what do you think?

I've been thinking about using my silhouettes for some 8x10 prints. Here are a couple of designs I just came up with... please let me know what you think.

I'm completely open to suggestions - what would you want me to change if you were going to put these in your child's bedroom? I think these would make cute note cards, too... I'll probably be adding some to my Etsy shop soon.

Sarah & Abraham Giveaway!

I was just over at one of my new favorite blogs, Bloggy Giveaways, and saw that Shannon's hosting a Winter Giveaway Carnival. It sounded pretty cool, so I decided to join in. The details of my giveaway are below. To check out a list of over 800 other giveaways, head over to Bloggy Giveaways (after you enter mine!)

Prize: I'm giving away one set of 12 flat personalized notecards with coordinating envelopes. Here are a few examples:

To see all of the available designs, check out the Personalized Cards section of my Etsy shop.

Requirements: Simply leave a comment here with a way for me to contact you if you're the winner. You don’t have to have a blog to win, but be sure to leave your email address if you don’t have one, so I can contact you.

Details: This contest ends Sunday, Feburary 3, 2008 at 12pm CST. I will draw one winner using a random number generator and will then notify the winner by blog or email that they've won. The winner will need to let me know which design they'd like and the name(s) they'd like printed on the cards. I'll send a proof before printing the cards, and then once I receive the okay, I'll ship them free of charge (of course!) - to anywhere in the US.

Oh and if you just can’t wait, or if you don’t win but really want some of these cute cards… you're always welcome to stop by my Etsy store!

web design

When I was first starting up Sarah & Abraham a few months ago and researching web design and hosting options, I fell in love with a web design company called Aeolidia Design. All of their designs are super clean and fresh, better than anything else I've seen online.

I sent an email to owner Arianne Foulks asking what a complete website would cost, and she replied saying that if you're just starting selling your products online, it can be good to test the waters by selling on a third party site first. She provided several suggestions, and one of them was Etsy.

At the time I was really disappointed with her response (I so badly wanted to have a beautiful website, and felt like her company was the only one I would want to use), but it turned out to be the best advice I've received since starting up my company.

As I've mentioned before, Etsy has been a very supportive and helpful community, and it's an extremely low cost way to start putting your product out there. I've learned so much over the past couple of months, continually changing my mind about what to offer, how to price it, etc.

I still hope to get to a point someday where I'm ready for my own website (and sure hope to have it designed by Aeolidia Design), but now I'm realizing that that day is still pretty far off. I still have lots of work to do on my product line and need a lot more sales before I'm ready for my own professionally designed site.

But in the meantime I just wanted to say thank you again to Arianne and post a few of her beautiful designs here so you can see what I'm talking about...

Summer Salt Design:
Peek Keep:

Sadie Shop:

fun questions

A couple of days ago I found out that my friend, Megan, has a great blog, My Little Cottage, that I had no idea about. I've really enjoyed going back and reading her older posts - she's such a talented writer!

Also, I've been trying to think of something to post about other than my new illustrations, so I'm going to borrow this idea from her:

4 jobs I have had:
1. favorite: working at Subway in high school
2. shortest: 1 day working as a special ed assistant at an elementary school
3. longest: 2 years at the YMCA national headquarters
4. worst: Rockwell Collins as an "Engineering Project Support Specialist"

4 movies I would watch over and over again:
Supersize Me, Beautiful Girls, Love Actually, Old School

4 places I have lived:
- Keflavik, Iceland
- San Antonio, Texas
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Chicago, Illinois

4 favorite things to eat:
ice cream, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, pizza, a big diner breakfast: pancakes/eggs/sausage/hash browns

4 places I would rather be:
1. just about anywhere WARM
2. sitting on the porch or in the backyard with friends in the summer
3. Starbucks
4. Canyon Ranch in Tucson, AZ

4 things I look forward to this year:
1. spring!!!
2. taking the kids to all the fun places we go when it's warm outside - the zoo, the arboretum, parks, the riverwalk, swimming
3. buying a printer
4. my mom's summer break (she's a teacher, and she usually takes the kids for a few days in the summer)

Now it's your turn - if you answer these questions on your blog, please leave a comment with a link to your post!

new products - lots of note cards and gift tags

I've been posting lots of new products in my Etsy shop. I haven't gotten much feedback to help me narrow things down, so I'm kind of throwing it all out there to see what sells... here are a few examples of the new items:

Personalized flat note cards for boys, girls, and siblings:
Thank you notes for girls, boys, and an assortment: An assortment of blank note cards with "children at play" designs: An assortment of blank note cards with animal designs:
An assortment of square gift tags with silhouette designs:

