BaldiBearART

Friday Finds... BaldiBearART


This is my 23rd interview of the amazing not-so-well-known artists of Etsy!

Hi Everyone! Hope you are all well! I'm great myself and really looking forward to sharing todays interview with you :)
My regulars probably know that I'm pregnant and do tend to have a nice waffle about it in various posts here and there... I'm 35 weeks now to be exact! And it has been quite nice to fill this pregnancy with my love of browsing through Etsy to find things that I may want for my little girl when she arrives. I have spent MONTHS doing that... no purchases but I have found some pretty cool things. Which brings me to todays seller.
I think I came across Justine of BaldiBearART on Etsy a few weeks back but only managed to get a chance to ask for an interview early in the week. And the reason being, that I am just in LOVE with her stationary. The concept is brilliant and the designs are stunning!
The interview has come at a good time for me as I have had confirmation from the hospital that my situation has now been moved from high risk to low risk so for me, enjoying the idea of thinking ahead is more comforting now that the worrying part is finally over!
The Artwork you are about to see is something that really makes me think about how I want to adorn my little girl's life with this sort of motherly beauty, kindness and love as it emanates a radiant motherly touch that you generally just WOULDN'T find in your standard commercial mom/baby stationary or images geared at parents. It takes me back to that place... not because I'm old fashioned with a Waldorf drive at heart, but I just love things that remind me that it's OK to be a child (and a mom) and I look forward to teaching my little girl that, as I already do with my son. Actually it reminds me a lot of being a child myself looking at some of the adorable illustrations, and literally fills me with happiness. I hope to maybe purchase a print of the little girl with the balloons, to hang in my daughters nursery when we eventually change homes! (Check her store for that one its gorgeous!) So enjoy Justine's interview, and do check out her store!


(Just click the images to go direct to the listings)







-- Tell me a bit about you! (Name, Age, Location, and give us a random fact whilst you're at it.) My name is Justine Brentnall. I am 36, a wife, and mother of four little treasures. We live in Wagga Wagga Australia. Random Fact: I love the charm of brown paper and string parcels – I wrap all my orders this way.


-- What is your business about then? My business is called BaldiBearART and specializes in Nursery Art Prints and Baby Stationery. My designs are not your mainstream type Nursery Art which is what I love about them. I am passionate about creating a brand which offers something fresh, different, and original.


-- How did Etsy come into your life? they begged me to open up shop on their site – no just kidding of course. I can’t remember specifically but I would have stumbled upon it while web surfing to research my business idea. I am glad I found it.


-- Are you working a day job too? No I’m not, but some days think it would be easier - I have two young babies at home, and two children at school. They all work me pretty hard!


-- How long has the artist in you been 'unleashed' for? Since I can remember. My mother is an artist so I have been exposed to it from a young age. I have always kept the creative side of me alive over the years, but it is only recently I have been in a position to pursue it seriously.

-- What has been the inspiration behind your business? The fact that I love original art and wanted to extend it to the nursery. The digital images of animals and alphabets on the market are lovely but they were not for me, or for the theme of our home. I wanted something a bit more unique and different so I created it myself, and the business was born. Further on from that, the feedback I get from people is the ongoing inspiration. I am continually humbled when people buy my work. I am also a bit of a paper junkie – LOVE stationery. I have always made my own cards and invitations, so creating the stationery line was a natural progression on from the prints.


-- If you could describe your products in three words, what would you tell me? unique, simplistic, original


-- What would an average working day for you be like from dawn til dusk? The mornings are an organized chaos getting everybody ready for the day. Once there is order I usually have a quick look at my emails, Facebook Page, Blog, and Google Analytics while I am eating breakfast. During the day I work randomly at the business side of things when I can grab moments to sit at the computer or parcel an order. I always try to get a power nap in too when the babies are asleep to re-charge as I work late at night. Come evening my work day begins. I am a night owl so late at night is when my creativity comes out and I works on designs. I also work on my stores, and social networking, and all the other bits that you need to keep doing create an online presence.

-- What's your favorite material and techniques to work with? Graphite pencils and water-soluble graphite on the gorgeous Arches Papers. I am working with water-soluble oils too at the moment, which I am really enjoying.


-- What is your ideal vision for the future for you and your work? My ideal vision is to be busy enough to have staff! I want BaldiBearART to be a recognized brand in Baby products. Yes I know my vision is quite grand, but someone said to me once to ‘shoot for the moon, and if you fall short you will be amongst the stars’, and it resonated, and stuck with me. So that is what I am doing.


-- Away from work, what do you like to do for fun or to wind down? I love food with friends so I enjoy cooking and eating out. Reading and a glass of wine is my idea of the perfect wind down but it is a bit rare these days. Aside from that I love to work - drawing and painting. I suppose I do not think of it as work so it also falls under what I do for fun and to relax and wind down.

