popping off during a potential fall. In fact swapping cases is proving to be a tiny bit hard as they fit too well, so be prepared to have to do a bit of pushing and pulling when you want to swap cases. Another thing I really appreciated is that the case has no sharp edges and bits poking. I have that problem when my designs were sold with Cupick, Paintcollar and Colorpur in India, as well as with independent printing services that all used the same super cheap, matte polycarbonate cases. I scratched myself a few too many times on those cheapo cases and it's good to know that there are quality printing companies in other part of the world that care about giving you a quality product that is worth the money you paid for it. Ordering on society6 from india I have several products bought over the years that prove once and for all, that ordering from India IS possible with Society6. They even got better at it over the years. Back in 2018 the cutting board and pouch I ordered were both shipped from the US. The Apple watch band and bottle I ordered earlier this year were shipped from Korea and the phone cases, as mentioned above were shipped from Australia. Both South Korea and Australia have trade agreements with India which means small items of low value do not attract the duty fees that are now plaguing parcels coming from the US. Back in 2018 it is worth to note I never paid custom duty either, but this has changed recently it seems. So Society6 having trusted production partners in the Asia Pacific region is great news. The US Dollar / Rupees currency exchange rate is not really in the favour of Indian shoppers though, but just the same, several of their products are actually worth the expense and aren't even that insanely costly when you compare it to some brands sold in India, minus the perk of having a unique design, and the fact you genuinely pay an artist with each purchase. The key is to wait for a sale or promotion on a specfic product, they have new promo every week and I post them on this website's home page. So if you have a specific item in mind, simply wait until it gets an attractive deal, usually there is always something going on at 30% off. Shipping comes on top of it, and it's dictated by the weight of the product, I paid 8$ on shipping for these two cases and it's pretty much the kind of shipping I paid on each orders I placed in the past. In this case, ordering one or two cases didn't affect the shipping at all, it was 8$ so I ordered 2 right away. If you are an artist with them, they will also deduct your royalty markup from the final price, so as a designer, you get your items at an additional discount nobody else has, making it extra sweet. Back in 2018 I found out that it wasn't possible to pay with an Indian credit or debit card on their payment gateway, but you can do so via PayPal. Designers selling on Society6 have a PayPal account by default, so for me it was never a problem and I never tried using a credit card again since that first time in 2018. I have no idea if as of 2022 they changed their card policy to allow Indian cards to be processed through their payment gateway.

As a designer or artist, you might find yourself in a situation where you need some of your art printed quickly on a product without relying on a big PoD like Society6 or Redbubble for several reasons. It could be that you are living in a country where the currency exchange isn't totally in your favour, or shipping takes a long time. or you might want to open an Etsy shop and need some inventory that will not force you to set insane margins to get some profit. Or you might need a special item quickly to run a marketing campaign and waiting 3-4 weeks for a delivery might not work for you. Then with Christmas right around the corner, you might have the opportunity to have a stall in a small pop-up market and need to have items for sale on short notice. cue in the local printing services! A few years ago, when I realised that people around me here in Mumbai were not going to order from Society6 or Redbubble because the prices in dollars seemed a bit steep for them, I decided to experiment with the idea of having some of my designs on products printed in India. There was some good, bad and downright ugly, but I managed to sell a few things in my offline circles that way. At one point I even opened an Etsy shop, which in hindsight was a fun experience but not a profitable one for me. I'm actually still sitting on boxes of notepads from my Etsy days if that tells you anything, but hey! We all have those business mistakes in your past right? The point is that it's actually quite easy to find printing options locally for regular items like stickers, mugs, t-shirts and mousepads. Things like stickers usually need to be printed in bulk, so if you go that route, do check with the printing service what their minimum quantity is. I used to go with a pan-India service called "Inkmonk" which specialises in printing corporate gifts, packaging and marketing items for customer. With them the minimum quantity was 30 units per designs, and stickers were items I could sell easily in my offline circles because the price point was low and they were still affordable even when I slapped on a 100% markup. That rickshaw and the lemon chili evil eye charm were my biggest seller and that trio pack made for about 95% of all my Etsy sales when I had a shop there. It was easy to store at home, and easy to ship internationally too, it fit in a greeting card and could be shipped at affordable rates as a document instead of a parcel. If you know were to look, and you should DEFINITELY ask around, you can also rely on a local, no brand, no franchise printing service. This is how I got some greeting cards and those groovy rickshaws notepads printed at the peak of my Etsy shop days. When you go down that route, you have to be super careful though, because most of those printing services will not entertain your order unless you meet their minimum number of unit, usually it's 100 units, and you could negotiate it to 50 units with some, but in the end, they want to recoup their costs too and in general, the higher the number of units, the lower the price per piece will be too. As a small brand and business, I widely overestimated how those items would sell and I have still too many of them in storage 3 years later. So my advice to you all, is to go for that kind of service ONLY if you have the certainty of being to sell them all out, or at least 80% of it, or else, you'll end up loosing money. This is a great solution if you are getting ready to sell in a pop-up market event where there will be enough foot traffic to get you the sales you need. Those professional printing services keep their prices low precisely because they ask for a minimum number of pieces in an order. Those notepads set me off at about 60 rupees a piece, I could sell them locally for about 250 rupees because they were completely custom and available nowhere else. On Etsy, if I remember correctly now, I sold them for about the equivalent of 5-600 rupees to recover the packaging material and