An assortment of round gift tags with animal designs:

And finally, an assortment of round gift tags with the "children at play" designs:

Whew! Now I need to start doing some marketing. And I'd like to create some new wall art designs. But in the meantime, please leave a comment and let me know what you think - thanks!! :)

more new designs

I feel like I haven't been posting much lately, so I figured I'd share a little sneak peek at what I've been working on. These designs are nowhere near finished (I still need to narrow down everything to my favorites, decide what formats I'm going to offer, how I'll print them, whether to offer personalization, etc.) but I'd love some feedback during this process, so here they are...

I started out trying to design some thank you cards for my daughter, Emma. Even though she had a princess party, she's also crazy about dogs.
Then I started thinking about flat note cards. I really like these, but I'm not sure I want to offer personalized products until I start doing my own printing, and the printer I'm thinking about buying can't print on card stock.So then I made up some blank note cards...
And then went back to adding personalization... even though I don't really want to do it, I just think these are so cute and a set of personalized note cards would make such a nice gift!
And then I decided to try out some of these designs with prayers (getting back to my original business idea)...
So what do you think??? Even if I don't know you and you've never posted here before, I'd really love some feedback. Thanks!

UPDATE: I just had an idea, since personalized items are so popular with online shoppers, and I really should offer personalization, I think I'm going to say "Personalized items are printed on Tuesdays and Fridays, shipped on Wednesdays and Saturdays." Then I'm only running to the printer twice a week - that's not so bad.

new gift tags

I had an idea this morning for rectangular gift tags that you can just tape to a birthday gift, and I wouldn't have to punch them & string them with ribbon. I think they're pretty cute, so I went ahead and posted them in my Etsy shop. What do you think???

very cool

I was featured on Cool Mom Picks yesterday!

I'll stick with paper

Inspired by these fairy crowns from Nest Pretty Things on Etsy, I decided to try making my own "princess crowns" for my daughter, Emma, and her friends to wear at Emma's upcoming 3rd birthday party.
I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, and Emma loves wearing her crown around the house.

But more importantly it was a great learning experience for me. Whenever I see handcrafted things like these I start thinking, maybe I should make stuff like that instead of trying to draw. Making the first one was fun... making the 2nd - 6th ones was definitely NOT FUN. So once again I feel good about what I'm doing and my decision to create illustrations that can be turned into multiple prints with the click of a button.

so true

Brian Andreas is one of my favorite artists; I was so delighted to receive this New Year greeting from his company, StoryPeople, a couple of days ago:

new gift tags

I created some new gift tags that I'm really excited about! My pictures aren't great (the sun was starting to set), so I'll probably need to retake the pictures earlier in the day another time, but I went ahead and posted them in my Esty shop, available either blank or personalized. What do you think?

hooray!

My first "real sale" (to someone I didn't know) took 21 days. Then it was 13 days until my second sale, then 18 days until my third sale (yesterday).

Now I've had 3 sales in the past 2 days! I really hope this is the beginning of a new trend!

more favorites

I feel like my last couple of posts have been downers, so on a more positive note, here are some of my new Etsy favorites...

Letteria (I'd love to learn how to do letterpress printing like this!)
Sweetbeets (more letterpress printing)
Oh Sew Fresh Designs (quilting is another one of those things I've been wanting to learn for about 10 years now)

sales goals

Last night I was feeling pretty down about Sarah & Abraham, wondering why I'm doing this and feeling frustrated about how much I've spent and how little I've sold. But then this morning I got another order, and seeing that in my inbox was so rewarding!

The only downside to getting an order, especially in the winter, is having to bundle up the kids and get them in and out of their car seats to go pick up the prints.

But it occurred to me that a good goal for myself is to sell enough to make enough of a profit to buy a high-quality color printer. I've got the shipping figured out so I don't have to go to the post office, so if I could print myself, this whole operation would be much easier!

Unfortunately I need to sell about 170 more items to break even, and then probably 50 more to buy a printer. But it's good to have a goal to work towards!

balance

I would imagine that my struggle to find balance is a pretty universal thing among almost all stay-at-home-moms and work-at-home-moms. I have yet to find a balance between:

a) working out / eating right / taking care of myself and my family
b) spending quality time with the kids - going fun places, reading to them, doing crafts together, etc.
c) getting together with friends (both mine and the kids') regularly
d) working on my business

It seems like whenever I really focus on one of those things, everything else falls by the wayside. For quite a while I was going to the gym 6 days/week and eating pretty healthy. Since I began really focusing on Sarah & Abraham, my gym visits have gotten less and less frequent, my ice cream consumption has increased significantly, and I've gained about 10 pounds.

