The Wedding Invites

For the first time I was approached to do Wedding Invitations. To say I was nervous would be an understatement! Thank goodness it was one of my best friends that I have known since I was 5 years old. Of course, there is a different kind of pressure when it's someone you know.

She was getting married on Valentine's Day so she wanted to go with a 'love' theme. Her fiance wanted the invites to look a little bit like Valentine's...so she came to my house and we designed them.

I tried to be as exact in what we designed but there were some challenges. The first one was that the design called for the card to open from bottom to top (instead of the normal left to right). I couldn't find paper tall enough to accomplish this. Plus it was supposed to open, then open again....so it was super tall! I didn't know how I was supposed to get this through my printer, even if I found paper tall enough.

The second challenge was getting the Heart cut out in the middle of the card. I needed a whimsical heart. At first I bought a punch for my Epic Six. When I got it home I realized it wouldn't work. And not only did I need a whimsical heart , I needed the exact same heart in a smaller size for the response cards. I finally realized that my Cricut had a perfect heart, and with the Cricut I can make the heart be from 1 inches to 5 inches. Perfect!

I went to Archiver's and they were so helpful. I went during a winter storm, so I was the only one there. She sympathized with me because she had done 6 friends Wedding Invitations. She looked at my copy of the design and showed me how to implement it! I bought everything I needed there, even though I could have gotten the materials cheaper somewhere else, because I feel good customer service deserves rewarding.

After many hours (and many of my tools: my cricut, my printer, my xyron machine, my Shimmer Mist, my edge rounder punch...) the invites were complete! She was very pleased with the invites and response cards. :) I was happy to put these invites to bed!

But last week I get a message from her saying that they are unfortunately postponing the wedding!! Oh dear. I guess the invites that I put to bed got out of bed!! LOL So now she needed me to somehow fix the invites and response cards. The invites were easy for me to figure out. Before I went to Archiver's I went to JoAnne's and got a pack of 12X12 white paper that I Shimmer Misted before I realized the paper was too thin for the invites. So all I need to do to fix the invitations is to cut the paper the correct size to cover the bottom part of the invite and run that through my printer and then adhere over the wrong info. No one will be able to tell that there is another layer underneath, and the paper is already Shimmery so I don't even have to waste time or money doing that.

Now the response cards were a different story. I mean, response cards are basically just the date on when you need them back. She told me to just use white out ('gasp'!)!!! Ummmm, no. So I decided to use the thinner white paper that is already shimmery and run it through my printer, then butt it up agains the red strip of paper. It will actually turn out to look better I think.

Now I just need to implement them! Wish me luck!

Resolutions

Who doesn't resolve to do something better in the New Year? This year Happy Elephant Designs resolves to make more time in creating, experimenting, and playing. Because I also watch kids during the day, I need to start creating more in the evening. It's nice that my Mom watches my daughter on Wednesday's and sometimes Tuesdays....but I need to start utilizing my nights and weekends so I can get more cards into the shops.

Been awhile

It's been awhile since I've found time to blog. Lots have been happening for my little company. I was busy getting ready for 2 craft shows in Septmember. One was a free one of the Gallery's I'm in in Downtown Cleveland on September 11th for Sparx. I got a few orders from there so that was successful! Not to mention that the owner of the Gallery ordered a dozen kids Birthday cards :) I had a ton of Halloween stuff, and some of them got sold.

Then the next weekend I had a craft show at my daughters Gymnastics. That one was successful because I received some orders from there too! On top of that I've had some birthday invitations that I supply for her Gymnastics (they have birthday parties there and they asked if I would make all the invitations as part of the package). That has been a great on going order (as a matter of fact, just yesterday I was asked to do 20 more).

I would have to say my most successful night was when I took my box to my Golf League night! Those ladies know how to shop!! Not only did they nearly clear me out of stock, but I got a few custom orders for Halloween Boxes.

