WE HAVE MOVED

How excited to get to say this, but the blog as moved!  We are now located at sonshinestampco.com :) yay!! We have the stamps being manufactured now and will be showing sneaks very soon! Please go to the site and add your email so we can update you on release information as well as announce freebies and giveaway!

And Now, I am Pleased to Present...... The Artists

Guys, I am so excited to finally announce who has been chosen for our artists.  We have some who are designing stamps right away and some who will have stamps released next year.  


Drum roll please......

One thing first.  Have you noticed the change in the name?  SONshine stamp co.??  You like?  Okay, here they are!!!


Artists who will have stamps released in a few weeks:
Amber Bolton (BibleJournaling)
James Presley (Jep0731)
Keri Manlet (inkbirdhandmade)
Kate Rondorf (itskateshandwriting)

Artists working on future stamps:
Molly Short (Mollssss_12)
Robin Howard (www.robinghoward.com)
Jennifer Powel (Creativegurl85)
Lilian Yeh Forsyth (The Leaf Studio)

Please say a little congratulations to these fine artists and stay tuned for their stamps!!!


God bless, Amber

Periscope Video: Great Opportunity for Doodlers & Q&A

Thank you all !!!!

Our Business is Gearing up for Launch. Would you like to Join?

Hello everyone & I hope you are enjoying your day.  I have some exciting news!!

Sunshine Stamp Co. is gearing for Launch!!

We would like to send out a call for doodlers, designers, hand-letterers (is that a word), bible journalers, planner fanatics, and everyone else.  Currently, what we are looking for are physical and digital doodles and designs that can be used made into clear stamps for bible journaling and planners.  We are also looking for alphabets.

These designs will be created into clear photo-polymer stamp sets.  We are not asking for any specifics because we want people to have room for creativity and showing their own personal style.

We will be planning the next several months of releases, which will occur once a month.  Each month a few stamp sets will be released.  At the moment we are focusing on stamps, and will be looking into stickers and coordinating kits in in the future.

Please pray about whether you should send a sample of your artwork in.  We will be praying over the responses and how God would lead this small business startup.  I greatly appreciate all the kind people in our community who have helped me a long the way and have answered my many questions!

Please e-mail the following to xolittleone@gmail.com

• Your name.
• Links to blog/social media accounts where you share your work.
• Your favorite way to express creativity (bible journaling, planning, doodling, handwriting, etc.)
• Attach a few pictures that show your personal style.  (Please attach .jpg's that are 1000 pixels or less wide).
• Any current design teams or contracts/licensing.
• A few sentences about yourself.

All submissions should be in at midnight (EST) by November 20th, 2015. Everyone will receive a response by November 30th, 2015.  Thank you all!  Please share this on your social media accounts.  Especially for those you know who have a special talent for creativity and art worship.

Thank you all who apply and we cannot wait to get started going over all your applications!

Blessings!!
Amber Horn

Washi Solution: Organization or On-The-Go

Today I was deciding what washi tapes I wanted to use in my planner and how I could take them with me on-the-go.  I started looking for old packaging I could use that had a plastic feel.  I couldn't find anything, so I cut up a 12 x 12 card stock into strips that would easily fit in the pack of my planner.  I ended up making four strips and laminating them to get the plastic feel.  Having the plastic coating allows the washi to be removed easily.  

I started adding the washi!

Every couple rows I would make marks with a ruler to keep them straight.

I ended up using the last of several roles, which is fine because I plan to put away the box of washi until I need to replenish sections of the laminated card stock.

I ended up making a lot more room in the tray I use for storing washi.  

Here is the final product!  I really like them and I plan on keeping them in my small tote I use for my planner, handlettering, and bible journaling.  It pretty much just hold my go-to products such as alphas, microns, markers, glue.....and so on.  Now I have all my washi in one place, and its so compact!

I hope you enjoyed this post!  If you did please consider sharing :)  <3 

Thank you!

