New Ideas

I am constantly thinking about my Etsy shop. So it's inevitable that I have lots of ideas swirling around in my head at any given time. While browsing around Etsy, I was inspired by a fantastic shop, Fancy Prints. I am pretty obsessed with her "Thumb Print Tree". I wish I had known about this before I got married, because I would have totally wanted one of these Thumb Print Trees for my wedding. Oh well. Moving on!

I have begun working on Personalized Name Blocks for children and have found that I love painting on this new surface. It breaks up the redundancy of working on paper. Immediately as I began working on the Name Blocks other ideas began to take root in my mind. One of those ideas is a set of Family Tree Blocks. I am in the process of trying out this idea- the blocks below are not yet completed.

I love love love trees. I love the organic lines, the movement, the beautiful simplicity. I couldn't wait to paint the tree, but I found that after painting the tree on the blocks, I hit a roadblock of questions.

• Will I include just first names of family members? Full names? What about other info, like maiden names, birthdate, birthplace, etc?
• If I include all of this information, how will I make the text look neat? Could I really handpaint it or will I have to look into some other methods?
• Are these more suitable for children or adults?
• Can they be used as toy for children? If so, how can I make them safe?
• Wouldn't it be cool if they can be displayed in other ways? For instance, I could decoupage a photo of each family member on the back of their block. So the tree could be displayed as pictured, or as a set of photo blocks of family members. 
• Would people really want to buy these?

I would love any feedback or thoughts as I am tackling all of these questions. Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!