some of the shipping costs. If you go with a printing service for bulk order here are a few things you ABSOLUTELY need to stay on top of : ALWAYS request a printing sample before placing an order. A good local printing service should oblige, if they don't, walk away Check with them right away what their minimum quantity is, it's not a standard, and you can't assume that everybody asks for a minimum of 100 pieces, some deal in the thousands. Ask what the delivery time is right away, before placing an order and make it clear about your own deadline. Walk away if they ask for the whole payment in full before doing the work. it's ok for them to ask for a deposit, but be wary of paying the whole amount right away because then they don't have an incentive to get your order printed on time. don't sneeze at vistaprint! Just because it's mainstream and everybody has used it at least once doesn't mean it should be off your radar to print your art on products. First because their quality is really good for the price, and then because unlike a local offline printing service you will not be tied to a huge minimum quantity to place an order, for many of their items, you can actually just get the one piece you need printed, which is good news if you are planning on using let's say a coffee mug with your art on it in an Instagram photo or want to gift your art as a mug or t-shirt, or mouse pad to a friend. I actually had several orders in my offline circle for a specific artwork on a mug and Vistaprint was my to-go option. I also got my art printed on posters with them for other orders and the greeting cards in the picture above. For stationery like those cards, they have a minimum purchase of 10 cards per design, which is a lot less than with the printing service I used for my notepad. Granted the price per unit is significantly higher with Vistaprint, it's an option that makes sense if you know you are not going to sell much of them and don't want to be stuck with a massive inventory that will gather dust and eventually end up being trash. Google is your friend While the like of Vistaprint and Inkmonk tend to have limited items in their catalogue and tend to stick to corporate gifts items and marketing material, they are not the only companies out there who do print on demand services for individuals. It might take you a bit of time to find them, but do make a point of Googling around typing in the kind of item you want to get custom printed and your city or country and it should yield results. The Christmas cushion cover at the top of this blog post and the rickshaw one in the picture right here on the left are both from an Indian company called "Your Print". I found out about them last year when I was looking for a round mousepad and have since then used them for my throw pillow covers. Honestly, I can't vouch for their other items, as I haven't tried. I strongly recommend ordering just one unit first to see the quality and if you need more, place a bigger order later. This is an approach you should have with all those smaller online printing services, the quality can be hit or miss, and some items could print great and others not at all. In India, I am yet to find a decent phone case printing service, they all have very cheap cases and printing methods that dull all the colors, and I have tried a few of these companies, none could really cut it. Ordering just one piece also help you gauge their delivery time. Your Print is great for quality but they do take over a week to deliver, so that is something you will need to factor in when placing an order for let's say a pop-up event, don't order last minute with an online printing service. put your home printer to work Most home printers can do a great job at printing postcards and stickers on special paper if you take the time to understand the printing settings. A while ago I wrote a blog post about printing stickers at home you might want to check. If you don't have a printer yet, I strongly recommend you get one if you are going to do small pop-up events regularly, or simply need stickers to use in your journal or your Instagram pictures to showcase your work. I strongly advise staying off HP printers, their ink quality fades over time and they do not really cut it for more professional looking print. I swear by Epson, and I am in love with my L805 printer (affiliate link), I heard Canon is great too, so take your time to decide which one to buy, and remember that with printers, you get what you pay for, a budget printer will give you budget print quality. If you are going to open an Etsy shop that mostly sell stickers, you might want to look into buying a plotting machine like Cricut or Silouhette (both are affiliate links). These are NOT cheap, especially in India, so do not feel you have to buy them if your goal is to just print a few stickers here and there. I cut all of mine with an exacto knife of a good old pair of small scissors. But if you are going to sell volumes, these plotting machine with save you tons of time and they can be used beyond just cutting stickers. society6 for specific items Society6 and other licensing model PoD do have unique items you will not be able to get printed locally and I STRONGLY recommend you purchase those every now and then, not to sell offline, but for your own use. Consider it a marketing expense, one that is going to be a lot more fruitful than a paid add campaign on Instagram in the long run. Why? Because people want to SEE the real product. A picture with you using the Apple watch bands, or using the Society6 water bottle, or an unboxing video speaks a lot more volume than a mockup picture. The printing quality on a physical product cannot be hidden the way it is with a digital mock up picture. And if my blog analytics says anything, it appears a lot of Google searches about Society6 water bottles lead people to this blog post : Society6 water bottle review. Most of the PoD companies shop worldwide, I only shopped with Society6 so far because I like their product better, but if you have just a Redbubble shop, do make a point to order from them as well. Just wait for a promotion offer so that you buy the item at the discount so that it helps you recoup the cost of shipping. In this department, Society6 is the one that runs the most promotional deal on products and they let their artist know the schedule in advance so you can plan your marketing campaigns and purchases. PoD also deduct your markup margin from the price if you make the purchase through your artist account so the price you'll be charged at checkout is factoring in that cut too. So if for example Society6 is having a 50% off on Phone cases, they will also deduct your markup on the final retail price at checkout, in my case it's an additional 20% off the already marked down public price. Usually, orders place through them take a total of 15 days to reach me in India from the day of placing the order, which is quite fast, and they usually manufacture it with production partners in countries with which India has trade agreement so I never had to pay custom duty fees so far.

