My own real shop!

Hello, you!

I have some very exciting news. Some of you may already have read it on Twitter.

I am opening a real shop on May the 15th!!!!

A real shop. Oh-my!

This saturday my mum, dad, my boyfriend and I went to the Rotabs Stylecenter in Rotterdam (pictures from the outside above). It's an old fire station which is now used as a place where you (as an artist) can rent a unit and use it as a shop or exposition room or work place.

All units have a downstairs and an upstairs. It's quite hard to explain, but the downstairs is the shop, the upstairs is a work place. I thought I did not needed the upstairs, I only wanted a shop. And I don't have that kind of money; to rent both down and upstairs.

We looked at different units (they're all different sizes) and I first thought I would go for a smaller one (because of the money). But there was another unit that caught our eye. It was painted white (the other ones weren't, they were light brown) and it was one of the biggest units. One problem; it was not possible to only rent the shop and not the work place above. So that was out of the question. Until my father said; why don't you (my mom) rent and use the work place? Hmmm! That was a great idea! My mum makes glass beads and jewelry. But when she's at home there is always something else to do (cleaning, washing, cooking). It would be great for her to have her own real work place (without distractions like the dishes!) to make her pieces of jewelry. So this is how it's going to be;

We will rent the whole unit together (down and up!) to use as a shop and a work place! It will be my shop, it will be her (my mom's) work place.

The shop is going to be called 'LM kwadraat'. Kwadraat means.. well, I don't know how to explain in English, but you can read the name like so; LM^2 (the product of two equal factors).

Why? Because my name is Lisa Manuels and my mothers name is Louise Manuels; our initials are 'LM' and were going to work together! I will sell her jewelry and she will help me with the workshops I'm planning to give!

I will be selling my own drawings as prints, on greeting cards, on buttons/pins, on pocket mirrors, as coloring pages and more! I am going to try to use my drawings on more products.

I also will be selling work by my mother; she makes jewelry with handmade glass beads and crochetted pieces. (hard to explain, but I will post some pictures soon!).

And also work by other artists will be sold in my shop. More about that later on!

And as I said I will be giving different creative workshops!

I guess this post is way too long, so I'll tell you more about this later on. I'm planning on making pictures of the total process; from an empty unit to my own little shop full of colorful treasures. I really can't wait!!