THESE 3 WORDS BEST SUM UP OUR 2017.

HERE’S A MONTH-BY-MONTH LOOK AT OUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE YEAR!

JANUARY

We experienced lots of FIRSTS to start the new year! Eunice Sun joined the workshop line up and taught her very FIRST workshop in January - Watercolor Gems & Lettering! (We’ve become experts of boomerangs thanks to Eunice ever since!) We also held our FIRST bridal shower in the shop with Kate Coogan of P+H Chalk teaching a private workshop. It was one of a bunch of showers we hosted! Cheers to all the happy brides that have come through!

It also got a little crazy as rare heavy storms came through Southern California! As much as Liz LOVES rain, the downpour of rain was more than we asked for! With the help of makeshift buckets and sandbags, we survived some wild ceiling leaks and a flooded 4th Street! Oh, the joys of being shop owners!

The OC Women’s March took place in Downtown Santa Ana, starting right on 4th Street in front of our shop. We had no clue what to expect, but it was an overwhelming turnout here in DTSA! That was the most people we have ever seen walk the streets of our neighborhood here.

FEBRUARY

February was filled with lots of CREATIVITY! Younghae Chung of Logos Calligraphy launched a 3 part workshop series for Copperplate Calligraphy. This was one of many more Intermediate workshops added to our line up throughout 2017. She also created new calligraphy practice pads which we added to our shop as we grew our selection of calligraphy supplies!

We also focused on creating a space for creativity with events like Calligraphy & Tea and monthly DTSA Artwalk activities.

MARCH

We made it to March :) Some months it’s about the fact that “We SURVIVED!”. The day-to-day of the shop life is no joke. Don’t get us wrong - it’s tons of fun! But the grind tests our resolve, our patience, and our vision! So on many occasions, we just needed to stop to celebrate the fact that we're still here and we get to do something we love!

APRIL

 Our love of letters and cards are a huge part of our shop! For National Lettering Writing month, we took part in the #Write_On campaign, 30 days of written correspondence, created by Egg Press. We are glad that so many of you took part in the letter writing journey with us!

MAY

We experienced our first Cinco De Mayo fiesta! DTSA sure knows how to throw a party! We also took part in our second Patchwork Show. We’re big fans of Dear Handmade Life and the co-founders, Delilah and Nicole. We love their passion to empower creatives and support entrepreneurs.

JUNE

Summer arrived and we LAUNCHED OUR ONLINE SHOP! It was no easy task to get every item listed and to figure out the ins and outs of running an online business. Finally, seeing the online shop go live was yet another highlight because we were able to share our collection of curated goods with the world!

JULY

We celebrated a huge milestone with our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! From July 15-16, we held anniversary festivities, with workshops by Sara of Handmade By Sara Kim and Dianuh of Chasing Linen on Saturday and an ombre donut wall with over 100 donuts on Sunday! Thanks for celebrating with us! We still can’t believe we’ve been open for over a year now!

AUGUST

We held our 100th Workshop in August with the help of Angelique, Ink and delicious cake pops from Elise Cakes! We’ve had some memorable milestones with Angi and this was another one for the books. We hit 5K followers on Instagram which was pretty cool too.

SEPTEMBER

Our Fall window display was a fav in 2017. We loved everything about it - the colors, the copper accents, and the way the yarn draped on the pipes. And most of all, it took less than 3 hours to put together, much to Mel’s relief since Liz tends to go crazy (in the best of ways!) with the window installations!

OCTOBER

This month marked the launch of our M.Lovewell Calligraphy Supply Tray Collection. Going through the design process and seeing it come to life was super fun for us. We’re so glad that many of you love our trays! We were able to ship our calligraphy trays around the world, including Australia and Germany!

NOVEMBER

We welcomed Kelly Klapstein of Kelly Creates from Canada who made a stop on her teaching tour to hold a Brush Lettering workshop with us! We also celebrated her book release of “The Art of Brush Lettering”!

We participated in the Patchwork Show for the third time as it moved to 4th street right in front of our shop. We loved seeing people jump in for watercolor demos with Eunice of Electric Eunice and DIY Holiday Wreath Making.

DECEMBER

We had 10,000 people visit our shop this year! We are grateful for each person that came through our doors and supported our little shop. And we hosted a little over 100 workshops with our incredibly gifted workshop instructors that 1,400 people were able to experience!

It was truly a memorable year! And we can’t wait until 2018. We’ll continue curating a collection of beautiful products from around the world and hosting workshops that inspire people to discover and develop their creativity and artistry. We have some fun new things coming your way in 2018 and will be sharing very soon!

We wish you all an amazing end to 2017!

Liz & Mel

Co-Founders of M.Lovewell