When I first filed my Articles of Organization with the Commonwealth of Virginia on January 7, 2016, it was only intended to legitimize the income I would get here and there from helping a friend or two with their Facebook pages or designing a logo for a friend of a friend. One of the things that keeps me so in love with the world of marketing is the constant evolution and perpetual newness. There’s always a new tool to learn, a new strategy to explore, a new client to help. Over the past 10 years, Carlene Can has grown so much, but never more than we have in the past 3 years. There were many times I wanted to throw in the towel but with every new project my clients threw at me, I had another chance to recommit to saying yes. Yes, I can help with that.
2025 in Review
Last year, I knew we were going to need to make some big changes to keep supporting the small businesses we love so passionately. We adopted a project management tool to help track the work to keep anyone from falling through the cracks. Asana has been an absolute game changer. This set the foundation to grow my talent network to include more specialists to help execute each piece of your campaigns. (Related… if you know a freelance sound editor who’s looking for some work, please make an introduction!)
In September, we had Erin Anderson join our team as our Assistant Creative Coordinator. Many of you have already met and worked with her. She brings extensive content creation experience and has proven to be a very valuable asset to the company. Erin helps with so many things, from creating social media content, to scheduling and monitoring the Support inbox. We are so grateful for her and the difference she continues to make every day.
Outgrowing Our Name
As you can see, we’ve grown quite a bit. The “Carlene Can” brand simply doesn’t do justice to the larger ecosystem we’ve implemented to support the small businesses who trust us with their marketing. Carlene can do a lot… but she doesn’t do it alone. As we went through 2025, I set to work on a large-scale rebrand that reflects who we are as a company today, the work we do for our clients and why we keep waking up every morning eager to do it all again.
I was very fortunate to be able to consult with several peers, colleagues and mentors whose insights were invaluable in reimagining my brand identity. It took all year to just finalize the logos, leaving many more assets in the queue for production. We recently launched our updated website and with it, we’re rolling out new tools and resources to provide an enhanced customer experience. In December, I filed the paperwork to officially do business under our new name while keeping Carlene Can, LLC as our formal legal entity. Without any further ado, I’m very excited to introduce Rose x Trowel.
Introducing Rose x Trowel
Rose x Trowel (pronounced \ ˈrōz ənd ˈtrau̇-əl \ ) pays homage to both sides of the work we do– functional foundations for beautiful brand assets. We don’t just create filler posts for your Instagram account; we craft multichannel campaigns that keep your social media profiles active with branded, organic content. We don’t just sell you magazine ads, we create lead-capture strategies that measure the impact of your ad spend across all of your marketing efforts and hide that behind a pretty ad. We like your outside the box ideas and we know how to build them beautifully. We are Rose x Trowel and we’re ready to grow something impactful together.