I have started filling some Christmas cards and Christmas box orders, if you can believe it! I'll have to take a picture of the boxes and post it, it's really neat and has become a favorite to all that see them! :) Allison (the owner of Molly's Gymnastics) has also decided to give me a permanent table in the front where she wants me to have already made scrap book pages, some invitations and favor boxes for showers, and she wants me to create a Matte Board that she can frame that is decorated with gymnastics embellishments so she can put her daughters pictures in it, frame it, and hang it on the wall in hopes that others will buy them. They are super great there, always trying to come up with ideas on how to make my business more successful! It's great to have the support of friends who believe in your craft!

Featured Artist

I was just featured on Cleveland Handmade! W00-hoo, check it out when you have the time :)

http://www.clevelandhandmade.com/2010/01/shannen-cleis-happy-elephant-designs/

Harry Chapin and my Epiphany

This weekend I was driving to Akron to go to a Baby Shower with my sister and I was jamming to some tunes on my iPod. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Harry Chapin, but I was raised listening to him, Billy Joel, Cat Stevens...etc. You couldn't be in my family without loving Harry and belting out his tunes (just ask my siblings spouses...they just LOVE it! lol)



So I'm listening to one of my favorites by him called Mr. Tanner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea6cgfU8bC4 and the words for the chorus really took on a different meaning this time to me. I don't know if it's cause I've been re-evaluating my company and trying to think of ways to turning it into a more profitable business, but those three sentences really touched a chord in my heart...



(chorus)

But music was his life, it was not his livelihood,and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole.



If you substituted 'music' for 'creating' in the chorus that is exactly how I feel. And it made me realize that I need to stop worrying about what other people think of my creations. Stop stressing about how to make my cards geared more towards the mass audience so that they will sell, but to make what is in my heart...and if it sells, then it sells. If not, then oh well.



That's not to say that I'm not going to try and make this business a success, but I'm going to try and do it so that my soul is still happy with my work!

Inspiration and the art at looking at things differently

I'm obsessed with shows like Top Chef and Project Runway. Especially the challenges where the chef's/artist have the same ingredients/materials and have to make something out of it. It fascinates me that people with the same stuff can make something completely different!

This is why I find art and creativity amazing. The different ways that people have of looking at the same exact things....that's just great! Even in my own studio, where I'm looking at the same materials that I had the day before. Yet I am inspired to create totally different things from day to day.

2010 Resolutions for Happy Elephant Designs

The new year is upon us, which is a perfect time for me to sit down and re-evalute where I want this company to go. For the new year I would love to have more sales, get my cards out there more, and create, create, create! In order to do this I made a list of 13 things that I think would help me do this. Hopefully I'm not biting off more than I can chew! :)

Here goes:

1. re-vamp my etsy shop and 1000 market shop so that it is geared more towards inviations (which I think sell better on-line than individual cards).

2. Read up more on how to letterpress with my new machine and then implemant it.

3. Market myself more by advertising (cheaply)...like with Project Wonderful Ads, twitter, Facebook, blogging, chatting in Etsy, etc.

4. Blog at least once a week and get more followers. This may be a challenge, but I believe it will help me get my business out there and make a connection with the community.

5. Learn more about Facebook Fanpage and implemant it.

6. Become more involved with my teams, especially Cleveland Team. I feel that there are alot of opportunities out there in that team that I'm not utilizing.

7. Get stock up to at least 100 cards so that I will have cards to list once a day.

8. Rotate stock more at the brick and mortar shops that I'm in. I believe I will sell more if I keep the merchandise fresh.

9. List at least once a day on Etsy and 1K market. This means doing a better job of getting my pictures taken of the cards.

10. Utilize my GA and SEO better.

11. Make Holiday cards at least @ months prior to that Holiday and get them in the shops and online.

12. Read all the articles in my inbox that I've been meaning to get too. There are some great tools in those articles that I've been putting off that I think will help me become more succesful.

13. Jump into the forums on both the 1K market and Etsy to get my name out there.