March 11, 2017
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It’s nearly Halloween here in the USA, which means the Christmas merchandise has been in the stores for at least a few weeks now… I am a bit tarnished when it comes to the commercial element of the holidays, mainly caused by the years and years of working in retail and in malls, it tends to bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people.
I prefer doing something a little more personal for gift giving, in the past I have created my own Christmas cards for my friends and family, hand drawing and painting each separate one then giving them out, I never had a specific number of them to make, I would just make as many as I could and hand them out to ever increasing circles of friends until I didn’t have anymore to give away.
I think this year I’m going to do something with my photos that I have worked on for the last couple of years. I have been picking the best scenic photos, editing them and uploading them to a printing service (https://www.moo.com) to print out as post cards. I decided on them because I can do small runs, and can even do multiple images per pack, all the others that I have found require one image per pack and for now, I don’t need 100+ of the same post card, at least not yet.
I am pretty excited about this, not only to give out as Christmas cards, but to sell in town. I live near 3 different towns that rely on tourist dollars, there seems to be a great need for inexpensive souvenirs for the tourists, something they can pick up for their friends and family back home that will remind them of their trip to the towns here. I have seen a few attempts by the locals here to print and sell post cards, when I look at what has been available at random times (nothing consistent), I believe I have a real opportunity. I just need to get this off the ground before it gets much closer to the holidays, that’s when the gift shops in town will be looking to buy from local artists.
I am including some samples of my photography here, they are lower quality than the originals and they have a watermark, some are not fully edited and ready for production. Once I get my first run printed, I’ll post images here of those cards.
If anyone reading this has had any experience with this print company (moo.com), or another print company, I would love to hear your experiences.
What are you doing to celebrate the holidays? Do you create gifts or do you buy them?
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Off-Grid Ale’s owners Randy and Denise Rowe have lived in a solar-powered home on Harvey Lake in New Brunswick, Canada for seven years. Now they’re opening an off-grid brewery on their isolated, idyllic land.
Although their home is powered by renewable energy, Randy confessed that the workplace “wasn’t necessarily to be off-grid.” But with the nearest power lines kilometers away and a real pull to the area, it worked out like that. “We didn’t have a grid here, but we really liked the location.”The brewery will depend on solar and wind power to operate.
To ensure consistency in their brews, Off-Grid Ales relies on a propane system for heating. “You can’t produce a lot of electricity without spending a lot of money so basically, we have to do everything very energy-efficiently,” said Randy.
The couple plans on having four different beers including a red, a double IPA and should be out on store shelves in Canada this fall.
The couple had always dreamed of building a brewery branch on their little slice of heaven; “We love it out here” said Denise Rowe. “It is quiet. It is peaceful. I go for runs on our five-kilometre driveway. “…
We have been living 100% off-grid since December ’07, before leaving our old life, we both worked jobs, he had his restaurant equipment repair business, I was employed by Best Buy as a merchandiser and worked at Curves (a gym for women) on a very part time basis. Now I’m sitting here in my off-grid sky castle, getting ready to go to bed, sipping on sweet hot caramel flavored coffee. I look forward to going to work early in the morning, something I haven’t done in 7 years.…
…and other random thoughts. :) One of the questions I get asked when I tell people where I live (on a mountain side, in the high desert, of far western Texas), they ask “Texas has mountains?” or “I didn’t know there were mountains in Texas…”. Well I’m here to tell you that Texas DOES have mountains, I live a mile high, in the Davis Mountains, which used to be called the Apache Mountains, fitting for me because I am part Apache (as well as Comanche), not enough to claim any benefits, but enough to give me some physical features and a wonderful heritage.
I can say that I feel so much at home here, like I have come home, I always wanted to live in the mountains and in the desert, I get to do both.…
A
quiet corner of a farm near Birmingham has become a workplace for a busy mum-of-two.
Just 20 yards from her house is Paula Fallows’ office, inside what looks like a beach hut.
It took about three days for her and her husband to build it.
“It’s really good because it’s totally separate from the house,” she says. “You can go in there, work away and shut the door at the end of it. You don’t cross that line of having your work in your house.
“But you don’t have very far to go, it’s just across from the house, literally a 20 yard walk. For people who do work from home, the cost savings are enormous and the commuting time as well.”
Paula put the hut on wheels to avoid planning permission problems – and to make the most of the sun.
She designed the chassis and recycled other parts, including the wheels to cut expenses, with the finished hut costing £2,600.…
Billionaire George Soros says the banking sector is a “parasite” holding back the economic recovery and an “incestuous” relationship with regulators means little has been done to resolve the issues behind the 2008 crisis.
“The banking sector is acting as a parasite on the real economy,” Mr Soros says in his new book “The Tragedy of the European Union” (Buy in the UK).…
Legal marijuana is a major new cash crop for the off-grid community in Washington State and Colorado.
And a “marijuana hangover is starting to hit the beer industry,” the Financial Times reports.
The end of pot’s prohibition has rattled the beer industry for years, raising fears that consumers will be able to – legally – get their buzzes from new places. So if you live off-grid – start growing – Cannabis Grow Bible, The: Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use
New data on US beer sales, confirms these fears by offering evidence that pot appears to have eaten into Colorado beer sales in January.
Beer sales fell 4.9 per cent across the US last month, but 9.2 per cent in Colorado. Moreover, beer’s share of total alcohol sales also fell more in Colorado than in the rest of the country.…
London squatter Amir Taaki has been tipped as a budding billionaire by Fortune magazine
The 25-year-old associated with Dark Wallet, an online service that allows people to trade Bitcoins anonymously, was one of two Londoners who first pioneered the digital currency several years ago, planning it in the offices of Hackspace.
In our video interview with him last year, Taaki explains why and how he coded Bitcoin.…
A US startup aims to lower energy costs by balancing the power grid with batteries charged during cheaper non-peak hours. It just received $15 million in funding from General Electric and the Spanish renewable energy company Iberdrola.
Stem, an energy storage company in San Mateo, CA, is part of a trend that will lead to cheaper, better batteries and load balancing kit that will assist the off-grid movement.The premise of Stem’s business model is the inefficiencies in the current utilities industry.…
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