May: Life Update

Hello and happy 1st May! I thought I would start writing monthly round-up posts on here, just to keep you all up to date with everything that's happening and coming in this next month. I'd planned to write this as my first ever newsletter, which I might still send out, but personally I find newsletters a bit spammy and don't always read them... Anyone else? Stay tuned to the end for a sneaky discount code too!

BABY UPDATE

At the time of writing this, I am now 24 weeks pregnant. WHERE is the time going?! If I’m completely honest, now is the time when I’m freaking out a little bit and feeling very overwhelmed about all of the things I need to do/buy/learn in such a short amount of time. I feel like I don't know anything, I don't know what I need to buy and I don't know what I'm doing! Any advice, tips or reassurance is greatly appreciated! I have another midwife appointment this week so I will definitely be asking lots of questions and taking notes.

As you can see from the photo above, bump is coming along nicely! Hardly any of my clothes fit and my back is aching, but aside from that, we're all good 😂 I've been writing a second trimester pregnancy diary post like my first trimester post (which I'll link here) which will be up when I reach the third trimester at Week 29 (🤯)

MY ETSY SHOP

You may not already know this if you are a new follower, but before I was ‘Ohh Jemma’ my Instagram handle was actually ‘Jemma Illustrates’, and I mostly shared illustrations. The whole back story is on my About Me page if you wanted to read all about it!

When I rebranded as ‘Ohh Jemma’, I also kept my Etsy shop, where I currently sell 2 enamel pins (which were made as part of a Kickstarter campaign in October 2020), stickers and prints. I haven’t made any sales on there for ages as I haven’t been promoting it on social media and haven’t designed anything new!

Although I absolutely love my Instagram for what it is now and my blog/website, I do miss the designing, making and packaging orders side of my small business. I asked on Instagram recently whether I should keep my Instagram as it is and add shop bits (new releases, discount codes, packaging orders) on there, or whether I should create a new Instagram for just shop stuff. The majority of people said to keep my Instagram as it is, as I share a variety of different things anyway. As promised, I won’t share shop stuff all the time - I just need to promote it more than I currently do and let people know it exists!

With my maternity looming (and the sudden drop in my pay!), I am hoping that this can become another income stream that can support me and baby! So, because of this, my Etsy shop will be RELAUNCHING ON SATURDAY 14TH MAY.

So far, I have designed quite a few Lightroom presets (basically filters for your photos), as a few people have asked me how to keep their Instagram feeds looking consistent. If you scroll back through my Instagram, you’ll see that I’ve tried a few different ways (like only taking photos of a certain colour), but I felt like this was too restrictive. Creating and using presets has helped me to stay creative whilst also keeping my theme and overall look of my photos the same!

Here is an example to show you what I mean, using my SPRING VIBES preset:

I have written two blog posts on what presets are and how to install and use them, which I will be posting in the next few days and will link here once they have been published.

As well as presets, I am also going to add sticker sheets to my shop. I am a HUGE planner girl and love using stickers to decorate my planner. I've actually been planning and testing these for months, but I had a fight with my Cricut machine a while ago and gave up. I have *finally* worked out how to make the perfect sticker sheets and have been busy behind the scenes designing a few different sheets.

Here are just a few sneak peeks of some designs that I've been working on:

I think I'm going to leave this post here! As a thank you for reading this, here is an exclusive discount code to use on my Etsy shop when it relaunches on Saturday 14th May: ITSGONNABEMAY

This will get you 20% off everything in my shop (including new releases!) and also a sneaky extra freebie if you place an order for physical products!

Thank you so much for reading, and let me know if you have any exciting plans for May below!