Author: sillybadgerdesigns

Well it’s nearing the end of May and I have been incredibly silent lately so I thought I would come on here and give you an update of what’s been going on and what is going to be happening soon.

So firstly lets go back to January where I started the year with so much hope and positivity for my business. I had so many plans and full notebooks of ideas that I wanted to work on this year. And then life happens. Long story short my dad got very sick in February and then my partner lost his job. Following this my dad spent 10 weeks in hospital and everything was just all over the place and everything I had originally planned got forgotten. My own mental health suffered greatly during this time and I struggled to keep everything going. It really was like juggling too many balls and I spent a large part of April exhausted and lacking motivation for anything other than survival. It was tough. I also felt grief over the loss of my business plans, wishing I could be continuing my plans but it just wasn’t doable at the time. Slowly I was watching my engagement and stats drop as I stopped sharing my work and it just felt horrible. Not only was my personal life being pulled apart but my job had started to suffer from the stress of it all.

It was at this point I managed to pull myself together a bit. Firstly I decided to not care about the numbers. Engagement and sales were down. Of course they were, I was barely interacting with anyone and I wasn’t sharing my shops or my work. What did I expect? But the thing I had to remind myself was that this was just temporary. The same as my mental health, it’s not great but it won’t stay like this forever. Again this is just temporary. So I decided that it was time to make some positivity! My first mad decision was to update my branding!

I think I have a habit of updating my logo every four years now! There’s nothing wrong with my old logo but I just wanted to have a refresh. This year has made me feel like a fresh start so here’s the beginning!

Honestly I’ve been wanting to share this since I created it back in late February but I just didn’t have it in me to talk business and I also had a lot of flyers with my old logo that I needed to get through before moving to the new logo. But today I am down to my last flyer so it’s time to celebrate!

Over the next few weeks/months you will notice my logo slowly changing and if you’ve bought stickers from me recently you may have also had a sneak peek of this design with my new backing sheets!

I’ve had so many plans for this year and a lot of them are just out of reach for me at the moment. I originally felt really disheartened by this. The most recent being me realising I just couldn’t afford to have a stall at a rat show this year. It honestly broke me this weekend realising my income just wasn’t there at the moment. I felt like a fraud and oh gosh did that imposter syndrome set in! That little voice in the back of mind warning me that someone is going to find out I’m a fraud and I’ll lose it all! Imposter syndrome is the worst. But again this is just temporary. Okay I can’t afford that this year but I could next year! It’s not impossible! So again it’s time to shift that perspective again and focus on the here and now. What can I do not what I can’t do.

So what do I have planned for the next few months? What can you expect from me? Well honestly my biggest goals for the next few months are to finish my brand update and to just be more social and share more. I miss sharing my work and behind the scenes fun and the biggest thing I miss is talking to people! Those along with my custom work are my biggest goals right now. And I guess to just take things one step at a time with no rushing.

I hope to post more here and on instagram along with starting my monthly newsletter again as I’ve neglected that so far this year. It’s time to get creative and to give Silly Badger Designs a lot of love and care so I can give everything the fresh start it needs. So follow along for a fun adventure as I start to bloom this summer!

I feel like I’ve rambled a bit and this has all been a bit personal but sometimes you just have to be open and honest. I’m a person behind the screen and the art work after all. So if you’ve got this far, you’re a star! Thank you and I hope you continue to follow my little Silly Badger adventure!

Have a lovely end to May and I will see you again in June! Follow my instagram for more updates and behind the scenes fun!

Siobhan

Silly Badger Designs

My mind is wondering if I should be writing this. I keep having that thought of should I share the behind the scenes stuff in case it makes me look silly? But at the same time I honestly want to be genuine here. Because I am working this all out as I go.

And at the moment my mind is boggled. The last few years have been tough. My mental health took a huge hit at the end of 2019 and since then it just got worse. Now the thing here is that I was so stressed and feeling unwell with it all that I kind of lost a lot of motivation for Silly Badger Designs. I’ve been treading water with it all for the last 4 years and just getting lost in commissions. They were the best part because someone told me what they wanted me to paint and I just had fun with it. But the rest of the business got a bit stale over time.