When I make it a priority to prepare fresh, healthy meals that my family will eat without complaint, that effort seems to take up an extraordinary amount of time.

When I make it a priority to get together with friends, go to playgroups, and do fun stuff with the kids during the week, there doesn't seem to be much time for anything else.

So what's my point? Well, just that I really plan to make this whole "figuring out a balance" thing a priority for 2008. Surely there's a way to make it all work. I always thought that I enjoyed "taking each day as it comes", but I probably really do need to create a schedule and stick to it - something my husband has been suggesting for about 3 years now.

I'll keep you posted on my progress... and advice from anyone who has it figured out (or is getting close to figuring it out) would be welcomed!

website

I've been thinking that I really need to have a website so I can do search engine optimization and hopefully bring a lot more visitors to my Etsy shop. So I created one this morning, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It's not much more than a portal to my shop and blog, but I think it's a good start.

Oh, I also designed a new print this morning...

Okay, time to step away from the computer and go see what the kids are up to!

new design

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my site to one of my favorite blogs, Cool Mom Picks, and yesterday I heard back from Kristen, the co-founder and editor of the blog. Her son's having a birthday next month, so I'm sending her some sample goody bag tags. She said that her husband's a pilot, and I've been meaning to create some airplane/truck/train designs, so this is what I came up with for her...
And this is the new 8x8 personalized print that I'm going to post on Etsy today:

I think that being featured on Cool Mom Picks would be huge for me, but even if that doesn't work out, it feels good to be working on some new designs again!

kindness of strangers

When I first joined Etsy I was hesitant to post in the forums, but I went ahead and posted for the first time on November 19th asking for advice for my shop. The response was overwhelmingly positive (and a much needed ego boost!) Since then I've gotten more and more comfortable posting in various forums on Etsy, and I really enjoy it. I'm continually amazed at what a kind, supportive community it is, how quickly everyone responds to questions and how eager everyone is to help.

Yesterday I posted in a forum where everyone was critiquing each other's shops (my favorite topic!), and I received an incredibly uplifting comment from a fellow Etsian. She said, "...your stuff looks like something out of a designer baby catalog (like Pottery Barn Kids) and somehow including your style in your shop might help link you to buyers. i love it--classic colors and simple elegant pictures/graphics." It was such a thrill to hear someone compare my designs to Pottery Barn Kids - exactly the look I was going for!

some Etsy favorites

I've been meaning for a while now to post some of my favorite things on Etsy so far. One of the first shops I came across when I started on Etsy that I fell in love with right away was Belle and Boo. This is one of my favorite prints, which I purchased for my daughter's bedroom:
The artwork at Sarah Jane Studios has a similar feel - both artists do such an amazing job of capturing the sweet innocence of childhood. I'd like to purchase one of these prints, too, but I haven't been able to decide on my favorite yet.

Yesterday I came across a shop called Nest Pretty Things that sells all kinds of beautiful whimsical creations including paper goods, bags, jewelry, dream catchers, magnets, and fairy crowns (my daughter will need one of those for her 3rd birthday for sure!) Here's a lovely fabric wreath:

Tamar, the artist behind Nest Pretty Things also has a blog where she's posted some photos from her house. Her house is so full of artwork and beautiful colors - VERY different from my style, but exactly how I'd like my home to look if I could just empty out my house and start all over.

And then there are these little needle felted animals. I can't even begin to explain how much I love these (or why!?) The first time I saw them was on Martha Stewart when a woman named Jenn Docherty was demonstrating how she makes them. She has a shop on Etsy, as does Lauren Alane who made the ones below, but so far I haven't seen any of their creations for sale because they always sell out as soon as they're posted.

the big move

We've spent the past few days clearing out the playroom, buying office furniture, and finally moving everything out of the "cloffice". I can't tell you how happy I am to be out of there! I converted the closet in our dining room to a workspace in 2005 to have somewhere to keep all the computer stuff away from the kids, the idea being that I only used the computer occasionally to check email and pay bills.

It worked out great for a while, but this 3' x 5' space became way too cramped when I started spending more and more time in there working on Sarah & Abraham.
So we converted what used to be a playroom into an office with workspace for me, workspace for my husband, who also does a lot of work from home, and a crafting area for the kids. I love how it turned out!