vacation

I decided to completely unplug while on vacation this year, and even include a day before and a few days after our actual trip to just relax and spend time with my family. We're leaving on Sunday morning for a 4-day family vacation, but I decided to "close shop" for 8 days altogether.

As I was posting my vacation notice on my website, putting my Etsy shop in "vacation mode", and setting up an auto-responder for my email, I felt like Mark Harmon in the opening scene of Summer School trying to get away from my computer before any more orders came in (my husband didn't get the reference, but I know someone will!)

A couple of weeks ago as we were planning this vacation I wasn't sure how many days I'd take off or if I'd be able to completely unplug, but as it's gotten closer I've started to really look forward to taking a break from work and hopefully coming back refreshed and energized and ready to make some decisions about the next steps for my business.

For now I actually have other things on my mind for once... bike rides, swimming, ice cream shops, boating, board games, a stack of magazines, a couple of books, and a glass of wine on the balcony after the kids are in bed.

{new!} In-Touch Clutch (tm)

How cute are these??? They're called the In-Touch Clutch (tm), and I just added them to my website in three different fabrics.
The idea is you fill it up with cards, stamps, and a pen, toss it in your purse before you head out the door, and then pull it out to catch up on your correspondence whenever you find yourself waiting (on the train, before an appointment, during your child's soccer practice...)I also think they'd make a super cute gift with some personalized stationery. I really hope these sell as well as I think they will. They're handmade by a woman named Jennifer who has an Etsy shop where she also sells wristlets and iPhone / iPod pouches... so clever!

{new!} fabric calling card cases

I'm so excited about these new handmade calling card cases I added to my shop today! I think they'll be a really nice addition for a set of calling cards purchased as a gift. Also, I've been wanting to add some non-personalized items to my shop, and I think these are the perfect item to start with.
Once again I'm amazed at what a difference an interesting background makes instead of just a plain white background. My tabletop lights are great for capturing details and accurately representing the fabric colors, but I love taking product photographs outdoors whenever possible.

new product photographs - personalized canvas prints

Amber's canvas print (from last week's giveaway) was ready to pick up from the printer today, so I took a quick picture (above) before shipping it to her, along with the one I ordered for my daughter (below).
I'd like to buy some much bigger lights for taking this type of product photograph, so I was pleasantly surprised with how well these turned out - much better than I expected using just the table-top lights from my light tent kit.

personalized sports water bottles

A couple of weeks ago I came across some super cute personalized water bottles (pictured above) in my friend, Dacia's, Etsy shop, Lima Bean Kids... exactly what I needed for my son, Jack. Last fall I bought him a kids Sigg water bottle that he lost later that day at soccer practice. I bought him another one which he left in the car, full of water, in the winter. When the water froze, the bottle cracked. Next I bought him a cheap plastic one at Target that kept leaking. So lately I've just been putting waterproof name labels on regular water bottles from the grocery store for him to take to baseball practice.

I was just about to buy one from Lima Bean Kids when I started thinking, I wonder if my silhouettes would work on these? Dacia was kind enough to tell me where she buys them from and encouraged me to give it a try, so I ordered one, I love how it turned out!
The above images are the front and back of the one I ordered for Jack. The quality of the water bottle is excellent, and the printed images look great! So today I spent some time deciding which designs and colors to offer, and then posted them in my Etsy shop and on my website. These are a few of the options I came up with:
I have no idea how well these will sell, but I'd really like to offer more non-stationery products, so I'm very curious to see how they do!

product photography

I added a few new products to my website today (including the folded owl note cards pictured above), and since I had time this afternoon I took some actual photographs rather than only posting digital images.

I've been buying lots of new props over the past several weeks, and "update product photographs" has been on my to-do list for a couple of months now, but it stresses me out every time I think about it so I always find something else to do.

Also, I've been hoping for an overcast day so I could take some pictures outside, but we've had lots of sunshine recently with really harsh shadows. So I took these pictures indoors using my little tabletop fluorescent lights, and I'm pleasantly surprised with how they turned out.

