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At the beginning of a new year, many of us take time to look back over the past twelve months to celebrate our victories and make goals for the future. One of the biggest wins I’m celebrating is that we’ve been able to give away more than 800 workbooks since starting MLT in 2017. But after looking at the numbers from this year, something became painfully obvious: my current business model for Make Lovely Things is not sustainable. Don’t worry though, I have some new plans for 2019!

Last year, everything sold in the shop counted towards more workbooks to be given away. (Every 4 coloring cards sold = 1 workbook given away, etc.) That sounded good at the time, but now that I have a better handle on all my overhead costs I can see that it’s running my business further into debt instead of enabling this vision to grow. Before I go any further though, I want to make sure that you know that the Courageous Coloring workbooks and coloring books will continue to be “buy one give one”. That will NOT change.

Starting today, the sales of products that aren’t coloring books or workbooks will help to keep the Courageous Coloring program going. I hope that structuring the business in this way will enable me to fund the creation of new workbooks and resources for even more kids than last year. One of my goals for 2019 is to be able to print a coloring workbook for elementary age girls and boys. It’s been a consistent request over the past year and a half, but I haven’t been able to afford to do it. I hope that being able to allocate funds from the non-coloring book products will make that dream possible this year.

In the coming months and years, I want to be able to offer more products to encourage and inspire kids and adults. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I have big dreams for Make Lovely Things, but sometimes I get ahead of myself and have to re-assess. I can’t promise that every decision I make will be perfect, but I will definitely be giving it my all. I welcome your feedback or questions – please feel free to leave a comment or send me a message with your thoughts. Here’s to making lovely things in the world for many years to come!