Isabel Designs

Isabel Designs festival booth

This past weekend, Isabel Designs found herself exhibiting in Marlbank, Ontario at the Red Roof Women’s Festival. Our booth was made of things old, new, borrowed and blue. Not that we were headed to the alter, but it was the first time we took Isabel on the road, and our little store actually did contain all of these things. We had old drawers for shelves, an old screen door, and a well loved trellis for flaunting our wares. We borrowed a table from Dad and covered it with a blue tablecloth. A fancy banner, made by Noella, hanging under the canopy constituted our something new. All in all, I think we looked like seasoned experts – even if I do say so myself!

Sue and I had been – not so secretly – working on a few new products to introduce at the festival. After about an hour of selling, we realized we should have produced more pieces, so thank goodness we brought our tools and supplies with us! We even made custom jewelry and gifts on the spot for a few customers! To say that we were surprised and delighted by the reception we received over the weekend would be an understatement. 

Thank you to all our new customers for supporting our work and Ovarian Cancer Research. And thank you to the Red Roof Festival organizers for putting on such a great event! (I was also a performer at the festival and had a blast sharing the stage with so many talented women. See my facebook for photos).

As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll be updating the website with new jewelry and gifts. For now, I’ll leave you with photos of our weekend and a peak at our new products: SunDrops TM, Heart Catchers TM, and Garden Whispers TM. 

SunDrops TM

Heart Catchers TM

Garden Whispers TM

Eileen, Nancy & Chris on stage

Great crowd & amazing sunshine all weekend

First of all, thank you for following our Blog. We appreciate your interest, but more importantly, we hope you find the blog interesting!

Isabel Designs was born in August 2008 when my sister Sue and I got together for a weekend of jewelry making and fun. We were inspired to continue creating beauty together in honour of our Mother, Marie Isabel, who died of ovarian cancer in 2001. See our creations here.

When we started Isabel’s blog we thought it would be an ideal place to share wisdom and insight passed along to us from our Mom, and also be a place for you to share stories too. As the plot thickened, so to speak, we realized that it had broader potential, so our blogging intention changed to “Reflect, Inform, Inspire”.

We need your help discerning whether we’re headed in the right direction with the blog. All you need to do is answer these five questions, and we’ll send you a free gift of appreciation! (of course it will be handmade by Isabel Designs!)

1) What kind of articles would you like to see more of:

          a) mother’s wisdom
          b) on creativity & /or ‘how to’ projects
          c) on intentions and purposeful living
          d) all of the above

2) Can you suggest new topics that might be of interest to our readers? If so, what are they?

3) Is this the first or only blog you follow? or How many blogs do you currently follow?

4) How often would you like to hear from us:

          a) once a week
          b) twice per week
          c) three times per week
          d) as often as possible
          e) less is best

5) We are considering putting Google Ads on our site as a way to generate revenue. Would you support this decision, or would you find google ads obtrusive on our blog?

Please post your responses in our comments section or email your reply to: contact@isabeldesigns.com

Be sure to include an address where we can send your gift!

I stumbled upon Hugh MacLeod’s business card art on the internet a few years back. His loose, sketchy drawings reminded me of my own love for doodling. His unorthodox quotes, mostly risqué and/or satirical, made me laugh or ponder the whacky truth of his observations. Hugh is a cartoonist, copywriter, and advertising guy who’s been able to turn his art into a brand, and then share his passion and insight for marketing it with the rest of the world. If you haven’t heard of gapingvoid.com, I’d invite you to take a look now and dive into the ‘crazy, deranged’ world of Hugh MacLeod.

Hugh’s new marketing book, “Ignore Everybody” is due to be released in June 2009. You can also download a couple of Hugh’s manefestos at ChangeThis.com.  (The HughTrain) (How to Be Creative)

Share your impressions of Hugh MacLeod with us in the comment area. If you know other people who’ve been able to take a crazy idea like business card art doodling and turn it into a worldwide brand, please let us know that too. Enjoy.