I’ve been having a lot of feelings over the last year that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I have finally figured things out. Rather than bringing people together, social media has started to push us apart by deciding what we see. Instead of sharing fun stuff with the people who want to see it, everyone is fighting for attention – trying to figure out the latest hashtags and tricks for getting to the top of the ever-growing pile of stuff and hoping to ‘go viral’ by jumping on any bandwagon going past.
I’m the opposite of this. I like writing long blog posts and zines and sending surprises in the post. I like taking a Twitter reply to DMs for a longer conversation. I like sharing sea views on Instagram to ten people. Joining li.st (RIP) only highlighted how wrong everything else felt. I spent two years making deep connections with about 25 people who were complete strangers and are now some of my favourite online (and real life!) friends.
Recently, my Surprise Mail Swap was a breaking point. I expected a few fun postcards in the mail and instead got letters that told me about you and your lives and how you came to find me online. This is what I want. It’s what I’ve always done, from swapping zines and mixtapes in the post as a teenager to starting diskant.net (a music community where I met my first batch of incredible friends).
So I’ve started the Trouble Club on Patreon to build a new community that supports my creativity in a more personal way.
Instead of me sharing free or paid printables, tutorials and zines for hundreds of anonymous people that I may never hear from again, I want to create things for a smaller group of people I get to know. I want to feel like I’m making stuff for friends who will be excited about it and not just throwing things into the void and hoping for the best.
If you enjoy my blog posts, my freebies, my 100 Day Project, I hope you’ll join the Trouble Club and help me decide what to create in future. I’ve worked hard on the rewards and think you’ll be getting great value for money.
- For $1 a month you get access to exclusive posts and freebies, monthly Q&As and polls and a discount code.
- For $5 a month, you get all that plus I’ll draw you for a custom avatar and you get all my paid printables and zines for free, plus a new one every month.
- For $10 a month, you’ll also get happy mail in the post every other month + a membership card and badge.
Check out my Patreon page to see the full list of rewards and I hope you’ll think about joining. Here’s some of the things I’m planning.
- New zines! I have so many ideas.
- More free printables including garlands, stickers and cards.
- Monthly wallpapers (with polls to request your favourite characters)
- Monthly Q&As so we can ask each other questions for fun.
- List/blog post requests if you’d like me to write about something.
- Weekly ‘into it!’ post of what I’m reading, watching, doing + links to blog posts etc. I’ve been enjoying.
- Postcards sent during my Japan trip + daily updates while I’m there.
- First look at new characters, patterns, products and blog posts.
- Giveaways
- And if enough people sign up, exclusive limited edition products.
I’m really excited about this and hope you’ll join up so I can start creating.
PS. If you can’t afford to join, don’t worry. I’ll still be blogging here regularly, sharing some of the freebies on my mailing list and selling all the zines and printables individually in my shop. You can also still take part in the Surprise Mail Swap.