Friday, November 16, 2012

Have a drink on us

I remember the first time I designed custom drink tickets. The coordinator had suggested it during the consultation and the couple and I were both delightfully surprised at the suggestion. It kind of went like this:

Coordinator: "Oh, how about custom drink tickets for your guests!"

Couple: "Huh?"

Me: "Huh?"

Followed by a half-second of silence, then:

Couple: "I love that idea!"

Me: "Awesome sauce! I can make little cards that coordinate with the design and color scheme of the invitation! I can even make double cards with a perforation across the middle! They will be so pretty that your guests won't want to turn them in for a drink! Can you possibly understand how excited I am to be designing this new and fantastic piece of stationery??!!"

At least, that's what I thought in my head. I'm sure I said something more along the lines of, "That would be lovely. I can definitely design something like that for you."

Sometimes the paper dork comes out in me...which is essential, I think, in making my clients happy.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Hair today, gone tomorrow

I recently purchased this:
It's a large sheet of paper with various styles of mustaches printed on it. I bought five sheets of it. Yup, five sheets of mustache paper. I haven't decided what to do with it yet, but I'm going to just let the mustaches speak to me. I'm confident that something wonderful - and hairy - will emerge.

A couple months back, my husband and I were in California and we happened into a random shop filled with quirky + trendy things. We saw a bunch of items with mustaches on them and after noticing the puzzled look on my husband's face, I knew it was my duty to school him on the mustache trend. Little did I know that he would use this knowledge against me. To this day, every time we see a mustached something or other, he points to it and says, "Hey, it's a mustache. Did you know those are hot right now?" I'm counting the days until mustaches are groomed from our retail landscape forever! Well, not really. I still dig them and hope they stick around for a little while longer, especially since I just designed this holiday greeting card (my ode to the mustache):
Emi Ink holiday cards are on sale now at The Wedding Cafe.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Right around the corner

I'll be honest, I've been freaked out about the impending holidays ever since I spotted Halloween candies and costumes in the store...in early September. My first instinct was to curl up in a ball and hide under my bed until the first of the year. If not for the lure of fun-size Raisinets and Kit-Kat bars, that's where I would be right now. Instead, I decided to face my fears head on. The first beast I had to slay? My 2013 calendar.

I designed my first calendar last November and have delighted in people thanking me all year for the little bit of sunshine that sits on their desks. (Is it strange that I don't keep one of my own calendars out on display?)

So, onto the 2013 calendar. I spent two months tweaking designs, changing colors, rearranging the order. If the holiday shopping season weren't right around the corner, I could easily spend another two months working on it. That's how it goes when I'm designing something for myself...I'm my own worst client!

I'll have a limited supply of these beauties on sale at The Wedding Cafe in Ward Warehouse, and will also be selling them direct on my new website (that's the second beast I had to slay...more on that later). The calendars are wee little ones that sit on your desk (roughly 3.5" wide by 3.75" tall) and will go for $12.00 each. So, $1.00 per month...pretty good deal, right?