Starting a Business Plan....Step 1

Hey, and thanks for stopping by my little corner of the web.  I am starting a business and as I grow I would like to share my learning's with you.  Its kind of difficult to get this kind of information, especially from people in your niche.  Not many people want to help anyone who may be a competitor.  But honestly, I don't think that's how all this should work.  If someone wants your product or services, they're going to buy it, whether I'm hangin' out there or not.  And, especially for us in the "Bible Journaling" business.  It kind of erk's me (yeah, I said erks. ha!) that Christians are trying to hoard all the business for themselves.  It doesn't seem right.  Like God only intended to bless them in this whole process.  

So, enough of my rant.  I would like to give you information as I find it to make it easier for someone else in my position.  I'm a maker. A crafter, a mixed media artist, a handlettering fool, a bible journaler, a single mom, a Christian, a women's ministry leader, a gardener, a project lifer, a daughter, a keepsake keeper, a girlfriend, a planner, a smashbooker a pack-rat, and many many other things as well.  If you are also any of these things, or just someone who wants to join me in learning how to run your own business from home then you will benefit from my blog.  

The first thing I am working on is a business plan.  I am finding that since I am so many things, I am lacking focus in my business.  I know where I want to be in the long term future, but I am really needing the define my business right now.  Or else, I will be scatterbrained and dabbling in many different areas without reaching any of my goals.   That is why I am starting a business plan. The first thing I working on are my four statements: my mission, vision, values, and competency statements.

Here are my examples for my business.  Of course, you should write your own.  It may help to also look at other people's examples.

My missions statement:
I create photo-polymer stamps, mixed media art, beaded clips, and other bible journaling and planner supplies.  My business is steadily growing to include more product with new stamp sets being launch every month.  My greatest desire for this business is that I stay in the will of God, doing all He has for me to do, and that all business and personal communications would point to Christ.  I would enjoy showing people who believe they are not creative that they can enjoy bible journaling in their own way.

My vision statement:
I will not be including my vision statement as it is for my eyes only, as should you vision statement be only for you to see.  Your vision statement should be a long term vision, like where you wish to be in ten years.

My values statement:
It is important for me to run and honest business with compassion, selling quality products.  I want to show the love of Christ while being confident in my own abilities and their value.  I want to remain humility through the process.

My abilities statement:
In short, I am a maker.  I have a creative mind and find enjoyment in many types of projects.  Something very special to me if bible journaling.  I have a vision to see many different ethnicity's, denominations, cultural groups, and ages come together to stand on the Word of God, whether that be through preaching or a paint brush.  I take a humble approach to my work, having room for improvement, but confident enough to offer my work for sale and create workshops and such centered on what I do.  I am simply accepting the passion and talents God has placed within me, and look for ways to use my gifts to better others.

- For anyone who is creating a "handmade" business, I would highly suggest visiting handmadeology.com.  It has lots of good tips!

- I would like to give a special thank you and shout out to two people who have helped me along the way.  Ronni Hall from Rebuilding Ruints Art and Frances from Notions From Nonny.  

So...What is Periscope & How Can it Benefit Me as a Business Owner??

Hey guys!  Thanks for checking out my blog., SO!  There's this relatively new app call periscope (and its totally addicting I might add).  The app allows you to broadcast video's LIVE.  The app keeps your video available for replay for 24 hours.  After 24 hours....its gone.  Unless you have the app to automatically save your broadcasts (which I do), or you can sign up for something called "Katch."  Katch automatically saves your broadcast to it's cloud and allows you and other to view the replay forever.  

How can this benefit me as a business owner, you ask.  Well.  Periscope is pretty awesome for business owners because you can chat LIVE with your followers.  Its a raw look at you, the person they are following.  Not only is it raw, but they get to interact with you via a chat onscreen during your broadcast.  Your followers can also tap the screen to give you hearts.  The can give you 3 hearts or 300 hearts.  Another great thing about the 24 hour time limit is people will be more on their game to check you out.  If their phone notifies them that you are live, they are more likely to go ahead and push watch because they can't (if you choose not to use Katch or upload to youtube) view your video, say, in 25 hours.  

