Behind the scenes - March
Taking you on a monthly backstage tour of my business
What’s Happening?
Welcome to my monthly round-up of what’s happening here at Jo Scott Art.
The month has been March and that means Crufts!
Another record-breaking show for us and just so busy, a massive thank you to Jo-Jo my great friend who comes and helps me every year, and to everyone who came, said hello and spent money with us. An extra special shout out to Cornelia, who came and introduced herself having already invited us to stay in France with our Motorhome, it was delightful to meet you in person and yes we hope to visit later in the year!
This year I only came down with a mild cold, however, I came back to the news that my warehouse have cancelled me, how rude! They’ve changed business direction and will no longer be dealing with small business orders. Argh! So the shop is currently closed while I have a bit of a rethink, it will be reopening in April but it might be different to how it used to be…if you need greeting cards in the meantime please can I direct you to Thortful or one of my stockists.
Do you have a local independent card and gift shop?
In the meantime, I have a favour to ask of you, do you have a local independent gift or card shop or dog boutique that you think might like to stock my greeting cards?
If so, can you reply to this email with their shop name and location and I’ll get in touch with them to see if they’d like to become a stockist - many thanks in advance
Dicky Bags are coming to Jo Scott Art!
If you’ve not come across these before, they are the perfect solution for carrying around your dog poop until you find a bin. They are so good at keeping out any whiffs my sister had hers (full) in the car for 3 weeks before she remembered where it was and emptied it and not a hint of whiff, 3 weeks!
I met Mandy and Barry from Dicky Bag when I had a stand opposite them at Discover Dogs one year and we got talking, which led to me trialing a couple of designs, this is my 3rd design for them.
They really are the sort of company that feels great to collaborate with, they employ local people in Cornwall to make their bags and there’s a fabulous story about them turning down being on Dragons Den as they were being pressurised to move production out of the UK so it was cheaper and therefore more potential profit for said Dragons. I loved hearing that and feel very proud to work with them and for my designs to do so well for them.
These were a huge success at Crufts and orders were heading off to Japan as well as across the UK and I’m pleased to say that you’ll be able to buy them directly from me next month when the shop situation is sorted out - until then you can source yours here
Your March Phone Wallpaper
This month features Charlie the Doberman and his favourite Owl toy, as I explained last month I’m experimenting with new materials outside of my usual watercolour and really enjoying myself, can you tell? There’s plenty more to come, I’m thinking a calendar for next year, what do you think?
Commissions
These are underway, there’s still one spot left in April before I close again so act quickly if you’d like it, just reply to this email.
This is Helle, a real mischief maker by all accounts, and finished earlier this month
New Greeting Card, Process and Creative Business Posts
Next up for April is I’ll be adding some additional posts here on
(Substack is the platform I use to send my emails and it has a lot of additional features which I’m just getting to grips with and starting to use)These emails are primarily aimed at other creative business owners who may be interested in more detailed insights into how I run my business and perhaps how I do some of my marketing/shows, resources for producing Greeting Cards etc. It’s for anyone who’s really nosy (like me!) and doesn’t want to miss out on anything.
The one thing I’ve not worked out on Substack is, if you’re really not interested in this part and only want travel stories and monthly updates, how you can unsubscribe just from these emails, I appreciate they may not be of use to everyone, so bear with me on this bit I’m sure I’ll work out a way, and if you know please reply with how, I’d be ever so grateful!
I’m not a big fan of the Paywall (Substack lets you hide certain emails behind a paywall so you have to pay in order to read everything), so guess what, it’s not there, all these posts will be free to read.
That’s not to say you can’t still support me and my art and writing with a monthly subscription. They start at £4 and it’s 15% cheaper if you buy a year up-front, for this you do get extra access to me via comments on my posts and subscriber only chats.
Heart warming feeling of supporting an artist guaranteed
I’ll also be sharing my weekend sketchbook pages over in Notes, so if you use the Substack App you’ll see me there too over Easter