The most festive time of the year is right around the corner and Christmas trees are starting to pop up (mine goes up this Sunday) Along with it all, the quest for the perfect gift has started for many of you. But what about the perfect way to wrap the perfect gift? Sure you could just grab a roll of gift wrap paper, but with all the talks about sustainability, it's seems like an awful lot of paper going down the trash each Holidays season, something we should all be more mindful of. The thing is, there are lot of options to wrap your gifts in a more eco friendly way, like re-using paper, using old brown paper bags and painting them, or wrapping your gifts in a piece of fabric or a re-usable box. Then there is the option of buying a re-usable, bag or box to wrap the actual present and let the packaging be a second present. Society6 has several options that perfectly work as a stylish, yet re-usable or repurposable gift wrap. the carry-all pouches This is one of the Society6 product I can vouch for personally because the pouch in the picture on the left is not a mock-up picture but the actual deal, I bought it in 2018 and it's still in perfect conditions years later. Society6 has 3 different sizes for those pouches: Small (6 x 5 inches) which is the one in the picture Medium (9.5 x 6 inches) Large (12.5 x 8.5 inches) which is big enough to keep a regular sized iPad in. You can use them to wrap cute jewellery items, phone cases, a gift card, or art supplies and Home Cyn Home has over 400 different designs to chose from. they double up as a great way to keep your purse knick-knack under control, keep your pens and pencils handy while you travel or store some of your cosmetics for a weekend trip. And they are affordable too, at full price without discounts (which is rarely the case) they start at 22$. acrylic boxes With dimensions of 4x4x3 inches, these cute little boxes are made to accommodate jewellry items. But you can use them to wrap a few chocolate and candies as well, or a bunch of hand made scrunchies or other hair accessories, that way the recipient get the gift of style and fashion along with a way to keep those new pieces stored and organized, and it will look good on their dresser. Yes, the box is transparent, but if you pair it with a handkerchief or a scare of fabric, you are on to something. At full price they are 35$ but more often than not, like everything on Society6, there is always a discount on them that makes them a bargain to buy, and again, most Home Cyn Home designs are enabled on that product. Tote bags Meet the most versatile of them all! The canvas tote, used by many companies as a way to put together a goody bag for their client. No corporate gift catalogue doesn't have a tote or two to customise and I don't think there is a single Print on Demand company out there that doesn't have it as part of their products. The good old tote bag can hold a lot, look as cute as a paper gift bag and can be used for years to come to hold your groceries and do your bit for the planet every time you shop. The have a maximum retail price of 33$ on Society6 but if you wait for a promotion sale, they are a lot cheaper (again most of the time). And it's available on pretty much all of Home Cyn Home's designs too. The good old wrapping paper Not the most sustainable, but definitely re-usable if one is careful enough peeling of the tape. At the default of being super ecofriendly, these at least pay an independent artist each time you buy it. They come in pack of 5 sheets each measuring 20 x 29 inches and at full price they are 29$ Society6 is a great place to do all your Holiday shopping and they have promotions every week, right now they have a massive, up to 50% off promo on everything until November 30th 2022. It may look like a big company and some of you prefer shopping small, but Society6 is actually one of the best platform for independent artists, each time you purchase something from Society6, you help an artist and surface designer such as myself make a living. We indeed do get paid our dues on each sales with them and they are also very reliable when it comes to shipping. The ship worldwide and each and every time I ordered from them to be delivered in India, it took my orders 15 days from ordering to delivery in Mumbai

Technology is an amazing thing until it fails us, and having a backup plan is what will make it an inconvenience rather than a disaster. As an artist and designer, it's absolutely VITAL that you make sure all your files are regularly backed up, preferably in multiple places because you never know which device or cloud system will suddenly fail you. Just these past 2 months, we had a streak of failing devices in the household all of which were a solid reminder to thank all of our lucky stars to back up. The one that could have been the worst being my iPad suddenly blacking out while I was using it 2 weeks ago. The screen went dead, and when that happens, Apple doesn't bother replacing that part, they just replace the whole iPad with a new one. Fortunately, I had pretty much everything backed up not only to the iCloud, but also have multiple back ups for my files in several places, including an external drive. With 6 years worth of artwork and designs, loosing it all would be catastrophic so I made sure this would never happen by backing it all up frequently. Most files do not stay on my iPad, I always transfer the drawings I made in Procreate to my laptop so I can continue working in Photoshop. From there, here are the different ways I make sure my files stay safe. always save a psd version of the artwork It is ALWAYS a good idea to keep a master file you can go back and edit with all the working layers intact from a professional standpoint. You never know when you are going to need one element from one artwork to use in another, and not saving a master file is the BIGGEST mistake you could make. Those files may take a lot more space on your drive than a png or jpeg, but not having one could be an issue later on when you revisit a design for a project. save the PSD file on an external drive Most laptops nowadays have 256 or 512 GB of storage, and sure you could be buying one with more storage, but it would also make the price of your machine go up drastically. Storing PSD and PSB files on your laptop/desktop could eat in your storage very quickly, and quite frankly, you don't need all those master files on hand at all time, so save them on a 1TB external drive, you can now get those at a fairly affordable price. I currently use this one from Toshiba (affiliate link) and make sure you keep this drive protected in a sturdy case, in which you should ideally keep some silica gel pouches as well. I only keep the master files I need on my laptop, the ones I am currently not done publishing all the colorways, or are part of a collection I am still working on. If I haven't used a file in 6 months, it gets deleted from my laptop and I keep only the jpeg and png version of the artwork as well as the jpeg seamless tile file. save it to a cloud based drive as well My most iconic designs all live on 2 different Google drives, some are in dropbox as well, and some are on the iCloud. If one fails, there is always another one. I keep it simple and only keep the master files on those cloud based drives. I don't mind dumping my jpeg and png files on my external drive, but with cloud storage, you pay a monthly subscription for X amount of storage, so keeping anything but the master file could force me to pay more for files that I can re-create easily on my laptop from the master file. re-back up your external drive every few years on a new drive The older a device, the higher the risk of it failing you out of the blue. To make sure your hard drive bailing on you doesn't spell "catastrophe" back it up on a new drive every couple of years and label each drive with the date you stopped using it so that you know which one is the most recent one. don't be cheap with icloud upgrade The 5 GB Apple give you free with your apple ID is not enough, and while you don't need a huge storage allowance, you want to have enough to store your photos and some app data in case your iPad crashes. In the grand scheme of things, a couple of hundred rupees a month is a business expense your should be factoring into your budget. When my replacement iPad came earlier this week, I got everything back because I had all the files that mattered backed up into the Cloud and installed automatically on the new device. It took a couple of hours, but everything was there as I left it on the old device. I took the occasion to purge some stuff I didn't need anymore too, but my iPad crashing 2 weeks ago didn't send me in panic mode because I knew the data that mattered was safe in the cloud, and all my other back up places. Living without an iPad was a bit inconvenient because we are in the peak of the festive season prep and I wanted to create new designs, but I didn't loose any of the older ones so I could still work on what was saved on my laptop and external drive will I waited patiently back up your new work regularly I fell into a routine of doing it either Saturday or Sunday mornings before I do anything else. To make sure I know which files to back up, I leave them all outside the folders and then when I save them to the external drive, I put them in the correct labelled folder or create a new folder. I know that every folder on my laptop is already backed up and safe, loose files aren't, unless they are labelled with a red dot, which indicates an unpublished file. Once a month I also do a little digital cleaning by deleting old files I no longer need from my laptop, because at this point, they are already on 2-3 back up drives physical or cloud based and something I haven't revisited in 6 months is not something I need to take up valuable real estate on my laptop. Sometimes I move a master file from the external drive back to the laptop because I suddenly am working on new versions of it after a few years of letting it be dormant. No back up system is perfect, so you should never rely on just one of them, a cloud based drive could get hacked, a laptop or iPad die on you unexpectedly, your external drive could catch moisture or you could loose it somewhere, or all your stuff could get stolen, or damaged in a natural disaster. While you can't have any control over all those events, you can ensure that the loss of your work is as minimal as possible. You may loose some of your work, but not all of it, and starting over with some of your files still intact is always better than starting all over from scratch.

