Today we’re excited to be connecting with Shay Holloway again. We’re excited to feature one of their products in our gift guide – learn more below and we encourage you to use your gift budget to support small businesses & creatives whenever possible.

Shay, so thrilled to have you joining us again, this time to talk all about products and so let’s jump right in. Please give our audience some background on the product side.
“A Colorful Adventure” is a coloring book complete with 22 of my original designs! A little while ago I got really interested in zentangle art and started playing around with creating my own patterns and designs. Zentangle art is fun and it’s cool because it’s something that anyone can create! However, it’s special in the sense that no one’s patterns will look the same, there are a ton of ways to combine patterns and lines; it feels like endless possibilities of creativity.

If I’m being perfectly honest, I wasn’t super crazy about creating a coloring book when I first started playing around with zentangle art. Creating a coloring book felt kind of like the typical thing to do, but I created a couple of things and posted them to my Facebook page and they were received really well! I got comments like “Omg, I’d totally color this”, or “You should create a coloring book”, so I finally broke down and said to myself “okay, just give it a shot”. And now here I am with a full coloring book!

Coloring is something that everyone can enjoy, no matter the age. Coloring literally has no age limit. What’s special about my coloring book is that ALL ages can enjoy it. The designs are simple and interesting enough for school aged children to enjoy, yet not TOO simple for adults to enjoy.

What’s been the most exciting part of the journey of taking this product from idea to real life?
The most exciting part has been seeing how people take each coloring page and splash their own creativity onto it! Everyone has a different eye for colors and seeing what direction people lean in when coloring has brought me so much joy. When people purchase the coloring book to color sheets and send me photos, the final colored sheet feels like a collaborative effort between myself and each person the coloring book touches. We’re co-creating a piece of art and I love that!

Have you tried any fun, non-traditional marketing ideas? If so, we’d love to hear the story and details.
Every month I host a coloring contest! Here’s how it works: you purchase a coloring book, color a sheet or two then send me a picture of the page that you colored either on social media or via email. Toward the end of the month I will post all of the colored sheets that have been submitted onto my social media platforms (Instagram and Facebook) and allow my followers to vote on which coloring sheet they like the best. After about 24 hours of allowing my followers to vote a coloring sheet the winner is selected and I reach out to them with an offer. Sometimes the offer looks like a free coloring book, a free packets of coloring sheets, or sometimes even discount codes to my website!

The coloring contest idea came to me randomly one day as I was looking through the proof of my coloring book. I had a vague memory of being in elementary school during the holidays (you know those days when you’re about to get out for break so your teacher isn’t giving you a lot of work to do). Teachers would give us coloring sheets during these days to just keep us busy and entertained. At various times we would have class coloring contests and I thought “omg, that would be SO much fun to do-host a coloring contest every month!” As I’ve said before, coloring does not have an age limit, anyone can enjoy coloring, so I felt like the monthly coloring contests would be something that a person of any age could participate in!

What’s next on the product or brand roadmap?
What’s next is another coloring book! It probably won’t be released for a little while but I am indeed working on another one. This next one will be in a similar zentangle type style, except with this one, each page will have an affirmation or mantra featured. I want people to enjoy coloring AND in the process of coloring read encouraging words that make them feel good about themselves!

Image Credits
Shay Holloway