To celebrate our "Grand Opening" of our website, www.audreyjeanne.com we are giving a coupon special of 15% discount on any order. To redeem this coupon (which is good through the month of June, 2008) enter the code "grandopening" at check out. It’s our way of saying both, "Welcome" and "Thank You!"
The first day hits were amazing and we hadn’t even hit the search engines yet this morning, thank you to all who referred friends. Hopefully, I’ll have a guest book on the site soon so I can know who stopped by and perhaps even start building an email list for a monthly newsletter.
The piece that is shown can be used for graduation and can also come with an opening for a 5 x 7 photo in cap and gown. The photo opening version isn’t on the web yet but will be by the end of the day (fingers crossed!)
Posted on May 8, 2008 | Filed under Audrey Jeanne's Expressions Framed Prints | Permalink |
We specialize in personalized wedding, anniversary, family, baby and other special calligraphy gifts with many original verses written by Audrey Jeanne Roberts.
After many years of desperately needing to have a web site – we have finally gotten one up. Though it is incomplete and imperfect, it’s live!!! This site currently carries only our framed print line, which is where I began in the art business. You can find our site at: www.audreyjeanne.com
Many of you know me only for the art I create or the design work I do for about 35 manufacturers in the art, gift and home decor industries. However, I began my career as the artist, author and calligrapher of a framed print line called, "Audrey Jeanne’s Expressions."
About a decade ago we had nearly 4,000 stores that carried our products, but as my licensing career grew, we cut back on our wholesale operation. It became too overwhelming to do both manufacturing and designing. It felt a little like trying to ride two horses at once!
During the almost 30 years that I have created these products we have built relationships with thousands of retail customers who love to give our products as Wedding, Anniversary, Baby and other gifts on a regular basis. Now there will be an easy way for those customers to see what is available and order online. We do continue to do some limited wholesale sales, so if you are a really, really special store that likes to carry unique items (especially personalized items) you can give us a call. The contact information is on our web page.
Some of the things we are capable of doing, but are not yet reflected in our web site are drop shipping, gift wrapping and including an enclosure card. So if you have an out-of-area Wedding to send a gift to, you can find the piece you like and call our office to have it wrapped and sent as a complete gift without having to leave your home!
THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: Zech 4:10 Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand. For these seven lamps represent the eyes of the LORD that search all around the world." NLT
PRAYER: Lord sometimes I tend to feel a little "less than" when I am beginning a work. It seems so small and puny I can’t even imagine how it can grow into anything significant. But in this verse you said "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin." What was true then is still true for me today.
When I take steps in new directions, or begin new ventures, remind me that great trees from tiny acorns grow. A "ministry" can begin by meeting the first need that is put before me. A deep and wonderful relationship will begin to develop with the first, "Hello." Every thing that you want to do in and through me has to start somewhere — help me to rejoice in the day of my small beginnings trusting that everything I commit to you for your blessing will grow to produce fruit in its season!
Posted on May 7, 2008 | Filed under Audrey Jeanne's Expressions Framed Prints, Products Available | Permalink |
This paper pack should be out in the store next week at www.daisiecompany.com. It was created to go with the Lavender Fields art kit that is part of the May, 2008 Daisie Club set which released yesterday.
Lavender holds a very special place in my heart. My earliest memories of the scent were from the hand embroidered sachet bags that my two dearest Great-aunts would make for me for Christmas each year. 
I remember how incredibly they fragranced my entire room when I tucked them inside my sock drawer. They were both such talented ladies, the knit, tatted, embroidered and crocheted great masterpieces. I wish they were alive today to see the way their genes have been passed along and how I create with a unique set of gifts that have come from the same family "stream of creativity."