Every year, I create a printable calendar which I tend offer for download. For years I did it via the blog by offering the whole 12 pages in November or December and then release the page of the month at the start of the month. For the past few years though I have shifted to making it available to my Patreons first and then put the page of the month up as a free download on the first of each month on my website (you can access the page of the month in the freebie zone) The 2023 edition is no different, it's now live as a tier 2 and 3 reward on Patreon and by January 1st, you'll be able to download the January page and print it by becoming a member on Home Cyn Home and access the freebie page (it's free to join). Creating the 2023 edition of the calendar has been a HUGE challenge. I normally have a theme and start working on the illustrations around June - July, but this year I blanked completely, so much so that I turned to my audience and asked them for ideas via Instagram stories and very quickly ended up with many good suggestions, but got creatively stuck implementing them. I had a glimmer of hope doodling in my sketchbook and got this idea of a series of minimalist portraits in a retro color palette, but 2-3 illustrations in and I lost the drive and the project was forgotten. Now said project is truely gone because I never backed up those illustrations and sketches before my iPad crashed last week. Then in September, inspired by a cute esoteric label to a handbag I bought, I got working on a beautiful esoteric theme, out of which the first art print illustration is available exclusively to my Tier 3 Patreons, and I had a plan. 4-5 illustration into it and I couldn't produce more that met my high standards and I got massively frustrated with it all, hitting another creative block of epic proportions. Then, we reached October and on my monthly planning page in my BuJo I had written "Finish calendar this month" Finish????? I had not even started yet!!!!! I decided to keep it simple and stop trying to find a super ground breaking theme, because I clearly had no time to pull it off, and with the Christmas shopping season my attention cannot be on creating calendar illustrations so far into the year. So, I looked at all the patterns I have been creating this year, and decided to use my favourites as background patterns for my calendar page. I already had the calendar template ready, because I use the same every year, changed the fonts, and then got to work creating all 12 pages in just a few hours about 3 weeks back. I made it a vow that I would not get out of my desk chair until that was done and dusted, turned my phone on silent, and got to work. A lot of the patterns in it are retro inspired because in the past few weeks I have been on a Mod pattern kick, after all Mod is back and it's one of the trends you do not want to turn a blind eye to. The Gen Z is now deeply into vintage stuff from the 70s, 80s and 90s. So will you join me on Patreon? Or will you wait for the 1st of every months to download it one page at a time?

