Life With Gemma

This week Gemma turned 5 months and I'm still in disbelief. Admittingly, I now realize that I truly did not understand how fast time passes until Gemma came into our world. She's been an absolute joy and every second spent with her makes my heart feel like it's going to explode with so much love. You know that scene in Snow White where she walks in the forest, and all the wild forest creatures suddenly flock to her—a deer feeding off of her hand, a little songbird resting on her shoulder, butterflies fluttering about? That's the same affect Gemma has on us.

Watching her explore her surroundings and trying to imagine what she could be possibly be thinking is an experience like nothing else. She stares at her hands and feet in amazement, beams when you suddenly appear, gives you the most endearing look of achievement whenever you let her stand up on your lap and my favorite of all, she can give the warmest embrace that chokes me up every time.

There's one thing that she does that I hope I never forget. Ever. Sometimes, I like to let her play independently on her mat while I'm working. Usually I'll hear her babbling, thumping her feet, or the occasional squeal—but then suddenly it gets quiet.  I'll glance over at her and find that she's looking at me. At that moment, when our eyes meet, she gives me the warmest smile—the kind of smile that you can see in her eyes—then goes back to playing. The feeling it gives me brings me to my knees. Being a first time mom can certainly bring a lot of doubt on plenty of issues, but always at that moment, when I catch that smile of hers, it makes me believe she's telling me she loves me and not to worry.

Gem of the sea

Gemma Maris

Born October 3, 2014 at 12:33am

We have some new friends!

Please welcome to the Little Kan Kan family... Owen, Lucy and Oliver and the rest of the gang from Hazel Village!

Owen loves to practice his dance moves in his secret tree house. Lucy is the fitness expert of the group and always likes to set a good example for her friends. Oliver has been practicing the accordion for about 2 years now and always wears his lucky green hat. We hope you like our new friends just as much as we do! All handmade of organic cotton and hand-stitched thread. These adorable woodland creatures will be the perfect companion for your little ones wherever they go! There will be more friends joining Little Kan Kan very soon—so stay tuned!

Happy Friday

Happy Friday!!

We have a ton of new art prints going up on the shop in just a few days, so stay tuned for those! Here's a little sneak peak of some artwork we have:

Also, we've recently expanded our kids inventory and are now waiting on some shipments to trickle in. In the meantime,  I've been working on giving the kids line it's own fancy name and branding. So without further ado, please welcome to the Kan Kan family, Little Kan Kan! It's still in the works. I want Little Kan Kan to have a life of it's own—playful and whimsical, so here's what we're thinking...

Just a sketch, but it will come to life in no time and the products we have in store are just so sweet that I hope you all will love them just as much as we do!

In other news, I'm two days shy of 39 weeks and the tiredness has hit me like a ton of bricks. Please bare with me, folks. See this lovely mug that Lockett found for me at Goodwill? Isn't it great?!

Well, back in the day it used to be filled to the brim with the perfect bold coffee to get you through the day. Now, not so much. In this mug we have some kind of tea. In fact, I don't even know what I'm drinking, but it's not cutting it.

This mug still makes me happy. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday!

Welcoming Fall & Some Pop-Up Shops

There's really nothing quite like topping off a beautiful Fall evening with a pumpkin chai tea in hand while breathing in the fresh cool air and listening to trees whistling in the wind, is there? Autumn is finally here, friends, and it's all so terribly relaxing.

Fall is my absolute favorite season of all, and this time even more lovely with the arrival of a very special baby and a business that has taken off fairly steady. As Mr. Fitzgerald astutely puts it, "life itself starts all over again when it gets crisp in the Fall." With that said, we still have lots of exciting progress that will be happening with Kan Kan in the coming months and I'm really excited to share this update with you all.

My goal for Kan Kan has never been to only have an online store selling artisan made goods. I've always felt that these pieces truly needed to be held in person to really see the incredible craft, detail, and weight that these artist have taken so much time into creating. Also, I've always dreamed of having a place that brought creatives together all under one roof. Which leads me to explain where the name Kan Kan comes from. Queue the rambling.... 