Each sprig of lavender that was painted to create the plaid "trellis" of lavender, was painted at full size from stalks I hand picked at a local lavender farm near where I used to live in Southern California. The experiece of picking your own lavender is one I highly recommend if there is a farm near you! At first I was frightened because there were thousands and thousands of bees buzzing all over the place. I’m very allergic to their stings, but though the bees buzz all around you, they aren’t the least bit interested in humans as they are practically drunk on the nectar of the lavender plants! The smell of thousands of lavendar bushes is too awesome to describe and the lovely purple hues of the hillside with the sun shining in a clear blue sky is a picture I have stored away in my heart and mind forever.
I’m including just one product shot of the "Lavender Fields" art kit so you can see a little bit of how these papers would coordinate to create hybrid scrapbooking layout, or how you could make your own greeting cards out of them or other crafting uses.
You can see the rest of this art kit here: "Lavender Fields"
Posted on May 1, 2008 | Filed under Products Available, New Releases | Permalink |
The tenth comment on this post:http://www.daisiecompany.com/blogs/audreyjeanne/?p=361
Congratulations! She wins the paper pack I created to go with this month’s club selection "Lavender Fields" I’ll be previewing it tomorrow and it will be in the store probably tomorrow.
For anyone new, I have a blog contest twice a month and all you have to do to enter is leave a comment or comments on any and all of the posts for the two week period. The next contest will be drawn on the 16th of May. Good Luck!
Posted on May 1, 2008 | Filed under Uncategorized | Permalink |
Many, if not most of you may never even have heard of the "National Day of Prayer." It was a tradition started at the very founding of our nation. Days of prayer were declared at odd intervals as the needs of our young nation grew urgent. However in the middle of the last century a yearly observance was declared and for a little over 60 years has happened on the first Thurday in May each year. Today is that day and there are somewhere between 40-50,000 celebrations happening from coast-to-coast.
I have a very special fondness for this celebration, as it was the day I first lost my heart to my husband. Long story short, we were working together on our church’s National Day of Prayer Event. I had recently lost my husband of 16 years to Melanoma (skin cancer). Steve had been single for about 8 years and was seeking the Lord’s will for his life. Neither of us was looking for a mate. Neither of us was "putting our best foot forward." We were simply working side-by-side on organizing this event at our church and in the process, as we prayed together and shared our care and concern for our nation, God began to knit our hearts together.
For me, it culminated on the National Day of Prayer as I heard this special man pray the hidden parts of my heart outloud for almost 3 hours. It was a precious and powerful experience — one that left me a little shaken and amazed. He was (as most men are) rather oblivious for a little longer! But eventually we both realized that the Lord’s plan was to bring us together. Prayer was the start and it has remained the foundation of our marriage ever since.
It was in this experience that the Lord taught me the incredible power of prayer to bring two people into an incredible intimacy and bonding. Since then I have learned a startling statistic. If you want to virtually divorce-proof your marriage, there are two very simple things that you need to do.
The first thing is to study God’s word together. By study, it doesn’t mean just go to church on Sunday, but read, discuss and learn together. Choose to apply its principles to each of your lives and your lives together.
The second thing is simply to pray together each day.
The divorce rate for couples that do these two things is less than 1%! In a world where marriages inside the church and outside have almost the same divorce rate, sometimes we can feel like it’s impossible to have a strong marriage. If we would be willing to do ANYTHING to have a good marriage, are we willing to do these two humble, simple, proven things?
If you and your mate have never prayed out loud together, I would encourage you to give it a try. It may feel a little awkward for a while, but if you keep at it and share your hearts with each other and with the Lord it will bring an incredibly deeper dimension to your relationship. We try to pray together at least once a day and often more often.
When not together, we pray over the phone. We pray for our kids and grandkids. We pray for friends. We pray for our President and leaders, we pray as we pass a homeless person on the street. When we see a harried mother and her out-of-control children in a store we will stop and pray for her rather than stand in judgement of her. When we’re so mad at each other we can barely stand to be in the same room (yes, that happens to us too!) we always choose to come together and pray for wisdom and for each other. It’s a powerful healing balm that continually strengthens our love.