2023 is right around the corner and with it the need to get a planner, or BuJo to plan it in style. The options to do so in India are now a lot greater than they were several years ago and we are spoilt for choice : Bullet Journal, undated planner, date planner, all in several colors and style. Not being organised is not an option anymore. But which planner/journal should you go for? I hinted at the fact I will no longer keep a bullet journal in 2023 because it's no longer the right fit for me and my lifestyle and goals. I've been on the hunt for a more conventional planner that still look pretty to satisfy me visual memory and creative soul. I also knew I wanted plenty of space to write list, notes, and goals and still have a LOT of space to write tasks and appointments each day. I wasn't set on a dated planner or an undated one. And in the end, I went with this one from the June Shop (Amazon Affiliate link). If shopping on Amazon isn't your thing they also have their own website : The June Shop, with more options including new designs that are now on pre-order (both dated and undated). The things I love the most about this planner are the fact that while still looking pretty, the artwork is not super overwhelming and I can still add my personnal touch to it. It also has several pages of lists at the beginning of each month and a review page at the end of the month so I can reflect on what went on during the month and keep on track with my goals. All in all, it's quite close to my approach to bullet journalling, but pre-printed, leaving me free time to do something else. Planning BuJo spread is what got a bit tedious over the years for me. In this blog post, I'm going to list your planner and journal options for 2023 which are all available in India. dated planner Those are the ones for those who need pre-printed everything to stay on track in 2023 and there are several options out there : The June Shop has them on pre-order at the moment Happy Wagon has been working with several artists to bring you several dated planner options for the year to come. The Ink Bucket has several 2023 planners with hardbound and spiral bound covers. The art loom has more compact yet still cute and practical hardbound options. Then there is Amazon (affiliate link) that has all the options listed above in one place and more, including super conventional and probably more professional looking options from brands such as "MyPaperclip" undated planners They are the best options for those who need more flexibility and aren't quite cut for the Bullet Journal method or have time to devote to make weekly spreads and tracker pages from scratch. You can fill the dates and months as you go or fill the whole year worth of dates all at the start of the year (which I did already). Again, you have several options out there. The June Shop, where I got mine from has a big selection of undated planner, including a few new covers and page layout that are currently on pre-order. Alicia Souza, an Indian illustrator has 3 different undated planner on her website currently, including one named "Busy Bee" with more space to jot down appointment and to-do lists for each day. Several options are also available on Amazon (affliate link) for those who'd like to explore more options. bullet journals I kept a BuJo between 2017 and 2022 and I have used several options over the years. My first one was in a basic ruled notebook from my local stationery shop. Followed by a dotted grid from myPAPERCLIP which no longer exists. It was back then the first made in India dotted grid notebook I came accross. I got a Matrikas journal 2 years in a row, first was a Matrikas Elite and the next year a Matrikas Marvel. In 2021 and 2022 I splurged on Archer & Olives journals. One was with white paper purchased from Bigger Dreams Co. They are no longer stocking new journals from that brand there, but I highly recommend you look at their other brands. They stock Leuchtturms which I use for my account book and my Life Journal. The Archer & Olive Blackout book I'm using this year is available with another BuJo supplies store based in India : Paper planning and more. So if super thick silky soft paper is your thing, look no further they bring to you the Rolls-Royes of bullet journals to India at the most reasonable possible price. The Indian brand The Jotting dots which you can find on Bigger Dreams is also having their own websites to shop from if you'd rather shop directly with them. They specialise in thick paper dotted grid journals and art journals, so if planning 2023 in stile with lots of doodles is your thing, go have a look. So, how are you going to plan year 2023? Which planner team are you on? let me know in the comments.

Diwali, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New year...No matter where you live, chances are you have a couple of festivals lined up in your immediate future or you might always been sucked into what I call the "Festive vortex" for a few weeks now. Festivals are happy time that are supposed to be all about family and celebrating the season, but let's be honest, they are also an incredible source of stress that can leave us exhausted and short tempered as well. What if I told you there is another way though, one were you can enjoy the festive spirit without running yourself past the point of exhaustion every year? The festive season is that time of the year during which we try to replicate the magic we felt as kids at all cost not realising how much of a toll it takes on our sanity and no matter how hard we try, it always falls short from what we remember from our childhood days. of course there are a couple of very logical reason why we feel all that we feel trying too hard to bring back the past in our festive plans : We were kids, we had a much different perspective and take on everything and it's not possible to replicate that We had no idea how much work our parents put in to make the Holidays magical to us, chances are they were as dead beat tired as we are around that time of the year Times have changed, so has our lifestyle and replicating everything won't work keep it simple! I actually wrote that in my planner a whole year ahead of time after I got so tired I couldn't enjoy the fancy Christmas meal I just cooked for me, my husband and then 2.5 years old daughter. Back then Christmas had become a chore, and no matter what nothing went to plan and I felt miserable. The fact I am a Swiss girl living in India had something to do with it, but the cold hard truth is that I seriously brought most of the stress upon myself and I had absolutely nobody but myself to blame. It was December 2011 and I took out my planner for 2012 and wrote "Keep it simple" on the December 1st page of said planner. The irony was that our landlord asked us to vacate the flat on December 21st 2012 to sell it and that year had been exhausting too, but not because I put pressure on myself to deliver a "perfect" Christmas. After that we made good on keeping all festivals as simple and fuss free as possible. In our multicultural family, we celebrate both Christmas and Diwali. don't do what you don't want to do The reason we tend to run ourselves into the ground on Holidays is that we try to make everyone happy, keep up with traditions that no longer make sense just because they are tradition, and before we know it, our expectations run the show instead of us. Part of my "Keep it simple" plan is to do away with anything I don't resonate with, I speak more about Christmas here since in our household I am the MC for Christmas and hubby is in Charge of Diwali (but we both pitch in on both festivals). I realised years ago that I actually don't care at all about the cooking part, for just us 3 it's a waste of time. What I care about is spending time as a family, and we can do that anywhere really, so we now head out to a nice restaurant for lunch and then go catch a movie in theatre. The movie thing came in 2015 when the Force awakens was released (on Christmas day), I'm a huge