Kan Kan came from the popular Kurt Vonnegut book, Cat's Cradle which details a religion known as Bokononism. In the religion, there are various terms that it encompasses, such as the word kan-kan. Kan-kan meant "An object or item that brings a person into their karass (karass meaning, "A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner"). Now, I'm going to throw my hands up and admit, I really just liked how Kan Kan sounded and I am hardly a Kurt Vonnegut fan. Actually, I really didn't even like Cat's Cradle compared to his other stories. But I did like the meaning of kan-kan—it sounded fantastic and fit well with how I defined my ideal store.

Now that I've got my confession out of the way, let's get back to my update...

With Kan Kan, we would be thrilled to have a physical home in Atlanta but it would be a huge disappointment if we didn't have the proper location with the best foot traffic. That's why we are looking into various events and opportunities around the Atlanta area for a Pop-up Shop. Hopefully, this will let us see where Kan Kan will be a great fit! There are so many excellent reasons to start with a Pop-up Shop for your business, which I'll get into in another post, but now I'll leave you here with that little update for the day.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'd like to always update you on our journey with Kan Kan in hopes that it will inspire others. I may not know what I'm doing most of the time, but if I can share a little bit of our challenges with you, then hopefully we'll all figure it out in time!

If you know of any future events and want to see Kan Kan live in action, please send us an email (hello@shopkankan.com)! You may spot a Kan Kan Pop-Up in the coming months!

START SOMEWHERE

Here we are friends—Kan Kan is officially up and running! I’m excited to finally share with you a collection of curated goods as well as beautiful handmade pieces that can only be appreciated once they are in your hands. The process of opening an online shop supporting independent designers has been many months and late nights in the making.

However, the idea came to me back in 2011 when the exhibition design company I was working for had yet another massive layoff within their design department—and off I went packing. Having that time at home was when I thought to myself, “If I want to get a business running, now’s the time to start somewhere”. With heavy thoughts of apprehension mixed with a little bit of fire dancing in the back of my mind I finally made the push. I purchased the web address shopkankan.com, registered Kan Kan Mercantile LLC, began collecting hundreds of artists that I wanted to work with, and then my little game of risk came to a stall. From there, I played it safe again and took a job. I’m a firm believer of saying YES to everything that comes your way and at the time I was happy with my decision—even if it didn’t seem like anything would come of it. I worked for a wonderful family-owned, wholesale art company, and had the opportunity to design products alongside an amazing artist. There, I had the privilege to see first hand an artist saying YES to so many opportunities, taking risks, and most importantly, believing in the work and the company. I had learned so much from my time there and I felt like I was on a really great path to something bigger…

Fast forward to the beginning of 2014, I got pregnant and I had all these emotions (probably mostly to do with hormones) coming back to me about what I was going to do with my life. Would I have time for my baby if I was working for someone else? Would I feel fulfilled working with one creative outlet the rest of my life? Would I even have the time to finally start my business once the baby arrives? And most of all, would my daughter be proud of me if was putting my dreams aside? I felt like part of my life was at a standstill, yet, obviously, I had this massive and beautiful change coming my way. So, I did the most rational move that anyone would do. I quit my job and became fully invested in starting Kan Kan, while pregnant! It’s been an exhausting ride, but completely gratifying every step of the way. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of my family and friends during this exciting and sometimes scary chapter in my life. Before anything else, I would not be able to take credit for starting Kan Kan without mentioning my husband! Even before we began discussing this back in 2011, he has been my No. 1 believer of every idea I keep guarded in my heart. He has worked on the shop every step of the way and now I feel very fortunate to have this little family business of our own.

Over the past several months I have been working my socks off on our shop, and it’s ready to share with you at last! The entire process—from reaching out to the many amazing artisans, designing the website, media/branding to figuring out the best shipping costs for our customers has been incredibly fulfilling. I am constantly honored that any artist would want me to showcase their beautiful pieces that they’ve poured their hearts into. I feel very connected to each artist and the products I have selected for you all. I hope you enjoy them in your home and sharing them as gifts to your loved ones. This is only the beginning for Kan Kan. I have many more goals ahead for our business and I would love to share with everyone the details, the successes, the challenges, and everything in-between! I’m sure this blog will evolve over time and I’d love to hear your advice along the way! I didn’t even know I would write such a long introductory post, but I hope you  will all stick around and see what the future holds!

Rest assured, I will now end this post with a link to our shop so you lovely folks can finally have a look! Feel free to like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram to learn about any upcoming updates, discounts and giveaways! 

Thank you all so much for your support.

Shayda xx