Today is the 15th anniversary of the day I fell in love with my husband and the today Lord gave me the most precious and unexpected present. Steve’s training for a new job and it has required him to be away 5-6 days a week for 6 weeks and then it might continue in a similar pattern after that. It’s very hard for us to be apart as we’ve spent most of our married life together 24/7/365! I wasn’t expecting to be able to see him until Saturday sometime, but he was able to come home late last night and stay through early this afternoon. I had forgotten it was the NDP but he hadn’t and he found the Prayer event in Washington DC on TV. We had the joy of watching much of it together this morning! What a special treat it was, especially for my sad and lonely heart… God is so good to us!
If your marriage is a little (or a lot) rocky. Can I encourage you to start by praying for your mate? You might find it hard, but if you can start by praying blessings for them, praying for strength and wisdom for them and for God to change both of your hearts and help you to find the path forward, you might be surprised at how God can bring it to pass. If they won’t pray with you, still take the time and effort to pray alone. God answers prayer.
If you do not have a mate either by choice or by loss, ask God to provide you a special friend and prayer partner. The depth of friendship that shared prayer brings is a treasure I pray you’ll discover! And while you’re thinking about it, I’d like to encourage you to spend a few moments in prayer for our nation.
SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: 2 Chron 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. NIV
PRAYER: Lord, thank you for the nation you have placed me in. Your promises are for every land, every nation… you love each and every one. I pray that as big as the problems in our land can seem that you would help me to remember that you are bigger than all of them! Help our people to love doing right, hate doing wrong and most of all come to love you and your ways. Please heal our land of all that ails us. Make it a place of righteousness, love, joy and peace for the generations yet to come. AMEN
Posted on May 1, 2008 | Filed under Faith & Inspiration | Permalink |
One of my top selling kits of all time has been the Gerbera Daisies kit that I introduced early last year. Well, I revisited it and updated it in a little bit of a new direction and created Gerbera Daisies 2 and its companion paper pack that will be coming to the store next week.
I have added some wonderfully textured, chalked, inked and otherwise distressed tags, frames and other goodies. I’ve also created some very fun buttons and embellishments.
If you bought the Gerbera Daisie Scrapbooking Album I released last year (You can find it here GERBERA DAISIE INSTANT SCRAPBOOK ALBUM, and ORIGINAL GERBERA DAISY KIT 1) this kit was created to compliment them and could be also be used to create additional pages to coordinate with and expand on the album.
I’ve also created some really fun "paper flowers" to take it in a more contemporary and whimsical direction. The paper pack offers several different colorways of some very contemporary papers and wonderfully complex plaids, florals and swirly papers. My 21 year daughter thinks this is the best (which help me to know I’m on track!)
I’ll post all of the previews at the Daisie Designers/Artist’s Announcement Forum later in the day, so you can see all of the item and papers included. I’ll come back and post a link here once I do.
I’ll be back tomorrow and try to post a little more frequently as I’m (hopefully) almost through two huge projects that have been stealing all of my time and attention. I’m REALLY hoping to get some painting time in soon as I’m itching to create some really new things instead of graphically arranging older things (which is what I end up doing for my mfg’s projects!)
Posted on April 27, 2008 | Filed under New Releases | Permalink |
(UPDATE: THIS SET IS NOW IN THE STORE AND YOU CAN GET THERE BY CLICKING ON THE FIRST IMAGE TO THE LEFT) The second set in the "Hummingbirds - Winged Jewels" series is being released on Friday at www.daisiecompany.com. I wanted to show you the previews of the art kit today and the paper pack probably tomorrow.
When I first saw this antique wheelbarrow I absolutely fell in love with it, it reminds me of the "Velveteen Rabbit" of a gardener, well-loved, patched together and still useful! I painted this image quite a few 
years ago and it still is one of my all-time favorites. It was fun to pull elements out of this painting to create these two kits.