Star Wars fan and it was also the year we decided we preferred doing stuff as a family rather than exchanging gifts. Since then we found the magic formula for our own unique Christmas tradition, none of which involve sweating in the kitchen the whole day and being dead tired by the evening exchanging gifts that we quite frankly don't feel as excited as we were with as kids. It's more exciting to go watch a new movie we've been wanting to watch in cinemas. If you are hosting a party, you are perfectly into your right to dictate the terms of said party so if you don't feel comfortable cooking all the food, you can announce it as a potluck, or order some take out food or go through a caterer, yes it might cost you a tiny bit more to order, but in the end to you want to be exhausted and resent the Holidays or enjoy it? I'm quite frankly the type that would rather spend less on gifts, and more on caterer fees if that is what it takes to keep me sane during the party. create a keyless life Last year I read Chillpreneur by Denise Duffield-Thomas (Amazon affiliate link) and in it she mention aiming at living a keyless life after she realised how much simpler her life as a busy mom changed when her new car had a keyless feature, letting her open and unlock her car without a key. In her book, she urges her readers to take this approach at simplifying and delegating all the tasks they don't feel excited about as much as possible. The book has been written with entrepreneurs in mind and applies to business, but the keyless principle really applies to everything in life, business or no business. All in all it's another way of saying "Keep it simple" and probably more proactive at finding ways to simplify an already fairly simple thing. For years, Diwali has always been a bit tricky for us. Hubby and I have an habit of doing everything last minute and the result is not unlike Christmas : we get exhausted when the actual day of the festival comes. Diwali usually send people in a cleaning frenzy to get the home ready to welcome in the goddess Lakshmi, then there is buying something made of metal on Dhanteras, decorating the balconies with lights, making a rangoli in front of your door, buying sweets, and new clothes, and oil lamps called diyas... Back in 2019 we were exhausted from just deep cleaning our flat and I remember saying "Next year we hire cleaners to do it" Of course 2020 had other plans, and Diwali was low key, then in 2021 we were going to our family's place to celebrate so this year is the first time we can (and did) make good on that 2019 statement. We hired cleaners to deep clean the bathrooms, kitchen and clean all the windows. We also hired an electrician to come hang up Diwali lights on all 4 balconies because both hubby and I are afraid of heights and hanging them was always a source of stress. Since all of our lights fired over the year we also asked them to bring us new lights (that we paid for) to hang. Two of the tasks we dread the most each Diwali are now out of our way and our sanity is still intact. This year I also set out to go buy all the small things like diyas and rangoli powder early (no last minute shopping this year) and I got introduced to "Rangoli mats" by my favourite shop owner. It's a foam rangoli (mandala) cutout shape with raised edges for each element of the design so that you pour the colored powder in each compartment and make no mess. I love making rangoli, but quite frankly sitting on the ground in our gloomy hallway sweating buckets and smearing powder all over was something I never liked, having the option to simplify that process is something I am not going to say no to. As Denise DT said, find ways to make everything keyless in your life. make a list of what matters and plan from there We often do things for festivals that we either don't care for, or downright hate doing just because we feel obligated to do them for all kind of reasons. It's time to put an end to it, NOW! Take a pen an paper and draw 2 columns and write everything you LOVE about a festival on one side and everything that you HATE. Be brutally honest, just write from your feelings, not what the society expect you to love or not. Love making beautiful gift wrapping and buying persents for everyone? In the love column it goes. Hate the stress of hosting a big party? In the Hate column! At this point don't look at it as "But I have to", just segregate things in a love and hate column. Once you have that done, look at the love, and check if realistically with your lifestyle and budget you can do all of these and incorporate them into your version of the holidays or if some of them can be altered, toned down a bit, or if you can delegate some of it. Personally I love baking Christmas cookies, but for the past 3 years I had such a hectic time around December, that I decided not to do it and order Christmas treats instead, I might bake some this year, but I haven't decided yet. I also love Diwali lights on my balconies, but I'm seriously scared of plummeting to my death falling off the ladder so this year I delegated it. Then repeat with the HATE column, but be a lot more brutal in purging it. Unless there is no way around it, what you hate about a festival HAS TO GO. And for everything that can't be chopped off that list, look at ways to make it less of a pain in the behind : hate cooking but love family meals? Order food from outside, or go to a restaurant. Hate gift shopping but can't wiggle out of it? Order online or check with small business owner around you if they have options that would keep you out of a crowded mall. Don't like the idea of buying anything material as gift? Why not look into gifting experiences like an art class voucher, a night out to see a concert, or a massage. Holidays are supposed to be fun and happy times and what worked for our parents and grand parents may not work for us, and it's more than ok to build new family traditions that work for you, nothing is set in stone so don't pigeon hole yourself into something rigid just because you feel there is only one right way to celebrate a festival, especially if you have kids. Kids don't know what is right or not right about Christmas, Diwali or New Year, they don't have expectations, adults do. Kids will only pick up on your emotions, so if you are snappy and tensed and drained around a festival, rest assured they will pick up on that. You owe them to be relaxed and happy, not tired and grumpy, that should be your only goal for any big celebration during the year. This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links, if you click on them and buy anything, I get paid a comission at no extra cost to you.

Bullet journals or BuJo for shorts have been the talk of the journaling world for a number of years now and for good reasons. They have revolutionised the way we plan and sort our lives. They also offer a lot of flexibility in terms of what goes in them, and they can be as messy or pretty as you want them to be. Elaborate or plain, practical or decorative? It's really entirely up to the journal keeper. But! Is the bullet journal method really a right fit for everyone? I'm writing this as I made the decision NOT to keep a BuJo in 2023 and go back to a most conventional, pre-printed planner after 5 years of bullet journalling. Many of you came to my website and blog looking for BuJoing tips over the years, including where to find supplies in India and here I am, telling you all I'm giving up on Bullet Journalling. I have my reasons, and I'll explain further down, first I want to walk you through what the whole BuJo method is all about. so, what is a bullet journal exactly? A BuJo is a notebook in which you plan your life and schedule in a flexible way that works for you. Ryder Caroll the creator of the method and author of the book "The Bullet Journal Method" (Amazon affiliate link) explained his method in a nutshell in this YouTube video. Of course his way is minimalist, basic and doesn't work for everyone, this is why many have gone further and