A BIG Announcement

Last year we had one of those big, strategic planning meetings where we sat around our cozy conference room table and just dreamed. We came up with four big ideas and a challenge to make them happen in 2014. It was a long shot but we knew, if we were able to do these four things, Studio Calico would be able to serve our customers better.

After that meeting, our team worked tirelessly to go after these projects. I’m excited to tell you that over the course of the next few months, three of these projects will go live. It is extremely humbling to watch your business grow as I have over the past seven years but to see what this company and its team is capable of is quite another thing. I am incredibly proud to reveal to you today the first of these exciting announcements.

Studio Calico and Big Picture Classes are now one!

We released a Press Release this morning announcing that Studio Calico has officially acquired Big Picture Classes.

When we sat down last year, our big idea was to vastly expand and grow our education platform. We knew the key to bringing in new people to our industry is education and by growing our footprint within that realm, we’d have a better mechanism to show those new to the craft how to develop their skills and become a true hobbyist.

After much consideration, though, we knew we were not true experts in running a full-scale education platform. Our working relationship with Big Picture Classes has grown over the past few years and I have always greatly respected the business Stacy Julian and Kayce Rehn have built. As we became closer, the solution became obvious. Stacy and Kayce felt similarly about selling product on their site and growing their platform. As our casual conversations continued, we all knew there was a great benefit in joining forces.

To read Stacy Julian’s post about this news, click over to the Big Picture Blog.

What does this mean?

The future is very bright for both Studio Calico and Big Picture Classes. We will continue to operate as two separate companies as we look for areas we can work together. As always, we will continue to look for ways to grow and improve the customer experience on both sites. We hope to bring you new and exciting faces for both education platforms as well as enhanced functionality on both sites. For the rest of 2014, we will be working closely with the BPC team to prioritize all the exciting projects for next year.

I am sure you have a ton of questions. We’ve tried to anticipate as many as we could below. If you do not find your answers here, please feel free to start a conversation with us and we’ll be happy to answer them. We will also continue to update this list as more questions come in so they will all be in one place.

Studio Calico is an independently owned and operated business located in Bowling Green, KY. Studio Calico currently distributes monthly kits around the world direct to consumer. We also design and license a wholesale product line to American Crafts. This partnership is strictly a license agreement and is only for our wholesale product. Everything else you see on our website is designed, produced and sourced by employees at Studio Calico headquarters in Bowling Green, KY.

Big Picture Classes will remain an independent business unit and continue to offer classes on a wide variety of topics including photography, scrapbooking and inspiration. BPC will remain vendor neutral and continue to focus centrally on education, not product. Studio Calico will continue to offer a limited number of courses on its site as we do currently.

All students should expect a very consistent experience when doing business with Studio Calico or Big Picture Classes. All of your classes will remain where they are and you will access them just as you have previously. Additionally all content will remain in the same format it is currently. We will, as always, continue to improve the customer experience and look for ways to better serve our students on both sites.

We hope you'll join us in welcoming Big Picture Classes to the Studio Calico family!