Custom Design: Surprise 30th Birthday

The only requirement for this custom design: masculine. Since I'm a pretty minimalist designer and I have a deep love for the color grey, it was pretty easy for me to keep it on the manly side. Using black, grey and bold typography, I had fun conveying the surprise aspect and the fact that he's turning 30 (not just your average birthday - I know because my next one will be 30 - yikes!). I printed the 'Shhh, it's a surprise' seal on the envelopes as well, and those were a hit.

AND - I hear he was indeed surprised. A success!

Worth the Wait

I had lunch with a Dallas wedding planner a few weeks ago (the lovely Stefanie Miles of Lavender Joy Weddings), and we talked about taking the time to establish your brand. We talked about the months we spent on our branding and websites and how during that time, it’s easy to compare yourself to everyone else while you are working just to get started. This time is hard, but in the end, it is so worth the wait. If you are in this phase… just know that it does eventually come together, and it’s worth preparing for success instead of just rushing into it, hoping you can get there quicker. Things have been going really well since my website launched, and lately, I’ve had this overwhelming sense of relief. Relief, that what I started out to do 9 months ago is finally done. Relief, that I am finally reaping the benefits of having done the work FIRST. Relief, that someone actually does want to buy my invitations. (Because that worry was always there until several someones did actually want to buy them.)

I quit my job last November and while I had a few design ideas for my collection, I was essentially starting from scratch with that part of my business. My experience over the past few years has allowed me to learn what I like, what I want to offer, and what I want my focus to be, but I had to establish a consistency throughout my business. Processes, policies, prices, contracts, samples… then finalizing, choosing, printing, photographing. It took time! Also, the control wasn’t always in my hands and it was challenging to not know that everything was going to happen in the time I wanted it to. Sometimes it felt like I would be ‘preparing’ forever! But I chose to finish everything before I would proceed with anything else, and so I kept going.

That meant not advertising, not promoting myself, and not booking brides. Now, weddings, up until this point, have been just a small part of my business. I design for Minted, I design custom designs and stationery, but it’s weddings that I have decided to focus on and the first few months of the year, I didn't book a single wedding. As a whole, my business was actually really profitable while I was working on my site, but I knew that the profits weren't coming from brides and I would compare myself to other wedding stationers… that designer seems to be booking a ton of weddings, she got asked to this, they were featured there, they seem to have a really successful business, more successful than mine…. Doesn't it always LOOK like everyone has it all together? Insecurities about what I was trying to do, the time I was taking to do it and the progress that I was making only magnified how well I thought everyone else was doing. It really made me worry whether what I was doing was the right thing.

Now that I am done and am finally able to do all the things that I was waiting on, it's such a relief to know it was the absolutely the right thing to do. It’s totally okay to choose this route, even while you feel like everyone else is up and running and seems to be passing you by. Sometimes the right thing is to jump in, but sometimes it’s all the hard work and preparation that allows you to be ready for when the opportunities start to come your way.

Meet Catalina

The Catalina invitation is the perfect balance of gorgeous vintage florals and clean type. Throw in the lovely color combo of pink and gold and this feminine invitation can't get any sweeter. The layout is one of my favorites as well.

This inspiration board was almost as fun to create as the invitation. It's such an elegant color combo. It's fresh and current but with a touch vintage at the same time! Love!

Row 1: Valo Photography via Style Me Pretty, Erin Hearts Court via Style Me Pretty, via Pinterest Row 2: Sarah Rhoads Photographers via Style Me Pretty, Jose Villa Photography via Style Me Pretty, via Southern Weddings Blog, borrowed blue old new via Style Me Pretty,  Corbin Gurkin Photography via Style Me Pretty Row 3: KT Merry Photography, Martha Stewart Weddings, Martha Stewart Weddings, KT Merry Photography

OSBP Designer Rolodex

I am so excited to be a part of the Oh So Beautiful Paper Designer Rolodex!

From Oh So Beautiful Paper: "The Designer Rolodex is a curated directory of wedding invitation designers, and its members represent the best of the best.  Members of the Designer Rolodex have been hand selected as the most talented, innovative, and unique designers in the wedding invitation community. "

That's fancy speak for a selective vendor listing, but I am so, so honored to be included! Oh So Beautiful Paper is one of my favorite blogs. If you want, you can view my profile here.

The National Stationery Show

Last week, I was lucky enough to spend 4 days in New York City attending the National Stationery Show. For those of you that don't know, the National Stationery Show is a tradeshow for the wholesale stationery industry with exhibitors ranging from independent design studios and big stationery companies to printers and paper suppliers. To put it simply, it was paper heaven and if the idea of attending this show bores you to tears, below are some instagram photos that will give you a nice quick overview. Keep reading if you want the play-by-play...

The show was Sunday through Wednesday, but if you are interested in attending, you just need to figure out what events you want to attend and plan accordingly. Everyone seemed to be coming and going at different times throughout those days and you don't need to be there for the entire time (unless you are exhibiting of course!) You can probably walk the actual show in a day if you needed to, but we leisurely walked it in about a day and a half and I thought it was perfect. Between walking the show, seminars and meetings, I was still able to catch a broadway play and shop a bit. I've been to New York many times, but whether you have or haven't - you might as well take advantage of being in the city. But I digress.... back to the show.

A little by planning and a little by chance, Kimberly FitzSimons, Lesa Abney, Laura Hankins and I all stayed at the Hilton Times Square and decided to head to the show together. The first day, we spent a lot of time on the supply side of the show. There's a large portion of printers, paper suppliers, etc. that design studios like myself, could use to fulfill orders. I got a ton of information (and even more samples) from these type of vendors, many that I would never have learned about otherwise. Minted actually had booth this year and we made a beeline for it the moment we got there. It was so fun chatting face to face with the Minted team!

L to R: Me, Jen (Minted), Lesa, Laura, Kimberly, Alison (Minted) and Natasha (Minted)

The other section was all the design studios exhibiting their wholesale lines. They were AMAZING. From the greeting cards, to the invitations, to the booths, you could tell how much thought and creativity was put into every aspect. I was so glad to experience it, because after being there, I know that wholesale is not for me right now (I didn't think it was, but it helped confirm my initial thoughts about it). If you think you might be interested in wholesale, I definitely recommend attending before you jump in. There's something about being there that you just can't get from photos.

When we weren't walking the show, we filled our evenings getting to know the other Minted designers that made the trip. We knew there would be small group on Sunday, so Kimberly organized a casual happy hour at our hotel bar. We probably had about 20 people there, but we didn't whip out the camera until the end, but thanks to those who came. I loved meeting you!

L to R: Front - Laura, Lesa, Jackie from Believe Notes, Alston from B.Wise Papers. Back - Meg from Moglea, Kristie Kern, Kimberly, and me

Minted hosted a party for us on Monday evening and if you can believe it, this photo below isn't everyone! It was a big turnout. Between emails, forums, blogs and Facebook, I feel like I know these ladies and it was so fun to meet them in person, hear their voices and learn their personalities. It's hard to know much from a tiny, 2 inch photo! (Turns out, people thought I would be much taller! To say that I am 5'2" might be a bit of a stretch, so Rachel must be one talented photographer to make me look otherwise!)

Meeting everyone was definitely the highlight of my trip! I would not be doing what I am today without this company and design community, so getting to spend time building friendships with the people behind the tiny photos and emails was priceless and I am so grateful for the chance to attend. I hope that I can make it again next year.

Note: All the non-Instagram photos are from the wonderful photo-taker in our group, Kimberly. She also has a fun recap of the show on her blog. Thanks Kimberly!