Pinterest is now flooded with elaborate spreads and trackers and themes and ideas to make your BuJo work for you and reflect your personality. What it is though, no matter the look, is a flexible way to plan your life and track what is important to you. You might go through trials and errors trying to figure out what works and doesn't work, but all in all it's a great self discovery tool and cool way to keep track of your to-do list and habits your want to form. If the Swiss Army knife had a journal equivalent, it probably would be the Bullet Journal, because it can hold your appointment, tasks, help you track certain habits, reflect on your life and log things like things you are grateful for all in one place. Does it have to look pretty? Seeing all those super elaborate spreads on Pinterest and Instagram, you might be wondering if you are even cut out for it, or if it is worth your time at all, especially if you aren't artsy or creative enough to doodle and color pages of spreads to follow a theme. The good news, is you don't have to keep it visually pleasing, elaborate or intricate at all. The past 3 years I had less and less time to devote to doodling and relied on washi tape and stickers (which you can find free on the Freebie page). You also do not have to do all the trackers and logs you find online, this method is meant to be tailored for your needs. So if you don't care about tracking your mood, you don't need to include a mood tracker at all. the bullet journal method is a right fit if: - Conventional planners limit you in anyway and never seem to have all the space you need to log things that matter to you - If you want to have all the infos like expenses, personal growth and your daily schedule in one book - If you are tracking certain habits in order to make change - If you need something more visually appealing than a regular planner to remember things (some of us have a strong visual memory) - If you like the idea of spending a few hours each months planning and decorating your BuJo and like to play with stickers, markers and washi tape but don't have time to keep a separate art journal. here is why it no longer works for me I love journalling, I love pretty pages, and I am absolutely ADDICTED to all things notebooks, but this year, I found the BuJo is no longer the right fit for me. I got into so many different creative projects, that often, I feel like setting up visually appealing pages and weekly spreads that would help me plan my schedule is something I constantly postpone until the last minute and then I rush to get it done and it stresses the hell out of me. Over the years I also realised I don't care much about trackers, and I prefer writing my grateful moments, my successes and struggle in what I call my "life journal" and thanks to a busier schedule, I often myself find thrown between my BuJo and my other journal and I realised I'd much rather have time to write in said journal than work on my bullet journal, which has become more and more of a regular planner. Over the years, conventional planners have evolved a lot and there are now many options that are super cute, visually appealing, come with notes pages and trackers pre-printed and the idea of no longer have to write all the dates and make all the spreads from scratch is a a very appealing thing to me. I need the visual, the doodles, the stickers and stuff to remember things, but I don't need to be the one creating it all from scratch. I'm in a place right now where the way my Bujo would need to look to be useful to me is also no longer saving me time but consuming huge chunks of it I'd rather spend doing something else. Plus I can still use washi tape and stickers in both a conventional planner and my life journal so the part I still like doing can be done in other notebooks. All in all, I think it's entirely possible and acceptable to outgrow the bullet journal method and not feel like a failure or like you are missing out turning your back on it. It was fine while it worked for me, I grew a lot, had lots of fun, stayed on top of things, but now I have gone beyond and ready to try a different way to plan my daily tasks and log my appointment. If for any reasons the BuJo does not work for it, it's perfectly ok to move on to another system.

Redbubble is all out to cater to all our furry friends and is expanding their range of pet products by adding pet bowls to their offerings. Earlier this year they introduced 4 pet products : feeding mats, blankets and bandana, and now you can make your pet's feeding station even more stylish by matching the feeding mat with a feeding bowl. These bowls come in 2 sizes : 32 oz and 18 oz capacity and Redbubble states that they have an anti-slip base and are made of stainless steel. While they recommend people to handwash them to preserve the quality of the print, they are apparently dishwasher safe as well, provided that they are placed on the top drawer and without the rubber ring at its base. As of now, it seems Redbubble is not listing all my pet bowls in the pet category, probably a glitch due to the fact it's a newly launched product. So if you want to find them, you'll have to click on any of the designs and opt to view all products for that particular design. I enabled pet bowls on most of my designs that had a pattern option that would render well on those bowls. Simply visit my shop to know more. If you want to know more about all the Redbubble pet products available, go have a look at the blog post I wrote a few months back.

We might be in September, some of you might be looking forward to fall starting or already enjoying a slight nip in the air while sipping a pumpkin spice late and Halloween is more than a month away. BUT!!!!! If you are a surface designer, none of this matter, the time to get ready to launch new Christmas designs is NOW and if you haven't already, you need to start getting your portfolio and print on demand shop Holidays ready. If you are anything like me, chances are that the voices of your ancestors are screeching "But it's still 3 months away, stop rushing everything". But what your great - grand parents, grand parents and parents don't know is that when you are in business of creating patterns and artwork, you need to get in the mood and get ready to churn out those design a lot lot earlier than November and most professionals have been working quietly on designs for a few weeks nows (myself included). the way people buy changed a lot 20 years ago, online shopping was just really starting to catch on and people usually started buying things for the Holidays in October or November, and in fact, until the pandemic there still wasn't much variation on that theme, people seldom shopped Christmas stuff before Halloween was even in the picture. Fast forward to 2022 and I kid you not I already sold 4 Christmas themed cushions, and quite a few Christmas stickers...in September, no less. The same kind of shopping pattern happened in 2020 and 2021 so it's not a fluke, it's really starting to be a trend. The reason for all this early shopping probably lies in how disrupted the supply chain got since 2020 and people no longer want to gamble and risk getting their order late for the festive season. With the world going upside down, people also got a LOT more attached to the end of year festive season as a way to get a solid dose of comfort and familiarity in a world that has quite frankly gone mad. Heck I went all out in 2020 with Christmas, and last year after an even crazier year, I found myself sipping hot chocolate watching an insane amount of Christmas themed romantic movies just to feel better and more relaxed. Like a lot of people, I usually start decorating for Christmas on the 1st Advent Sunday, which is 4 Sundays before Christmas and will fall on November 27 this year. The cutout date to order things so that they get delivered on December 24th in the US usually falls around December 10th, this means that after this date, Holidays themed sales will be on the decline and adding