Exciting New Partnership & the Beautiful Beginnings of Spring...

I know my updates are rare these days...as much as I would like to have more time for blogging, at this stage simply put: life is full. BUT choosing it to be full of the things that matter as I have learned to pick and choose what is priority and what to say no to. That is a learning process in itself! 

I hope this find you all doing wonderful...isn't the first blossoms of spring simply stunning?? I am typically not much of a morning person, but since my daughter started kindergarten I've been embracing it and have been reminded of the sights during the small window of time watching the Earth wake up is nothing short of incredible! God's creativity and artistry just amaze me. Thankful for these mornings, such a great way to bookmark the beginning of a new day. Reminds me to be mindful, not wanting to miss any of the miracles that happen throughout each day.  It is true...His joy comes in the morning. 

So...I've got some VERY exciting news to share!...

I've been blown away at how such a specific prayer was answered and wanted to share this new licensing partnership that has now begun with Legacy Publishing. For several years, I've been praying to have an opportunity to create more faith based art for cards and product; desiring for there to be more oneness and unison with my life and my art. One's life is what so often inspires and I'm wanting to use the gifts God has given me well and wisely. The gift of art it is not meant for just me, but to be shared, to bring blessing and joy to others and to ultimately point back to Jesus. After all, He is the giver of our gifts! Over the past years as I've grown in my faith, I have had vision to design specifically a line of upbeat, trendy and fresh Christian greeting cards that would that breathe God's word (in my opinion the card aisles need more of those!) while wanting the art to also have mission and make a difference by having a % of sales go to a worldwide need. Two years ago I read the Circle Maker with a bible study group and felt led to begin praying circles around this idea. Fast forward 2 years later...through a random chain of events (and people) the opportunity has now opened up right before me to begin working with Legacy Publishing doing just that AND they just happen to have a program already in place called "Buy A Card, Feed A Child" where a portion of card sales go to buying meals for underprivileged children across the world. How crazy/cool is that?!? On top of that I'll also will be working on other products that I'm excited to share more about soon that will be available through Big chain stores as well as individual retailers. So grateful!!! I find myself again AMAZED at God's faithfulness and how often His timing is so different than mine...so neat to look back at some of my journal entries and prayers about this. Amazed, amazed, amazed!! Habakkuk 2:3

I also found out recently that I am going to be designing a faith inspired calendar that will be available in Hobby Lobby and some other retailers for this coming year. I feel like a kid beyond excited and thankful...the kind of excitement that makes you want to run and leap through fields and fall on my knees in gratitude at the same time! It is incredibly surreal to watch dreams, hopes, long time desires and prayers unfold after long periods of waiting. He truly does make all things beautiful in HIS time and it is a refining process for us to go through. Thankful to have the opportunity to share my heART with others that will be hung up year round! Now for the painting of 12 months to begin! I can't wait to share the finished products in the upcoming months of the new card line, products and calendar...stay tuned!

This past weekend was oh, so beautiful too. Thanks to my beloved hubby for playing with me and capturing some fun pics under a wide blue open sky in the field behind our house. 

Embrace today. Make the most of it. Our lives, our health and time are such a gift. 

Spartanburg Magazine Feature and CRBR

I was recently SO VERY honored to be featured in the Spartanburg Magazine for their fall issue! When I saw the feature I was blown away by the very kind and generous 

write up on my design company, Tamagrams. See below:

Also, I thought John Byrum, the photographer for the Herald Journal/Sptbg Mag did a great job capturing the essence and overall feel of my studio office. Thanks John!

Life is moving SO quickly as my husband and I are raising two little girls and all that activities that accompany work, church, trying to sell a house and making plans to build another all while trying to live life to the FULLEST and take advantage of all the special moments that come day by day. All while trying to be intentional to carve out "windows" of time to just simply be. As a culture it is just so easy to slip into being overly busy and I try so hard to avoid that even though that does seem to be life in this stage of living. So much happening that my time to blog is less and less these days. During the summer on a last minute whim, my husband kept encouraging me to enter the Cooper River Bridge Design Contest as I hadn't been planning on it. I ended up designing this piece the day before we left for a week vacation to Charleston, which also happened to be the last week to enter the contest in June. How was that for timing?? I was overwhelmed by the Bridge Run's response when I turned it in and so many faithful Facebook fans that the piece seemed to resonate with.

