Introducing Bee Garden by Gingiber

Creative entrepreneur Stacie Bloomfield is determined to bust the starving artist myth. “There are so many ways forward as an artist,” she says, and she has the journey to prove it. From her humble beginnings creating art at her dining room table to leading a team of 24 today, Stacie’s story is an inspiring look at how persistence and building relationships with other creatives can “lead to opportunities that make for a full career,” as she puts it.

Want to make your own honeycomb quilt block like Stacie's? Click HERE to get the free pattern!

“You Don’t Turn Down This Opportunity”

Stacie launched her product-based art licensing business, Gingiber, “out of necessity,” she says with a laugh. At the time, she was working full time as a barista while her husband was in graduate school. She had a graphic arts degree but wasn’t sure how to turn that into a career, but she knew she needed an additional source of income to help support her family. “I started an Etsy shop,” she said, and tried selling a variety of things, but soon realized that her art sold best. She began building a steady business on Etsy as an illustrator, focusing on nursery- and kid-friendly designs.

In 2011, just a few years after Stacie launched Gingiber, Etsy reached out to Stacie to tell her they wanted to include her shop in their Black Friday feature. “I didn’t tell them that my second baby was due at the exact same time!” she admits. “My husband said, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t do [the Black Friday feature],’ but you just don’t turn down this kind of opportunity,” Stacie says emphatically, and she went ahead with the feature in what would turn out to be a watershed moment for Gingiber. “I sold more that week than I had in the previous three years combined,” according to Stacie, and that opportunity solidified her vision for a creative career. She quit her day job and threw everything into Gingiber.

Finding New Paths Forward

About six years into her business, Stacie says, “Etsy started to change, and I knew it wasn’t going to be my primary source of income anymore.” She began looking at new ways to leverage her art, including through licensing opportunities. Licensing her art for fabric seemed like a natural fit, but “I had never designed a repeating pattern before,” she says. Undeterred, she put together a portfolio and sent it to the design team at Moda. “They called me up, and – they didn’t like my proposed collection,” she laughs. “But they looked at my art and my website and said that they wanted to work with me because there was so much there to work with!” Gingiber’s first collection with Moda Fabrics, Thicket, debuted in 2016. Since then, Moda has released more than 20 Gingiber collections – Bee Garden is the twenty-second. Stacie says that partnering with Moda Fabrics and United Notions “was a real confidence boost.” Not only does Moda partner with Stacie to produce beautiful fabrics for the Gingiber brand, but the company also carries many of Gingiber’s finished products, including stickers, notecards, tea towels, and more. “Moda has been a real champion” of the Gingiber brand and products, Stacie says.

Nurturing a Creative Community

Recognizing a need for community-building and mentorship in the creative community, Stacie launched the first of her extensive list of “artrepreneur” classes in 2020. Since then, more than 140,000 artists have participated in her courses. “I’m passionate about helping artists in their journey,” she gushes, drawing on her own experiences navigating the world of licensing and product placement to help other creatives learn how to leverage their artwork to make money and have robust, fulfilling careers.

Developing relationships with clients and other creatives has been integral to Stacie’s success. “Being a creative can mean a lot of things,” she says, noting that it can also be isolating, especially post-pandemic – making it even more essential to connect with other creatives. “I’m very relationship-oriented, and that has led to so many opportunities,” Stacie says.

All Abuzz for Bee Garden

The seeds for Bee Garden, Stacie’s latest collection, were planted when she designed a tea towel for Gingiber in 2023. Though it was a stand-alone home goods product, the Moda design team loved it so much that Stacie decided to turn it into a full fabric collection.

“Beehive Medley was the first print that I designed for the collection,” Stacie says, noting that for part of the design, she revisited a bee element from her earlier Meadowmere collection. “I believe in leveraging existing art when I can,” she says, adding that she likes to focus on line work in her prints.

According to Stacie, the colors in Bee Garden “are how I like to live my life,” going on to say that if you were to look in her home or in her wardrobe, you’d find the same colors. Bee Garden features a warm palette of sun-drenched honey, cream, coral, and cactus green, accented with a soft raven black and pops of metallic gold. “Gold just makes everything better!” enthuses Stacie.

Do What Makes You Happy

Whether it’s designing a new fabric collection, mentoring up-and-coming artists, setting aside dedicated time and space – “white space,” as she calls it – to rest her mind and allow new creative ideas to percolate, or nurturing relationships – like having coffee every Thursday with the same group of women for the last 10 years – for Stacie, it all comes down to this: “It needs to make me feel happy!” she says. Fortunately for quilters and creatives everywhere, Gingiber is there to spread that happiness in the form of beautiful and inspiring fabrics and products.

To learn more about Gingiber, visit www.gingiber.com and follow along on Instagram at @gingiber.