new Christmas themed designs to your shop will not be the best idea. as a designer you need to think ahead With Christmas themed items starting to sell in September, you should be ready to publish new work by the last week of September or early October, and really ramp up the uploads and marketing for these by October end, until the end of November. By the time everyone is getting stuffed with Christmas cookies and Mariah Carey's Christmas song makes you want to run away, is the time you need to start planning your New Year and Winter content, including Valentines Day! Retailers plan their Christmas collection even earlier When Deny Designs first contacted me to add me to their wholesale catalogue, I think we were still in June and the shop went live in July, with you guessed it, Holidays themed designs. The reason being that big retailers start shopping around for the holidays months in advance to allow for not only the manufacturer to produce a bulk order, but have it in store long enough in advance of the festive season so people get to buy what they need without rushing everything at the last minute. our grand parents might argue we are rushing things, but really, who isn't completely swamped with events, gathering and fairs of all kind comes November? Kids recital, office Christmas party, the gym's end of year party, trying to squeeze in a few crafts sessions with family and friends, attend a few Christmas concerts. Comes November and the entire world wants a piece of us, and celebrate something with us, if you wait that long to start planning your Christmas shopping, you are going to find yourself burnt out before December 25th and resenting the actual day that is supposed to be all about family when it comes. Which is another reason why people shop a lot earlier now and why as a designer, you really need to key in on that shopping pattern trend right away, or else, you'll be a burnt out neurotic designer that not only went to too many weekends event like everybody else, you'll be overworked and stressed too. create when in the mood and then shelve those designs until it's time. If drawing Santas, Christmas trees and candy cane in July doesn't come easy to you, especially if you are living in a tropical area like I do, don't force it, instead take advantage of the fact that nobody will expect you to release anything new in December and draw those without the pressure to have them up for sale right away. I have a number of Christmas designs ready to go right now, and I created most of them in December last year. While following trends is paramount the rest of the year, for Christmas, it matters a lot less, people don't necessarily want trendy Christmas designs, they want comforting ones. It doesn't mean sticking to red, green and gold designs, but it takes the pressure off trying to figure out what is going to be the IT thing of the festive season. I have a number of Christmas designs in my portfolio and without a fail, every year, the ones I sell the most are my pink Christmas ones. Pink Christmas is not a new trend at all, it's been there a while, and people still buy it because it's fun, it's comforting and that's exactly what people want out of a holiday.

Home Cyn Home is proud to announce that it now has a membership that give you access to a member only zone where you get access to cool freebies, including the welcome stickers set that originally went to my newsletter subscribers. Joining as a member is FREE, it just replaces the newsletter that I felt was loosing steam and quite frankly became a bit tedious for me to write every Sundays. If you are an old timer follower, you probably know that before Home Cyn Home had this new website back in April, the domain name and URL was linked to an old Blogger blog which I have now killed to start afresh. The Mailchimp newsletter was something that felt a lot more at home back on blogger and made more sense there, but when I took the very risky and scary jump to kill all my old content, I needed to have that one bit, and the mailing list I built there come with me to the new website. I knew though that I wanted my website to have room to grow, and that was exactly why I moved away from Blogger and got on Wix. I wanted the option of having members only pages, and more importantly have everything integrated on one platform. The thing that ended up pushing me to start a membership area on my website was that for the past 5-6 weeks, there had be zero changes in my mailing list, and the weekly Mailchimps reports also showed that very few of my subscribers ever opened my emails, or clicked on anything, which meant that all the printables I created over the last year have not reached people at all. I knew it was time to move on, and quite frankly, I have to let you in on a little secret here, I never quite understood the concept of newsletter and my intuition always told me that it was probably not the best move for me. BUT! marketing experts all tell us that building a mailing list is crucial to building an audience, and I agree with them here. What I didn't know, and I now know, is that there is more than one way to build your own audience, and you don't necessarily have to write newsletters every weeks to keep them in the loop. To make sure I was doing the right thing, I informally polled my followers on Instagram to know who was subscribed to my newsletter, who wasn't and more importantly, WHY they weren't subscribed. Many answered "I hate emails" and a few answered "I don't know how". The "I hate emails" group was the biggest, and the one that I really needed to address. Because, I LOVE giving my audience freebies, and it made me a bit sad that people would either forgo getting access to these because they hate emails, or forget to download them because the newsletter they subscribed to was something they didn't have the time to open. To be honest, I don't read most of the newsletter content I subscribed to myself, I get it, we have busy lives, and we are solicited entirely too much these days. Enters the Member Area and the Freebies page! You now have the option to sign up as a member on the site, it's free and all you need is to enter your email address. I can GUARANTEE that this address will stay private, and that I won't share it with anybody, so you will not get unwanted spam from me or anyone after signing up. Once signed up, you should normally be subscribed by default to blog post updates and these will be the emails you get each time I publish a new post. BUT! You will also have the option to not recieve these emails if you don't want them by changing your preferences on your "account settings". Aside from getting notified about new blog posts via emails, you get access to Home Cyn Home's freebies page, it's a member only page where all the printable will go, including the calendar page of the month, and the printable stickers set of the month along with any extra freebies I might chose to give at random. Some of these will stay in the list permanently and the page will grow, other will get available only for a short time (Like the calendar pages). For these, there will be no notifications, so you will have to check the page regularly to know what's new. There will still be announcement emails from time to time I plan on sending out one email a month to let you know when the printables of the months hit the page, and those emails will ONLY go to Home Cyn Home's members, the old email list I built on Mailchimp will ceased to be used at the end of August 2022. Aside from that one monthly email, there is the chance I will share a hot sales announcement if any of my shop partners offer a killer deal or if there is a particularly big website announcement and that will be about it. There will be room to grow The whole point of creating a member only area on Home Cyn Home is so that it can expand and grow as the brand grows. For now we will stick to just a Freebie page, but there is no telling where we'll go next, and I am thrilled to have you all part of the journey.