The design ended up not being the one that was chosen for the 2015 design and to be honest was really disappointed but once again reminded through that process to surrender the "gifts" that the Lord gives us and trust Him with the details of the rest. The Lord does and continues to teach me so much through the vehicle of art. Charleston being my home town and the place I spent my childhood years, holds an extra special meaning to me. I was able to go to Charleston for the reveal party in August and was once again so encouraged by people's responses to the piece. AND, how crazy is it that out of almost a full container of people's raffle tickets my mother won my design!!! Wild!! Thank you to my amazing hubby for encouraging me to go to the reveal and for holding down the fort while I was gone. Also, thanks to my mom for making the trip with me and my awesome longtime childhood friend Krissy for coming to the party. Such a good and encouraging night. I was encouraged by staff at the Bridge Run and friends and family to enter again next year. I'm already sketching artwork for next year's submission.  (I know, I'm a dork and way ahead of schedule!) I just really do enjoy it that much.

Charleston will forever be one of my most favorite places on earth. It's such a special city like no other. As an artist, I bask in all of the colors, textures, smells and charming and enchanting architecture - not to mention the peaceful coast line that I could spend days at a time on. Now, it's going to make us all want to walk the beautiful cobblestone streets with all of these wonderful reminiscent thoughts! ;) 

Happy Fall Y'all!

xo, Tamara

Hellllloooo Summer!!

Ah. Yes. Summer is almost here. I'm excited! Our girls are now out of preschool and we are getting into the swing of the summer activities and enjoying not waking up to an alarm clock. I hope you all are enjoying the beginning of summer time as well.

I wanted to share some news...
First off, I was so encouraged last week when I had entered a fabric design contest on Spoonflower.com for the utensils theme. I found out my pattern "Domestic Bliss: Ingredients for JOY" made the top 10! It came in 8th place out of 379 entries...so humbled to be amongst such other awesome designers! It was very encouraging to me as I have been desiring to branch out into fabric for some time now. It was a BIG day for my heart! Thank you to all of those who voted, I'm grateful! Neat to see Domestic Bliss actually printed on the fabric...

This fabric is now for sale to the public on Spoonflower.com - It's so weird to me to think people are buying the fabric I designed and making beautiful things with it. I have been getting notifications for every purchase and I'm so humbled to see so many people ordering it. I'm thinking curtains, aprons, tea towels and other kitchen goodies! Thanks from the bottom of my heart...I'd love to see a photo of what creations you made with it :)

Also. in other news...personal news...

WE ARE GOING TO BE MOVING!

I know, I know. It seems crazy to me. We have been in this house for 11 years. We had this house built right when I graduated college and it's been the home where so many of our memories over the 13 years of marriage have been. It's been the place we "grew up" in a sense and brought our daughters home to. However, we have bought a lot in a near by neighborhood and will be building (contracting the work out ourselves). The past 5 months have been beyond wild to say the least. Many people say building a house is stressful, however I think for us the stress started way before the building..it's been deciding between 2 properties to build on. There is a lonnng story that I won't go into all the details of for time and the sake of boring you but the bottom line of what I learned from it all..... :

1) Often the WISEST thing is the SIMPLEST thing.