Vintage Floral Pattern Folded Cards:
Owl Flat Cards:
Vintage Floral Pattern Calling Cards:
Owl Calling Cards:
Of course it's such a time consuming process, the thought of updating the rest of my product photographs is overwhelming, but I think my plan will be to just keep doing a few each day as I have time.

Sarah & Abraham canvas art

I've been asked a few times if I'd consider printing canvas wall art, but I never gave it much thought until Stacy from Name Your Design encouraged me to look into it and gave me lots of super helpful advice. I've also been encouraging my sister, Kim, to start an Etsy shop, and she was really excited about the idea of personalized canvas art. So I've been working on creating some 16" x 16" designs, figuring out the pricing, and purchasing all of the packaging materials, and this morning I posted a bunch of canvas art prints on my website.

Here are a few examples:Kim will be helping me with picking up the canvases from the printer and shipping them, and she'll also be offering her own designs soon. I'm hoping that between our two shops these will sell really well so that we're able to buy our own printer at some point and be able to provide better pricing on these to wholesale accounts, but I don't want to get too ahead of myself... I guess time will tell!

I'd love to hear your thoughts... any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated!

Name Your Design featured on Project Nursery

One of the best things to come from having this blog has been meeting two new friends (Stacy & Julie) who both live within just a few miles of me and both have young children who my kids love to play with. Whenever I get together with them I'm absolutely amazed (and delighted!) at how much we have in common and how fun it is to talk with them.

I mention this because I was just at Stacy's house last week drooling over her decor (most of which she created herself), and then on Monday her son, Parker's, bedroom (above) was featured on Project Nursery. Here's a link to the full interview for all the details.

Hawaiian-themed invitations

A couple of months ago one of my favorite customers, Heather, (who I've previously mentioned here and here) asked me to create some Hawaiian-themed invitations for a surprise birthday party. I've been so excited to see the party pictures, and she just posted them yesterday. Here are a few of my favorites...

more thoughts on balance...

I hope I don't sound like a broken record, but I thought of something this evening that I'd like to share...

As Sarah & Abraham has grown and I've found myself enjoying this work more and more, I've really been letting things slide around the house. I always keep the dishes and laundry caught up, but we've been eating takeout and frozen pizza way more than I'd like to, and my lax attitude about vacuuming, dusting, etc. has become a bit ridiculous.

So for the past week or so I've shifted my focus back to this concept of balance once again. I've been making time for the things that matter and not allowing other things to get in the way.

For example, for the past couple of weeks my daily orders have been about three times my usual average, but I've been making a conscious effort to step away from the computer and make plans with friends and do fun things with my kids. My husband has been working 4-days a week so I can have one full day a week of uninterrupted work, but for the past three weeks I've ended up ditching work on those days to do something fun with him and the kids. I'm also trying to cook at least a little bit more.

Which brings me to this evening... I was in the kitchen making lasagna, watching my kids play in the backyard, and I felt so content. I had several orders that I could have been working on, emails I could have been replying to, and some new product ideas I was really excited to work on, but instead of feeling resentful about my role as wife/mother/homemaker taking up my time, I felt like I was doing exactly what I wanted to be doing.

Then this Brian Andreas story popped into my head, and it felt like one of Oprah's Aha! Moments:

Weight Training

This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult for you to carry & trust me on this, you'll carry it more times than you can count until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most & then it won't weigh a thing anymore.

Which also reminded me of this excellent post about balance on Stacy's Inkspot Workshop blog. If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it!

Real Simple magazine

Sarah & Abraham calling cards are featured on page 64 in the May issue of Real Simple magazine!

I've been wanting to share this news since December when they contacted me about featuring my calling cards in an upcoming issue, but I figured I should wait until it was actually in print. I haven't seen it yet, but Sally at Polka Dot Market was kind enough to scan the page and email it to me (thank you!!!)

Real Simple is one of my favorite magazines, so it's a huge honor!

Sarah & Abraham Evites

I'm so excited to finally be able to share one of the side projects I've been working on for the past couple of months... Sarah & Abraham Evites! I'm a big fan of Evite, so when they asked me if I'd like to design some invitations for them, I jumped at the opportunity! I'm always a little nervous about graphic design work like this (how picky will they be? how many revisions will I end up doing?), but these were really fun to work on, and they gave me a lot of creative freedom.

