July 2026 | Welcome to Gumtree Grove

What may have felt like the shortest month of the year somehow ended up being one of the biggest.

July started out quite surreal. I finally added my colouring book to my website and got my first website orders in almost a whole year! 🥹 I haven't really spoken about it before, but after we adopted Moose last August and I was job hunting for a new full-time role, Studio Meeko naturally took a bit of a back seat. I wasn't releasing many new products, and if I'm honest, I almost felt embarrassed sending people to my website because there wasn't much there.

So it felt really good to breathe some life back into it. I refreshed the website, added new products, and then found out I'd been accepted into Finders Keepers this October, which made everything suddenly feel a lot more real. One of the highlights of the month was actually visiting the Melbourne Finders Keepers market for the first time. Knowing I'll have my own stall there in October, I spent most of the afternoon wandering around, paying attention to how everyone displayed their products, chatted to customers and styled their spaces. It was really inspiring to see so many small creative businesses in one place, and it made me even more excited (and slightly nervous 😅) for October.

My colouring book also sold out online, which still feels surreal. Rather than rushing to restock it, I've been spending this month researching different printers and ordering sample books and paper stocks to try and find a more sustainable option for future print runs.

But without a doubt, the biggest milestone of July was finally turning something I'd been sitting on for months into something real: the Meeko & Friends Club.

I've absolutely loved seeing so many artists and creatives launch their own monthly mail clubs recently, and every time I saw one, I found myself thinking I would love to do that one day. Eventually I stopped saying one day and decided it was finally time to give it a go 🥹

The biggest decision wasn't actually what to include inside the envelopes. It was deciding what kind of club I wanted to create. I spent a lot of time thinking about where I wanted Studio Meeko to be in a few years' time and the kind of audience I wanted to build. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I didn't want to create an art club. I wanted to create a colouring club.

Colouring has become such a huge part of my creative journey this year, and creating my first colouring book made me realise that's the direction I really want to take Studio Meeko. Instead of creating random pieces of stationery each month, I wanted to build a little world that people could keep coming back to. 

And so Gumtree Grove was born.

Most of July was spent bringing that little world to life. I wrote the very first edition of the Gumtree Grove Gazette, designed the August postcard, illustrated two colouring pages, created a monthly colour palette, and made the very first vinyl sticker inspired by our Resident of the Month. I also spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about pricing. I went back and forth more times than I'd like to admit because I wanted the club to feel really special, but I also wanted it to be something people could genuinely look forward to every month without feeling out of reach. In the end, I landed on $15 per month because making it accessible felt more important to me than squeezing every last dollar out of it.

Of course... the month didn't exactly go to plan.

About halfway through July I got properly sick for around four days, and just as I started feeling better I flew to Sydney overnight for a work trip. Before I knew it, it was launch day.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. Launching a monthly club feels very different to launching a colouring book. You're asking people to believe in an idea before they've even received the first envelope, and that's a pretty vulnerable feeling.

But slowly, the orders started coming through.

It's funny how something can exist only in your imagination for so long, and then one day you're holding it in your hands, getting ready to send it out into the world.

Tomorrow I'll be packing the very first Meeko & Friends Club envelopes to send all around Australia, which still feels completely surreal to write.

I've got lots I want to make in August, and I'm feeling really motivated again post-sickness. Hopefully by this time next month I'll have another product to share with you... but for now, I'm going to enjoy this little milestone first.

I'll see you in August. Thanks friends!

Love,

Caitlin.