We were wanting to be wise and had a lot of BIG financial decisions to make...we tried to sell one lot (we will call it LOT A, a beautiful.7 acre lot) to be able to go to LOT B (a lot we first didn't think would work out but the doors opened AFTER we had already gotten LOT A). Lot B was a gorgeous 3.5 acre piece of property (dream property really...) It seemed like God's favor was leading in that direction with a string of events that happened. But bottom line...our LOT A did not sell in the time frame we needed it to and we didn't want to try to juggle two lot loans and a mortgage, while trying to sell a house. See...I told you it has been WILD. We made the decision to stay and build on the original lot to simplify as things were seeming to mushroom and grow into something much bigger and much more stressful than our original plan and reasoning behind why we were doing this venture.  Anyways, since the decision has now been made...Taylor and I have been feeling such peace. The strange thing is...I thought I would feel disappointed it didn't work out for us to go the property with more land but it is just the opposite. I feel such REST and PEACE. Life just got a whole lot simpler and we both feel deep down in our spirit, that this is exactly the direction we are to take. There is such freedom in that on so many levels. Our realtor told us that there is a prospect client that is making the decision between our home and another...so we will see. However, I'm not worried about that. Our house will sell when it is suppose to sell. Just feels good to have a solid plan and solid peace in how we are moving forward. Thanks for listening...it's been a lot of our life over the past months. 

I will end this blog post with an overview of some of my recent work over the past months. Will be sharing soon lots of new samples that have been arriving from Recycled Paper Greetings. Always love to see the finished product!

 xoxo,

Tamara

Up-cycle Living Room Project (Part 1)

I love a good "up-cycle" project. We've been in our house for over 10 years which is so hard to believe. The tuscan color choice I was into years ago has been very much enjoyed but this year I was really craving to update some things around here to feel like more of my current style. It only makes sense though doesn't it? As people we evolve and grow year after year and as a result our taste and style change and emerge along with us. I thought what better time than now to begin some changes for us to enjoy in our home and wanted to do my best to keep the cost down as much as I could since home decor can add up fast! So...here it goes.......

Recently we were given this entertainment table that we then painted white, found some lamps for $3 each at a yard sale (score!) and then sprayed them silver as well as knobs on entertainment table. Covered lamp shades with fabric and I sewed some pillows to coordinate and sewed new light teal drapes. Loving how a change can feel so refreshing and some elbow grease can feel so rewarding...

 Bought Silver Metallic Spray Paint at Hobby Lobby...

isn't it amazing to see the transformation of something that was out of date 

to something beautiful within minutes?

Covering lamp shades was something new to me but was actually pretty easy. 

To do this, lay your fabric out on the floor and then lay the lamp shade on it's side. I then took a pencil and traced it as I rolled the lampshade to the right and then to the left. After you get your marks for the shade, then cut out the fabric where your pencil lines are. You can see what this looks like in the photo above. Then I began to hot glue to the fabric around the top inside and bottom inside making sure the fabric is taunt. It took me about 15-20 minutes to cover each lamp. I love the result!!

For this furniture piece, I decided to go with a simple white painted look. In the past I have enjoyed distressing furniture, but lately I've been really drawn to the clean, crisp look of plain white. It seems to clear my mind. First, you need to sand the piece, then put on a coat of primer. The primer doesn't have to be perfect, just enough coverage to cover the wood underneath. Then put your top coats on once primer is completely dry.

I took the same bird fabric from the lamps and also made some coordinating throw pillows for the couch. Also, sewed piping and decorative trim into several of them. There are step by step tutorials online to show you how to do this if you are new to this like me.  I really love how they turned out. My daughters call the solid teal one the "cotton ball pillow" ;) Also, used the same solid teal fabric for the drapes so it all flows together nicely. Every time I pass through my living room now it feels sooo good to look over and see a refreshing little spot that feels more like me now. Up next...updating our gallery wall. Have some ideas up my sleeve and I'm excited to see it come to life. Will share more on this soon...until next time - I hope you have a wonderful Halloween week and enjoy all the festivity!

xo,

Tamara

Tamagrams/Recycled Paper Greetings now in Big Box Retailers Nationwide!

This week has been one where I have once again found myself blown away by God's faithfulness.  I have been resting in feelings of overwhelmed thankfulness and gratitude on so many levels. It feels like a dream to see your own "dream" live on a shelf. Thinking back to some experiences that pushed me to take a leap of faith two years ago and exhibit at the National Stationery Show. Being in a Beth Moore study at the time, I remember writing down the words, "God is ABLE, God is WILLING and He LOVES to surprise us" - something about those words confirmed my heart on the decision as well as having a group of loving and supportive women speak into my life and encourage me just to trust as He was leading.  Now, inhaling some of the fruition that has come from all of that while reflecting on what I've learned from walking in obedience when you have no clue what is around the corner. For some reason "art" has been such a learning tool and vehicle for God to teach me through. Last week was such an exciting week here for us. We saw Tamagrams on shelves of big box retailers that will be available nationwide. PRAISES!!! So excited and VERY thankful! I can't wait to share more designs that will be hitting the shelves soon.  Thank you for taking the time and walking along this journey with me, so glad to share it with you!