But this year I suddenly have a lot of motivation to make changes and to actually get lost in the joy of my business and my work again. It’s a strange feeling as I haven’t felt it for a while but it’s also frustrating! Even though it’s super exciting and I’m so happy to have that buzz back I’m now beginning to struggle with what I actually want. I’m trying to sit down and imagine what I want to see with my shops and products but so many ideas are zooming around my head it’s a bit hard to focus. It’s not bad frustrating but it’s not ideal either.

So for the rest of the month I’m going to try to work out what I want so I can start working towards it. I’m also thinking of changing my packaging for some products including stickers so I will be making some examples and putting them up on my Instagram stories to see what you guys think! I really need some outside input here especially when it involves product packaging.

I think I need to buy a new notebook to write all of these ideas down in before they get lost! I just hope this isn’t a new year new me reaction that’s going to either fizzle out or leave me in burn out. But maybe it’s more of a reaction to feeling that motivation again and just wanting a fresh start with it all. A spring clean of sorts… that doesn’t sound too bad at all.

The scary thing is I’m even considering a logo change… but that might be a bit too drastic for this year. Maybe.

And looking back on this post I can see it’s become a slight brain dump on the page so if you’ve got this far well done! I know it’s a lot of rambling and as clear as my own mind but I just wanted to get everything out. And maybe if there’s anyone else like me out there with a mind full of ideas that are just getting out of control you might feel like you’re not alone.

Hopefully this doesn’t make me look too manic!

Right, now before I continue with more rambling and idea dumps here I’m going to go take Merlin for a nice walk in the frost to clear my head and get back to some valentines/love designs!

Have a fantastic day!

Time for the first blog post of the year and hopefully the first of many. I have set myself a goal this year to keep up with sharing more on here, through my newsletter and socials. I’ve been really bad lately and I really miss sharing everything that’s going on in Silly Badger Designs land! So here’s to sharing more and having some fun adventures as I try to find my feet again as an artist & shop owner.

So, I’m going to start by announcing that my both my shops are open again! And for the rest of January you can get 5% off your order from my Etsy shop and 10% off your order from my shop! All items are included in the sale so if you’ve had your eye on something, now is the time to grab it!

I’m actually feeling really buzzed for this year and I have a lot of plans written down in my trusty notepad. I have plans to get some UV resin and play with that too but I won’t go in to that just yet.

But we unfortunately are in my most expensive month of the year so I need to actually be sensible this month and not buy any new things for the business. Maybe February will bring that fun but for now I’m trying to get back to basics and have a beginner business mind.

This means actually finishing the products/projects that I’ve already started so even though it’s a bit disappointing to not get to play with new ideas it’s also exciting to give myself time to actually finish some long term projects and get them out in the world again!

I’m also getting started on my love/valentines designs for this year. I updated my old boggle design last year and I absolutely love it’s new look so I’m planning on updating some of my other older designs along with adding some new designs to the gang!

Which brings me to the last bit of news which is that I will not be taking any custom orders until February at the earliest. My last three portraits last year were all incredibly large and I burned out a little with the creative juices and last year I was so busy I didn’t have much time to make new designs for the shops. So, this year I’m going to make the time to update the shop.

Gosh I feel like I’ve been typing for a while and I’m not even sure if this makes sense or if I sound a bit hyper. I’m really out of practice. Again I need to get back in to this and use my words again.

But for now I’m just going to ease back in to everything gently with no rushing and no panicking. That’s another goal of mine for this year!

I hope you had a lovely festive season if you celebrate and I wish you a new year full of all the good stuff!

Okay, it’s been a while hasn’t it. I always have those good intentions to keep up with everything and then life happens and these things get forgotten.

But lots has been happening here at Silly Badger Designs and I have my passion back for both my business and my work. Going through a slump and suffering with my mental health for a big chunk of this year left me really struggling to find the motivation and there were so many moments of “why am I even doing this!?”. But that’s also all part of running a creative small business. It happens.

So what’s been happening! Well summer arrived and along with it came my little summer ratties! You can find art prints and a fun sticker pack of these guys enjoying the summer sun in my shop here along with many other fun goodies!

I had so much fun coming up with these designs. I’ve been wanting to create a summer collection and stickers for a while now and they just turned out perfect. The little sand castle boy featured above may be my favourite!