-- What are you likely to search for on Etsy? I like finding the hand bound journals and any type of books. I also search the nursery art to see what’s around. Aside from that I search the time machine a lot because I am always pleasantly surprised at the talent that pops up all the time on Etsy.


-- Any last words? Just thankyou for having me! It’s much appreciated. You can visit my Etsy store at www.baldibearart.etsy.com, and you can stay up to date with new releases on my facebook page at www.facebook.com/BaldiBearART

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...





I have had a pretty good week for a change when it comes to getting things done, so you've probably noticed already i finally have new prints in my store... 6 infact!!! go me! I've been feeling a bit sorry for myself up until i managed to fashion organisation into my head at some point about 6 days ago, and since I have been on fire! I've even managed to get a tonne of housework done!

At the same time I have been celebrating reaching the second trimester this week, managing to get a hospital appointment for a dating scan after all hell broke loose last week with my GP and chosen hospital since my referal had magically disappeared weeks ago, which frighteningly left me with no place to have the baby! A million phone calls later, and I am now looking forward to my first appointment this week *sighs*. yes! and yesterday I had a Halloween party with my other half, son and his lil friends. That was a good end to a busy week. All in all I am happy... OHHHHHHHHH and to top it all off yesterday I was also asked if I wanted to showcase my work in a shopping event at the Warwickshire Exhibition Center which left me elated at the prospect!!! Emphasis on prospect... my only downer... that I may not be able to do it, but I am awaiting more information to see if I can because, OMG my own little stall in an EXHIBITION CENTER... WOOP!!!! Also I have previously turned down 2 other opportunities this year like it and I REALLY dont want to have to for this one because of the usual money issues... short term ones I mean, as obviously longer term it would be a good spend as I would sell the work and make up for it, but unfortunately the short term really does leave the whole idea in question so I need to think very hard and carefully about it... and HOPEFULLY, I'll be able to do it! I'm so chuffed that I had been found on Etsy and asked to take part. I guess even if I can't it's a nice feeling to think that event organisers 3 times this year have liked what I do enough to go out of their way to find and contact me!

So whilst I'm puffed up with pride and achievement this week I think I'll leave this short entry here for this Sunday :)

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...



I'm currently in the process of discovering the classic joys of pregnancy as most of you probably know from my previous Sunday post, and so far this week I've been under the hopeful (yet very naive) belief that because I am approaching the 2nd Trimester, all of the lovely things that have been happening to me lately will cease to plague my days. However I am wondering if I'm going to be one of the lucky ladies that lives in the 1st trimester throughout the entire 40 week period, as so far I haven't noticed any let up in my pregnancy symptoms. Only that they appear to be getting worse! Eek!

When I was pregnant with my son I loved the fact that despite having physical trauma towards the start, and the need for chiropractic care 4 times a week for many months I was pretty fortunate to not experience morning sickness, nor the loss of appetite thing and the like... but bloomin heck, I dont know what's worse at the moment. It's pretty frightening actually, as I'm sure highly amusing for anyone that watches me heaving 100s of times a day, but I have completely lost my desire for food, and because my sense of smell seems to be amplified, any food stuffs I approach sets off this uncontrollable need to be sick. It's terrible and I don't know what to do about it. If it was just the sickness that's fair enough but to loose my desire for food and find every smell I come across physically unbearable worries me a lot, particularly as it seems to be getting worse. I hear a lot of women get this problem but I never imagined morning sickness to go as far as this. I look forward to the day that I dont have to retch all the way through my cooking and spend millions of years trying to get through meals, I only hope that it lets up soon!


Despite the fun and games, I have been back on form all week enjoying finding lots of newbies to help promote and making the necessary alterations in my store (slowly but surely). Glad to have successfully managed it all too in amongst all the goings on at home too, but I have felt that despite the changes something feels a bit empty. The great things I think have been making more time for myself on top of my usual duties, but for some reason there is this feeling that with the blog in particular there is a need for something more. I have been considering adding a new weekly post, which I thought could involve linking to helpful resources, focusing on the arts, design, marketing, business... you know, the generally need to know's for I guess a lot of people trying to work from home as there is SOOOO much that I have found to be handy myself, and not enough venues that list all the need to knows in one place. I personally have 1000s of links bookmarked in my browser and most of the time I'm driven nutty trying to go through what I find to be particularly helpful to me, as my internet habits normally involve me coming across these kind of things then bookmarking them for later reading (lack of time factor). As I do have a lot of good one's (that I have managed to check out) I know for me and anyone that's interested, to have them all available in one place will be handy for future reference. This will all need planning though as I still havent worked out how to make this idea an organised idea, nor how I plan to catagorize topics on the blog to keep things minimal yet accessible. So this one is one that'll come in time. I'll keep ya posted :)

I think maybe I'll end this one for today, as the week has been more of an adjustment to changes than interesting things to share that have occured so hopefully next week I'll have a lot more to talk about, now that I'm back into the swing of things!