Are you a nutritionalist, gamer, scrapbooker, beachbody coach, fationista, pastor, bible journaler (hey hey!), it works rep, younique rep, monat rep? ....you get the point.  Anyone who is looking up to you on your team can benefit from what you have to say or what you have to show them.  They WANT direction,  But, you don't want to get on video and just be blabbing about anything.  You want to make sure you have quality to give your followers.

And one more thing.  Whatever you point the screen at when you hit "Start Broadcast" will be your thumbnail for that video.  So, choose something nice, like your face or a picture you look up on google images.....anything but your feet :)  And, for the sake of your replay followers go ahead and start the video when you hit start, other wise you will have many people waiting for 1-3 minutes (or not waiting) while you allow people to enter the room with you.  You can wait, say, 20 or 30 seconds... but I would not recommend waiting any longer.  Follow your followers back. Watch them and give them hearts.  And have fun and be yourself!!!

Thanks everybody, Blessings!

Amber

Bible Journaling Process Video ~ 2 Corinthians 12:9

Yay!  So glad you are here!  I am loving doing these process videos.   It super fun, but I do need to get a little faster at editing them!!  Any tips?? ;)

Share if you like <3

Blessings!

Amber

Bible Journaling Process Video ~ John 4:24

Hello friends!!  Thanks for checking out my blog and I hope you enjoy this process video of one of my favorite verses about worship! :)

My First Journaling Bible Process Video

Here it is! 

Here's the final page

New Journaling Bible ....HCSB!!!

ESV was not my favorite version so I was excited to hear that there are new versions in the Journaling Bibles.  So here's my first decorated page in my new bible.  Although it's not my first marked on page.  I felt lead to go highlight Isaiah 6:5 as this is something I need to be working on.

Here are some pictures of my first decorated page.,  This is also my first time ever doing a process video so you will have to let me know if you like that!
You can check out the video and subscribe ----> here

I used several different alpha stamps. Heidi Swapp Plastic letters, Heidi Swapp colorshine spray (pink), micron pen 03, StaZon ink (black, teal, and hot pink), white gel pen, platinum zig writer, craft smart acrylic paint, Simple Stories alphas, Artist's Loft Pan Watercolor tray, and Sakura Waterbrush.

American Crafts CSS-HS-797 Color Shine Spritz 2oz-Primrose

(Affiliated Links :)

Watercolor Worship

Two new pieces I have been working on.  My main focus has been to doodle black and white images, but I've been dying to use the Artist's Loft cheap-ie tray of pan watercolors I got. You know.... the one everyone is using.  So I had some extra fun and water-colored both doodles.  May be using these for stamps in the future.  Anyways.  Give me a thumbs up, or share if you like :)

Relaxing

...& pulling out an old favorite <3

This baby has been in the works since the beginning of last winter.  Although, I haven't worked on it since gardening season started.  I thought I would pull it out and work on it tonight.  I'm going to have to find the blue for the words in store somewhere because I'm actually doubling up on what I'm supposed to be using.  So far I have the top left corner done, half of the bottom left corner, and pretty much only the words you see there. :)  

Relaxing.... :)

xoxo, Amber

Something New: Studio Worship

Something new.  I'm learning to create digital files from my own hand lettering.  My goal is to create stamps and stickers from my work.  Since my work will be mainly used for bible journaling, I have named the "business" studio worship.  I am so new to Adobe Illustrator, so its taking me longer than I hoped, but I am learning!  If there is anyone out there with their own line of stamps and you wouldn't mind me asking you questions please comment :)  

New Study: He Speaks to Me

New study starting!!!  I am always excited when I get a new study.  Its so fun to open the new book and fill the pages with different colored inks.  Copying bible verses and adding stars and such.  

"He Speaks to Me" is by Priscilla Shirer.  She is an amazing teacher!  The study is about positioning ourselves to hear from God.  Priscilla focuses on Samuel, and his encounter with God when he was just a boy.  This study will also give me lots of great ideas for my journaling bible.

If any of you are in my area please come to our meeting on Tuesday night @ 6pm.  

Blessings <3