Beans: Happy Thanksgiving!

CHEERS!!!!

A toast to YOU! We here at Bean Up The Nose Art wish you and yours the happiest Thanksgiving ever! We happen to think you deserve it.

We're taking the rest of this week off from blogging. And so, we now set forth some of the things for which we are grateful this year.

Last year, we blogged an entire Month of Gratitude. A post a day about what we were grateful for. It was wonderful to photo and write and blog. (Click here to find the Nov. 30 entry . . . from which you can scroll down to see all others.) It included all the great gratitude mainstays of life.

This year, we're grateful for all of those things. But in the world of blogs, one doesn't repeat like that. Because all the posts are there!

So, what now?

This Thanksgiving post, we're talking about all the things we're grateful for in this big year of change for little Bean Up The Nose Art.

Ready? Let's go!

We are grateful for Twitter. And Facebook. And all social media venues . . . which we used to hate without even having any idea why, before we actually USED them -- and got hooked by all they provide. Connection. Humor. Support. Opportunities to write, explore, experiment, tell folks how you feel. Learn about them, from what they respond with. Build bridges. Make new friendships. Strengthen old ones in new ways.

We are grateful for the chance to go on art retreats. With friends, and by ourselves. So much to learn by sitting down and listening, following your he/art. Such chance to recharge, retool, return to the call of creativity.

We are oh so amazingly grateful for friends -- old, old, old, and brand-spanking new -- who have supported us in stunning numbers and ways this year. From buying products to tweeting and Facebooking about shows to celebrating 50th birthday parties making art, and every way in between. 2011 has been just about the best friendship year in life, let alone in business.

We are profoundly grateful to have been spotted by The French Artist Club, who began sales repping our cards and luggage tags the last week of December last year, and who is now distributing them throughout the western US. We are grateful for the skills and tenacity of the sales folk, and the business skills that have brought a brand new printer into our scheme . . . who is starting to do the fulfillment end of things, too . . . which will free us up in 2012 to do more creating. YAY!!!!

We are grateful for the market and opportunity to produce more and more cards this year -- 30 of them. We are grateful for the kind, watchful, smart, advising eyes of friends we trust who give us good feedback on which images work best.

We are grateful for the kindness and support of lots and lots of folks . . . many springing from the Twitterverse . . . who have ordered custom-made greeting cards this year, as well as wedding place cards and save-the-date cards. Thank you so much for supporting a local person you actually know. Thank you for giving this business the chance to make something you like.

We are grateful for art classes taken -- by us, and by friends from us. We are grateful for the delight of sitting together in a room together for hours and feeling the creative magic build. We're grateful for witnessing folks' courage in letting themselves go and make art, even when they thought they "weren't artistic." We are grateful for getting to see them discover that they are.

We are oh so very, very grateful for the writing group that we joined this year, sponsored by A Band of Wives, at which we wrote many blog posts and big chunks of "How to Start Making Your Art Your Business." And drank a lot of coffee. Which is always something to be grateful for, in our book :)

We are way so wow so grateful for people who have supported this business this year by coming out to shows and buying lots of stuff! Like, REALLY!!! Thank you to everyone who has spent their precious weekend time in support of artists -- like me -- and purchased our wares. You really have no idea how much that means.

Yep!!!! Big, fat, juicy, gigantic THANK YOU WISHES to all of you for all of your kindness, support and love this year. You have made it possible for us to go farther, faster and have way more fun than we ever, ever imagined back on last Thanksgiving. This year has been amazing, and it could not have happened without all of you. So . . . .