Copyright 2013 Tamagrams/Tamara Brown. Birthday Girl Words Dress. All Rights Reserved.

Many Blessings your way!

Tamara

Peek at New Fabric Collection

Good afternoon to everyone! I wanted to give a peek at a new fabric collection that I've designed for little girl home decor and apparel. I was able to get the design printed on fabric and made a dress as a sample for Surtex (and after the show for my oldest daughter to sport!) I was going to put it on a mannequin but really wanted McKenna model it as God uses her in so many ways to be a source of inspiration to me.

Also, I'm excited to announce a new partnership soon...stay tuned!

Surtex 2012 Wrap-Up!

Our time spent in New York City last week for the Surtex show was a great experience...filled with meeting many amazingly talented artist and making contacts and connections from companies that I am looking forward to following up with! (Excited to share more about that soon!) After exhibiting last year for the first time at the National Stationery Show I was glad to have had that show under my belt as it made me more aware of the planning process, accommodations, logistics, and everything that goes into it. However, it was our first time to exhibit at Surtex which I was really excited about. So many of the opportunities and blessings that have come over the last year kept us honing into the world of licensing my art. In a way preparing to exhibit reminds me of planning a wedding...there are months and months of preparation, behind the scenes work to make it all happen for the big day! After I registered for Surtex last fall, I wanted to expand beyond the greeting card designs that I've created over the 4 past years and start designing for other products such as fabric collections, giftwrap, giftbags, tabletop concepts, etc. I must say...it has been thrilling!! I have LOVED the new challenge of learning about design for other categories!

Last year I kept having this urge to learn to sew. I am sure having two young little girls influenced that as I see so many cute dresses and think to myself, "gosh, I wish I could make this!"...so after enough thought, I bought myself a sewing machine and started teaching myself how to sew by looking at sewing blog tutorials online. As I was planning for Surtex, I hadn't even connected the two (sewing). But then it donged on me...sewing mock-up samples for my booth so companies that were walking the show could see what my patterns could look like on a pair of little girl pajamas, a backpack, pillows, aprons, and hand towels would be a neat visual! 

My husband Taylor (my best friend, hero and biggest encourager) plays such a vital role for the show as well as just every day life. His support and encouragement for me to spread my wings with my creativity has definitely been a big factor in order for me to be where I am today. Also, my cousin/friend Elizabeth who now lives in NYC graciously helped us set up our booth again this year...so so helpful! Thank you Elizabeth!! It did take us less time this year to set up, but one thing I have found is setting up always takes me longer than I anticipate as well as experiencing things you may not have planned for. When it was complete, I was really excited to see the booth come to life...such a gratifying feeling!

Ta-da!

First day of Surtex! 

 

Remember when I said there are some things that will happen that you don't plan on during a show? This would be one of them.  Despite the leaks coming in from the rain, it ended up not being a big deal since it was just one spot...who knew an umbrella could have so many functions! ;)

 biz postcards...

 candy anyone?

 Meeting Bella Pilar was definitely a cool experience as I have admired her work for years...

 Setting up...

 Elizabeth and Taylor helping set up...

 crazy to see how a booth can come to "life" with some dashes of design, color and some TLC...

 

 
Also, got to meet up for dinner one night with a good friend I used to work with at my previous job when I sold building materials. (Yes, you heard me right, I used to sell building materials in corporate america) - Isn't it cool how every step we take are stepping stones for us to listen, learn and grow? Feeling so thankful that God has led me to this sweet place...and that He continues to fill me with inspiration, ideas and also uses my little girls, my husband and a community of incredible friendships that add such joy in my life. Excited to see what unfolds next!