New Father's Day Cards

With Father's Day around the corner on June 15th, I thought I'd share the new Father's Day cards that I've added to the shop this year. I feel as though I'm finally happy with the cohesive nature of my shop with the addition of some of my latest work. Again I've opted for bold colors and simple designs that provide something both recognizable and relative for most of us.

While Father's Day tends to be a less card heavy holiday than Mother's Day, I still feel that it's important to recognize the dads in our lives. When I was growing up, my dad was the stay at home parent for quite some time, so I have many fond memories as a child in a different way than many people may have had, and for that I am incredibly thankful. While I didn't crash the family car and I rarely text my dad, one thing that I do enjoy doing with him when I visit home is sitting and chatting over a good cup of coffee at my mom's bakery.

What are your favorite things to do with your dad? Did any of you have a stay at home dad?

Mother's Day Cards

2014 Mother's Day cards have arrived! I listed them in the shop a while ago, and posted a few here and there on Instagram, but I wanted to make it official. These are some of my favorite cards to date. I picked up some new pens to draw with and they have been absolutely inspiring to work with. It took me a while to come up with the concepts for this line of cards, but once I started drawing, the ideas began flowing.

I love these five cards because the designs are bright and bold, but the concepts in the cards themselves are incredibly easy to relate to-- they're jam packed with plenty of truth, you know?

Don't forget! Mother's Day is May 11th! Which is your favorite of these new cards?

Gold Foil Valentine Card

Recently, I acquired some really fantastic vintage emblems for my gold foil press. One of them happened to be perfect for Valentine's Day. Through the daily grind of the busy season, I needed a little break from packaging orders, so I tested out the emblem and finally came up with this card. I loved it! Despite having already released the 2014 Valentine's line, I just had to pop one more into the shop.

I love the colors and the simplicity of this card, and am happy to welcome it into the shop!

The 2014 Valentine's Day Line is Here!

Happy New Year! I hope you all rang in 2014 in a fabulous way, whether that be out on the town or on your couch. We decided to have a fairly low-key event with another couple and decided to go duck pin bowling. Nothing says "Happy New Year" like the crash of some old bowling pins.

2013 has been quite the adventure for me as I quit my day job as a teacher, got married, turned the big 3-0, and traveled halfway around the world to Australia for nearly a month. It has been a good year, and I can only hope that 2014 will be just as fabulous. I wanted to start 2014 with a bang, so I thought what better way to bring in the new year than to launch my new Valentine's Day card line? Just like last year's line, there are some sweet, some hilarious, and some naughty as well. New this year is a special card just for you Baltimore locals. Shall we take a look?

I have worked really hard on this year's line of cards and I am completely satisfied with how each and every one of these turned out. I feel as though I have found a groove and creative energy that has started to click for me not only in this new line, but in the set of cards I have most recently been producing. It's hard to choose just one favorite!

Be sure to check out the full Valentine's Day card line! And as an additional bonus to you all, use the code MYVALENTINE on a purchase of $20 or more and you will receive 15% off. That's for one day only, so hop on it people!

Alright, which of the cards is your favorite?!

No Photos Please!

Recently, the biggest issue that I face at handmade shows are the people that want to take photos of my cards. They see the cards, laugh, whip out an iPhone, and then state to their friend, "I'm totally taking a picture to text to so and so! This is so perfect for them!" This scenario is my biggest pet peeve of shows. To me, it's as if they are stealing my art rather than spending $4 for the actual thing. I tend to get a bit snarky with these people. I have no problem stopping them dead in their tracks with a "No photos please! This is my art and I'm sure your friend would actually really like to be surprised with the real card instead of a text message."

The offender usually puts away the phone and apologizes, but do they buy the card? No. Usually they don't because that wasn't their intention to begin with. This is something that has really bothered me a lot along with random people tagging their friends in my Instagram photos of my cards (ummm, no, I will delete your comment, you cheap jerkface with a face of a jerk!).

While preparing for Richmond, I decided that something needed to be done. I thought about signs that I could make or things that I could say to battle the issue, when I suddenly realized that I should just make a card, obviously! So make a card I did, and I placed it front and center of my display for all to see. Did anyone attempt the photo op this time? No. Was it completely related to the card that I made? That is up for debate. But either way, I was a happier card maker in the end.

And it is true. Wouldn't we all prefer a little surprise snail mail in our lives over a quick text message? Cards are more thoughtful and meaningful than the few seconds it takes to send a text.

Handmade Holiday in Richmond

I know I'm a few days late with this post, but I've been incredibly swamped trying to get orders out for the last day of shipping before Christmas. Now that I have, I'm taking a breather, remembering to eat lunch for once, and preparing to work on some design projects. However, nonetheless, I still wanted to give a big shout out to Richmond, Virginia and the Richmond Craft Mafia for their amazing hospitality, loads of laughs, and creative energy.

I spent this past Saturday at the Handmade Holiday show that the Richmond Craft Mafia puts on and it was easily the best show I've had to date. This was my audience for sure! I was so thankful to have people appreciate my work and LAUGH. I always have plenty of laughs at shows, but this one had quite a few less of those side eyed looks of disgust.  Aside from meeting many new people, I was also able to test out five new cards, four of which will be new for Valentine's Day. You can catch a sneak peek here.