I’ve also included a text art piece that can be used for greeting cards, accenting scrapbook pages or many other uses. I wrote the quote on it after watching how early my hummingbirds begin their days - they’re up before dawn at my feeders outside my bedroom and often awaken me with their "trash-talking" at one another! If you’ve never heard them, they’re actually very loud little critters.
The main two hummingbirds included in this kit are Rufous (the brown with green and red throat) and Ruby-throated. Both of these frequent my feeders so I’ve had a great selection of photos and real life experience to paint from , the green hummingbird is a tropical variety that I’d love to see in the wild one day.
I’m planning on painting quite a few more hummingbirds later this spring. Those of you that have read my blog for a while know that I feed about 100 hummers during the summer and I have a wealth of photos to work from. They are such fascinating subjects that bring back wonderful memories of my childhood. My mother planting hummingbird attracting flowers in every home that we lived in and we would sit for hours watching the winged jewels flit and play in our gardens.
I hope that you’ll sense some of that wonder and enjoyment when you’re crafting with these art kits! This will retail for $5.98 for the digital clip art kit and will be available on Friday, April 18th, 2008
THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY: Song 2:12-13 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me." NIV
PRAYER: Lord, as I lift my eyes up and see the hills filled with the beauty of your creation this spring, my heart leaps thinking that you have made all of this for my joy and pleasure. You paid attention to every detail in the "painting" that lies before me. I am reminded that you also pay as careful attention to the details of my life and that I can trust you to paint a picture of beauty in it as well.
Blow away the dinginess of winter and put a new song in my heart, give my a fresh joy and a eyes to see all that you have blessed me with in my life. Thank you that you delight to spend time with me and that I too am a beautiful creation in your eyes! Show me how to grow into a deeper more loving relationship with you, it’s my heart’s desire. AMEN
Posted on April 16, 2008 | Filed under Crafting, New Releases | Permalink |
First… I have my family draw from a jar of numbers without looking at the posts so there’s absolute and total randomness to the winner. And for those that post here, you can win more than once. The blog winner is the third comment on this post: http://www.daisiecompany.com/blogs/audreyjeanne/?p=356
She is one of the most faithful readers and commentors and I want to say "Congratulations" to her! She’ll win the Hummingbirds 2 Paper Pack that is coming out next week and that I’ll preview later today along with its counterpart the Hummingbirds 2 Art Kit.
The next Free Digital Clip Art contest starts today and runs through the end of the month with the drawing to be held on the first of May. All you have to do is post a comment on any and all posts between today’s and the end of the month and you’re automatically entered. Good Luck!
Posted on April 16, 2008 | Filed under Contests | Permalink |
I thought I would remind y’all that the twice monthly drawing would be on Wednesday so if you’re interested in winning a free digital clip art kit, just post a comment on any of my posts from the 1st to the 15th of this month and you’re automatically entered. Good Luck!!!!
Posted on April 13, 2008 | Filed under Daily Life | Permalink |
To show you what can be done with the "Berry Sweet" Digital Clip Art kit available from www.daisiecompany.com, I thought I would make a recipe card with it and then of course I had to search the web for a great recipe to fill it in with. I found this website after googling "healthy cookies." The site is http://heart-healthy-cooking.suite101.com/article.cfm/berry_chocolate_oatmeal_cookies
I’ve created this freebie both with and without the recipe on it so you can put your own scrumptious strawberry goodies on a beautiful card and maybe even give them away to brighten someone’s day!
To download the file, simply click on the image and it will take you to a 4shared.com downloading site where you’ll be able to retrieve the file. It will take about 30 seconds or so for the link to download to show up. It will be in the center of the page.
Feel free to share these with friends either by directing them here to my blog, or by including all the files that are in the folder so that they know the terms of use and who the art was created by. So if you have a message board or yahoo group that you like to share goodies with you have my permission to do so. Enjoy! Now, if only I had some strawberries and chocolate chips handy… must write it on my grocery list 
Posted on April 11, 2008 | Filed under Uncategorized | Permalink |
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