Looking back on 2020 and making new plans

Hello lovelies!

I hope you're all staying safe and taking good care of yourselves and your loved ones. It has been a while since my last post and I have l learnt a lot about owning a small business. 2020 has been a ride, I think we can all agree. Now that a new year is upon us, I'd like to reflect on the achievements of 2020 (focusing on the positive <3 ) and make plans for 2021.

2020 was wild. For me personally, my minutely planned wedding had to be postponed until it's safe again for people to meet in person. Same goes for a University trip to Greece. This was sad, but gave me the time and opportunity to finally clear out the old workshop at my ancestral home and make it into Witchy Turtle HQ.

<--- Before and After

Next off, was going to be Vienna Comic Con in November, which, sadly, had to be canceled too. Lucky me, though: Doodle Group Vienna reached out to me on instagram, having seen, that I - like many of their own artists - would have had a booth at VieCC. Not only did I end up helping with their plan to create an online Artist's Alley with social media shoutouts, discounts and live events, that were streamed during the week of VieCC, I also made lots of new friends in this awesome artist's community.

<--- click to see the website

https://doodlegroupvienna.wixsite.com/doodlealley

The website for the event is still up, and though the event is over, I encourage you to absolutely check out the individual artists on there. Overall, Doodle Alley Online was a blast and I look forward to participating in many more Doodle Group events in the future.

Furthermore, in 2020, I've picked up water colour painting again and decided to combine my loves for herbal magic and divination to create an Oracle Deck.

Since I own a cutting machine and a nice printer now, I decided to produce these cards myself. Each card will contain a painting of the represented herb on the front, as well as information on its growth conditions, health benefits, historical trivia and its spiritual message, which is the core of an oracle. I'm aware, that this is not the usual structure of an oracle card, since they are mostly meant to be shuffled and drawn randomly. Since these wont have a unified design on one side, shuffling might become a bit tricky, but on the other hand, you won't have to interrupt your meditation or reading, by having to look through a booklet to find the meaning of the cards.

This deck is something I'm making, because it's something I've been looking for and finding a lack of it. I think it is rather convenient to be able to have a deck of cards on you, when deciding what herb to use in a spell or ritual, which can tell you their meaning and uses and based on that make your decision easier. At the same time, I often use oracle cards for insight and meditation, rather than divination (which I mostly use tarot or runes for). Still, I feel you could still shuffle and draw them with your eyes closed, if you decide to do a proper reading, while having all information, you need to interpret them, at hand.

Isabella's goals for 2021:

• Finish up the designs and texts for the Oracle Deck and start production.
• Get married! (Hopefully with the party of the century, this time)
• Finish pending custom orders.
• Successfully implement a credit card payment option for the shop.
• Have an actual physical booth at at least 1 convention this year.
• Continue working with Doodle Group Vienna, maybe on another digital convention and similar projects.

This is it for now, but, knowing me, there's probably many more projects to come. Let's hope that 2021 is kind to us. <3 If you made it this far, let me know, by telling me some of your goals for 2021 in the comments! I'd love to get inspired :D

Much love and take care out there!