UPDATES FROM CARINA

Hi guys! A week ago I attended SNAP (which was amazing, BTW) and I was so INSPIRED by all the gorgeous work everyone was doing, that I really sat down and tried to work out what I needed to be doing better. Blogging was a top priority on my list—along with fixing my email newsletter and a million other little things that you tend to let slip when you are busy running two companies and a family.

Because I know myself, I’ve decided to force myself to keep you up-to-date with blogposts twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yes, it is not very spontaneous, but I’m finding if I don’t build a system to make it happen, it doesn’t. And I hope you guys will like hearing more about what we are doing at CGInc.

So here I am blogging.

Among my April-New-Year’s-Resolutions (since I have already stopped doing all the ones I made up in January, haha) is to also fix my email list (equally as deficient as the blogging). For those of you who were on my main list, you’ll note that we basically sent out a single monthly newsletter with EVERYTHING new from the month. It was fun and informative but A LOT of information at ONE go. And things ALWAYS got skipped over. It was simply too much stuff.

So the newsletter went on the chopping block.

NOW, if you join the newsletter, you can choose a group. This is so you can only get information on the hobbies you like most that I design for. I am send out a weekly newsletter for the sewing and svg/paper folks and a bi monthly newsletter for the class folks.  My first newsletters for this went out today! Hooray for getting organized!

This has been a long time coming. And what’s more, even if you belonged to the old newsletter list, you will need to resubscribe to these new lists. I sent out an email to everyone allowing them to add themselves to the new lists but if you didn’t get it, you can add yourself below.

You can choose your newsletter type here: GET THE NEWSLETTER & FREE DOWNLOAD.

OKay, so now you’ve heard my spiel on blogging and newsletters. Looking forward to seeing you more often!

Hugs- Carina

I’ve been thinking about taking photos of my offices and warehouse for some time now, and am excited to (finally!) give you a walk around the Carina Gardner, Inc. and MiniLou offices!

Here’s some of the backstory: We’ve been in this warehouse/office for a little over a year at this point. Before this, I had two small office spaces near my house, but when I started MiniLou in September 2014, I outgrew the space. Suddenly, I was storing inventory…more than my house or the other little office could handle.

So I moved myself into this 1000 square foot warehouse. When I moved in last February, there was a reception area that I painted and re-floored. Then we built out two more offices in June. Because the space is small (but open!), every bit had to have purpose. Our staff meetings are held in the open warehouse. Videos are made on the back wall while simultaneously storing several of the fabric collections. The sewing table sits next to boxes of coloring books. You get the picture! Every bit of the space is used.

Photo to the left: My office. All the furniture was pulled from my home office to make space in my house for my Charlie-boy. Photo below: Our reception is filled with fabric and diecutting projects. Production Assistant and Fulfillment Manager Holly Christensen mans this area. Flowers on the back wall commissioned from The Lovely Ave.

Photo below: More pictures of our reception. It’s a pretty happy place to walk into everyday!

Our reception area has a play area while storing about half of the fabrics we have in the office (the other half is in our video area and the newest lines are all in my office at my house). The opposite wall (not shown) includes a showcase of some of MiniLou’s coloring book covers.

The first office (below) houses most of the team including our sales director, graphic designer, illustrator, and pattern production assistant.

Photos below: Sales Director Dori Kesler sometimes brings baby Ellie to work. Ellie’s pretty use to the drill since she’s been coming since she was born. Graphic Designer Tom Sturzenegger works on our svgs to prep them for release.

Photo below: Illustrator Jill Johnson works on new artwork for MiniLou. More pictures of baby Ellie! It can’t be helped!

Photos below: The sewing area and conference table are in the warehouse. Here Pattern Production Assistant Arianna Phillips and I develop ideas of patterns and sew up samples. The table is spacious so that we can roll out bolts of fabric and quilts. The conference table sometimes also gets overrun with projects.

Photos below: These are the flowers from one of the CGInc Silhouette releases. It brightens up some of the stuff you have to have in an office (but maybe are not that pretty) including our fridge, microwave, and printer. The calendars were custom printed with my most recent fabric collections.

Photo below: The back of the warehouse includes Holly’s second desk, the video taping area, and my office.

Photo below: Production Assistant and Fulfillment Manager Holly Christensen pulls orders to our MiniLou retailers.

Because we are such a small team, everyone works with everyone else in one way or another. I love the synergy that creates as well as the creativity! It’s a great team and I feel lucky to have them all working for ML and CGInc!

Photo below: We video tape for a class or CGTV episode 2-5 times a month. And all of our photography for our SVG files happens in this area as well! Because what we do is so visual, we spend a lot of time with the cameras.

Photos below: My office is really Charlie’s office. I often get kicked out to the conference table because Charlie is in the office most afternoons with me and all day with me twice a week. He’s my buddy and has his own chair, tv, and consistently eats all the candy out of the candy jars in the front (you know, when Tom hasn’t gotten to them first).

Hope you had fun taking a peek at where we work! I loved showing you our space and how my little companies have grown. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

XOXO, Carina