These cards went over extremely well, so I can't wait to share them with you in the coming weeks. And last but not least, I was thrilled to get to meet my friend Ayla! We have gotten to know each other through our blogs and the handmade world, but had never met, and it was a real treat to be able to finally make that connection. She actually wrote a bit more about the Handmade Holiday (and took much better photos as I forgot my camera) on her blog.

As for now, I'm tying up some loose ends for the holidays, working on new designs, and breathing a sigh of relief that I'm done with my holiday shows and will (hopefully) have a little more down time for a few weeks.

New Holiday Cards Are Here!

It has been a crazy few weeks in my home studio as I've had one of the busiest months this year and have also been working diligently on my new holiday line. After several weeks of work, I'm happy to say that the full line of holiday cards is officially here! Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah combined, there's a bit of everything-- some simple, some funny, a few naughty, a couple bright and fun, and a lot of eco-friendliness going on in there too. Many of these cards are 100% recycled paper content, something I've been striving for recently. While not all of the cards are listed in sets, I am happy to do sets for you if need be, so feel free to get in touch with those sorts of requests! Now, here's a look at the full line of cards. You can click through the photos to find them in my shop!

What do you think of the new holiday line? Which are your favorites? It is hard for me to choose which ones I like the best because they all turned out just as I had envisioned, which is a super exciting thing! Are you preparing for the holidays yet?

Finding Inspriation in Materials and Color Trends

I haven't made a whole lot of new cards for my shop lately because I've got another new product in the works that I've been spending the majority of my time on instead. In addition, I've also been working on another new line of cards, but I am waiting for the envelopes for this particular line to arrive. I am feeling incredibly inspired by so many things around me. It seems I have all sorts of ideas these days, and I'm having a hard time staying focused on just one project at a time. I finally have the time to execute some of my ideas and so they are all trying to get out of my system at one time, which sometimes leads to less productivity in the end. I have been trying to continue feeling inspired, but take note of these inspirations instead of diving into them as soon as something pops into my head. Despite an inspiration overload these days, I was still able to get some of these new cards into the shop.

I've been really feeling inspired lately by new card stock and envelopes that I recently purchased, new fonts to play with, and colors that are on trend these days. As I prepare my new line of cards that I'm hoping to launch mid-month, you'll continue to see current color trends, but in a fun and bold way instead of these corals, mints, and purples.

What have you been inspired by lately?

Struggles in Creating a Cohesive Product Line

With a large amount of time available to really sit down and think through my designs, I have been able to be much more productive. I feel as though the quality of each design is getting better, leaving me wondering whether or not to do a complete overhaul of my shop. There are many designs that I am phasing out and replacing with some fresher items. This change is good, I think.

While I love these new items, I still feel as though a cohesive nature of my shop doesn't really exist. I tend to jump around from one thing to the next. I am inspired by so much that I have a hard time sticking to just one concept as a base in my design. Sometimes I wonder if this is a bad thing, but at other times I think it's good because I'm able to offer a variety of products to you all.

If you own a small design business, do you struggle with creating a cohesive feeling within your product line? And to those who are just customers, do you like having a variety of design styles to choose from?

Modern and Geometric Note Cards

If you're following me on Instagram or Facebook, then you'll already know just how obsessed I am with a new line of cards that I've been working on and slowly releasing in the shop. Inspired by a few conversations about geometric patterns with my friend Kristen, I decided to play with triangles in bold colors. This isn't the first time I've used this concept and you can see my first take on triangles and stationery here. But I wanted to try something that had even more of a pop. The result is a line of thank you and hello note cards in three different color schemes that will all soon be available in both single greeting cards and sets of four with accented solid colored cards. Each card has been paired with 100% recycled Speckletone Kraft envelopes from French Paper Co.-- my favorite! The quality of these cards as a whole does not get any better.

These cards are currently already in the shop with the rest to soon follow. I love how each color schemed turned out, and I continue to indecisively move from one to the other as my favorite. It is an amazing feeling to have something turn out just as you had envisioned in your head, and this is truly one of those types of projects.

What do you think of the new line? Are you obsessed with the current fad of bold colored and modern triangles like me?

Pen and Paper

Last week I finally had some time to sit down and just draw. I felt as though I hadn't been able to do that for years. I know that's an exaggeration, but I really hadn't had much time to do anything related to design. I sort of felt as though I was finally getting back to my roots. It was like I was that four year old girl again with a brand new set of markers she got for Christmas, getting busted by her mom at 4am after she was so excited to use them she decided to climb out of bed, turn the bedroom light on, and start drawing.

Never underestimate the exhilaration a stack of blank paper and a drawing pen can generate.

On the other hand, drawing is also relaxing. That pen and paper gave me a chance to forget about my school day and do something that had no rules. After being in an institutional environment for a long week, something about playing outside those bounds is freeing.

I took all of my doodles and used them for several new card designs. Here are the end results.

I love how the baby bump cards turned out-- super simple and fun! Which is your favorite?

In other news, I'm going to try blogging more regularly again. Jenni came up with these fantastic blog post ideas for the month of May that are quite inspiring. I may not be able to follow along for the whole month, but I'm going to try!