{hooray for} new designs!

I'm so excited to finally be able to unveil my newest products! Here are just a few of the 40+ new items I've been working on:

Invitations:
8x10 prints:
Birth Announcements:
Calling Cards:
And of course I created plenty of flat and folded note cards in all of these designs as well.

The fun part was creating the new products... the hard part was creating all of the digital images for my website and uploading everything. (The thought of photographing all of these new items overwhelmed me too greatly, so I decided that would have to wait!)

My whole "work-family balance" has gone out the window recently as I've been working like a madwoman to get everything posted on my website. I still need to create notepads, postcards, stickers and a few other items using these new designs; I'll start working on those this week.

Of course I'll still offer all of my original silhouette products, but I just love these new designs and am planning to have my website redesigned like my new blog banner. I hope to be able to post sometime later this week when that's been completed.

variety packs

I can't believe I didn't do this sooner! Whenever I give someone a gift of Sarah & Abraham stationery I always put together an assortment of styles and colors. After having this on my to-do list for several months, I finally made this option available on my website... a girl variety pack, a boy variety pack, and a grown-up variety pack.

For the kid ones, you pick the style (flat and/or folded), the silhouette(s), and the color(s). For the grown-up ones you can mix and match flat cards with a name, a couple's names, an initial, or a monogram, and select whichever colors you like.

Horton Hears a Who party pics

Wow! Heather posted some pictures on her blog from her daughter's Horton party that I mentioned a few days ago.
The menu included fresh strawberries, elephant-shaped quesadillas (!), 'clover' cake, and Who punch.
I've got to learn how to make these gorgeous paper flower balls for my daughter's next birthday party (luckily I've got 10 months to figure it out!)

UPDATE: Here's a link to directions for making the paper flower balls... thank you Heather!

ooh la la!

Another one of my super creative customers recently asked me to create some invitations and party favor stickers for her 2-year-old granddaughter's pink-poodle-themed birthday party. I'm so thrilled she shared some pictures with me from the party! The stuffed animal above was a party favor along with these take home cookies...
and these dog bone cookies from the "Where's your bone?" game they played at the party.
Poodle ears for the guests to wear:
And a gorgeous cake:

so clever!

How cute (and clever!) is this invitation to a Horton Hears a Who-themed birthday party?! One of my favorite customers, Heather (supermom-crafty-chic-and-party-planner-extraordinaire), asked me to create some invitations with an elephant trunk so she could add a green pipe cleaner and a pink pom pom. I absolutely love how they turned out, and it was so nice of her to send me a picture!

She has previously used my favor stickers for a bug-themed birthday party...
and a beautiful baby shower:
I just love seeing pictures of my products "in action"!

Cora's: the shop

Jessica McClenahan (Cora's mom) is planning on opening an Etsy shop soon, with all proceeds going to Cora's Playground. I was so happy to be able to help out with the banner, avatar, tags and stickers, and I love how everything turned out! I think polka dots and multi-colored lettering will definitely be making an appearance on some of my new items!

Cora Paige Benefit Sale {Update #2}

I just read a beautifully written Storque article on Etsy, which has apparently inspired over 40 additional Etsy sellers to join the Cora Paige Benefit Sale, bringing the total to 120 Etsy sellers participating! I decided to conclude my fundraising when I reached $500, but the event will continue until Cora's birthday, March 5th, at which time we'll all donate our proceeds online.

As of yesterday 32 sellers had reported their sales totals to the organizer, Heather, and the total amount that has been raised so far by those sellers is $5,600! I'll let you know what the grand total ends up being at the end of the event.

One of the comments posted on the Storque article was that "crafters are such nice people"... I couldn't agree more!

Cora Paige Benefit Sale {Update}

This has been such an interesting day... last night I added some 8x10 prints and postcard sets from my Etsy shop to the Cora Paige Benefit Sale, and so far I've raised $290! It's been so rewarding seeing this project come together because I couldn't have donated that amount on my own, but donating the prints and postcards is no problem at all.

I'm so excited to see what the grand total ends up being from all of the Etsy sellers who are participating (there are currently over 300 items for sale!)