I’ve also had the pleasure of working on some adorable portraits lately. This pair of gerbil friends is my most recent digital portrait and I just loved creating them. I don’t often draw gerbils and this pair were just so much fun they may have inspired me to make some gerbil faces stickers, what do you think?

I’m still open for custom work at the moment so if you’re interested in a commission get in touch here or for more information go here.

And finally, autumn is fast approaching and I’m getting ready for a rather large shop update! There are going to be lots of new products as well as some old favourites returning and I can’t wait to share them all with you. I wonder if I can manage another post before the end of the year? I guess we’ll find out!

And just one more thing as a few people can’t seem to find some of my new items on my Etsy shop. Unfortunately due to costs I don’t update Etsy as much as I update my shop so if you want to find more goodies please go there!

I hope you’re having a great August and I will hopefully be back with more updates soon!

Well isn’t it nice to be in to a fresh new month! And I’m starting this month by celebrating my 7th business birthday for Silly Badger Designs. I have been drawing adorable animals for 7 years now and it’s so amazing to reach this goal.

So to celebrate! Yes we are celebrating this new milestone! I’m having a 10% discount on ALL orders in my shop and all orders made in both my shop and my Etsy shop between February 3rd and February 6th will receive some fun, never before seen freebies!

I’m also excited to share my updated “You Make Me Boggle” design that is now available in both my shops along with a sticker of the same design!

Unfortunately I am only shipping within the UK at this time but I can highly recommend going to my Redbubble shop where you can get a lot of my designs on a whole lot of fantastic products, a lot that I can’t make myself and they ship worldwide! And the best part at the moment they are having a sale of 20% off sitewide between February 1st – February 7th. So it’s a great time to grab some fab bargains now!

Here’s a look at one of my designs on a mug! I absolutely love how they look!

And lastly I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me and my artwork over the years, honestly every like, comment, share and order means the world to me and I can never express how much it truly means to me. So I’m sending you the biggest most heartfelt thank you!

Here’s to more years of fun doodles and exciting adventures!

I hope February brings you lots of smiles 🙂

Siobhan

Okay so I’m late with the new year wishes but we’ll run with it! I hope the year has been good to you all so far.

I’m currently sat surrounded by notebooks full of ideas and my iPad full of rough sketches. The sky is blue and the sun is actually shining after weeks of cold and grey skies. It hasn’t been the best month here and this morning I woke up exhausted from my anxiety but in this moment I’m finding some joy and gratitude as I plan the reopening of my shops.

I had planned to reopen early this month but life decided against it. In a weird way it’s worked out better as this way I can celebrate my business birthday with the shops reopening!

So this is a quick post with an update that I will be reopening my shops this weekend and as it’s been 7 years of running Silly Badger Designs on Saturday 4th February I thought it would be a great time to redesign one of my most popular illustrations and maybe have a cheeky discount and some freebies! I feel like it’s the perfect time to celebrate my business and to spread some smiles!

Now it’s time for me to get back to finalising plans and designs! Enjoy the rest of your week and I will be back with more fun soon!

If you’d like to be one of the first to know about the shops reopening and any future updates, sign up to my newsletter here

It’s that time of year again!

It’s spooky season!

I also haven’t been updating yet again… It’s been a really tough year here at the badger studio so I do apologise for that! I hope I can get on top of everything again in the new year but for now I’m just taking things one day at a time!

Both my Etsy shop and my shopify shop have got some seasonal and spooky goodies available at the moment! And should I mention the dreaded festive goodies that have also started arriving in the shops? Not yet? Okay, maybe next week I’ll post about them!

October has been a busy month, I tried to do my own Inktober and managed to get to day 9 before I crashed and didn’t have the creative energy to keep going. It was a shame as I was really enjoying it but I just didn’t have the energy in the evenings.

I did however get to create some amazing custom pieces that annoyingly I can’t show or mention too much at the moment as they’re going to be gifts so it’s all a big secret but I loved working on them. I’m looking forward to doing a big roundup of my custom work at the end of the year as a bit of fun!

The new winter designs are also coming along nicely, I don’t have as many this year but they’re going to make a fun addition to the already fun collection. Hopefully I can share them all soon.

Okay, going to keep this short for now! So I hope you’ve had a great October and have a spooky fun halloween!