Babble + Yak

  Its that time of year again!  Its always good if and when you can, to support small or independent business' and as Christmas 2020 fast approaches its seems even more important to champion this market.  Gifting something from a small business comes with love and gives the recipient something really a bit unique.  Below we have listed some shops you may want to visit.  These are people we love, know through our business community, or have bought from.  We have tried to group them but grab a brew, put your feet up and have a scroll through!  were not in the habit of promoting ourselves but if you would like to visit Jess or Emma's shop then just click our names-Happy Shopping! Prints-cards-calendars  Sketch book designs -Sunderland lad, Manchester based, music, football and city typography art. Emma has bought t-shirts and cards in the past-good gifts for the men in your life that are typically hard to buy for....Free UK delivery-Sign up to news...

What is your value?  How does anyone know what their worth is? I have been getting a lot of comments lately about my products being under-priced.   Musing on  this, in my head at least, I have narrowed it down to two reasons. 1, I wanted to keep my work accessible to as many people as possible and 2, I don’t value myself much so it’s logical to undervalue the work that I make.  Expanding on point 1, my customer base, I need to realise that not everyone is my customer, and on the second point, that is just a bit sad. Initial sketch for Christmas Cards 2020 2020 and Covid has made me really appreciate my work and what I want to do with my life, what is my career and how do I want to make a living.     Behind any small business there’s someone (normally one person) who makes the product, researches the materials, experiments with techniques, orders resources and stationery to make, wrap and post the product as well as doing all of the administration, ma...

Babble:Jess Emma's entry below this one, was written at the end of July.  I was supposed to add my section but found myself rather unmotivated in August and it's taken a while to pick things up again throughout September...Well, I say unmotivated, I think back in August, I'd finally resigned myself (happily I might add, after lots of worry and frustration) to just enjoying the last few weeks of the summer with my kids.  I was giddy at the freedom we suddenly had after months of lockdown (which was mostly just me and the kids.  My husband works for the NHS and has worked some long-ass days since March.  I feel like I puff up with pride for him and all of our NHS and key workers when we talk about these past few months...anyway I'm going off topic! Back to giddy freedom...) We visited beaches, parks, castles and took Milo on many a woodland walk.  I even splurged on a trip to the aquarium.  This outdoorsiness was also admittedly partly driven by the fact tha...

Hello!  I n May myself and Jess took part in the Whitley Bay carnival online.  The following is a ‘brief’ take of an interview that we took part in as part of that event.  For ease of reading we have highlighted the questions and bullet-pointed the answers; the original transcript is over 5000 words……. E-Right, Im recording J-Here we go…… Hi Everyone, we are Emma and Jess, we run babble and yak together which is a blog we started about a year ago.  It is all about the creative, working for yourself but not by yourself being each other’s sort of virtual cheerleaders-it seemed quite fitting to share our understandings on a blog for other creatives to share their experiences.    Emma and Jess  We have known each other a long time and had planned to show together this year at Whitley Bay for the first time but for obvious reasons this didn't happen! So, we decided to do something virtually together instead.   Last week we put out a call for...