YAY GOD!!

Wow! I got a huge God-size blessing yesterday. I became a licensed artist 4 years ago & it has been a tough occupation. Basically...I've been pulling in about $100 a month for the last 2 years...that's right...no profit for the first two years. Pocket change in this day & age. The good thing is that it's forced us to get disciplined about our money. That was a hard lesson...to live off 1 income when we've been used to 2 incomes for 16 years. But we made a lot of cutbacks & changed how we live and eventually realized we could more than survive on 1 income....even with the new addition of a child. 

The licensing biz is tough to break into. My agent warned me that I wouldn't begin receiving royalty checks until after I'd been in it for about 3 years. She was right but I didn't realize the checks would be so small. Still I had faith & trusted God ...I really believed that He opened the doors for me to even start this venture (although it was very frustrating to be patient!)

HOWEVER......I am always intrigued at how God works. After we began trusting him more with our finances and made it through an agonizing "test of faith" over the last several months...I began noticing that God was doing some things. 

Despite manufacturers & retailers closing their doors last year, we were signing contract after contract. I thought it was temporary...that they might fall through due to the economy or that it would become harder to find more contracts. But they just kept coming. Even my art agents were surprised. And the contracts were GOOD ones...not just small manufacturers but bigger ones who landed big retail buyers like Anna's Linens. 

I began seeing the monetary results in those contracts this quarter, but yesterday...my agent emailed me with best news yet....

"I just received the final final word from Creative Converting that Target has picked up your “Harvest Blessing” collection for their Fall/Harvest end cap.  Yeah!!!!  Congratulations!!!

 

They said they will be sending the agreements out in the next couple of weeks!

 

It is so nice to see some of these are coming together and that your hard work is paying off!! J

 

Karen"

I couldn't believe it! This is a tremendous break for me. Target is picking up my Harvest Blessings art for their fall lineup. They are making paper plates, napkins, etc. to be displayed in Target nationwide!! I am so excited...especially considering that the art they selected is from my Inspirational collection...something that mass retailers don't always select. I am not really sure what this means royalty-wise since I have never landed a client this big, but regardless, I'm excited that God's message of encouragement will actually be in viewed in a mass retailer across the U.S. 

I have always wanted my art to serve a purpose somehow. I believe God is planting seeds with people who view my licensed art and I pray that they find encouragement through that. There's a lot of encouraging messages in the Bible....regardless of whether you believe in God or not.