I'm On Another Blog!!

What a lovely Christmas present! Check out Filigree Garden blog and you will see my lovely "Finding Winter Cardinal" amongst some very talented artist. A big thank you to Liv for thinking of me and including my art!!!

Showcase

In all the rushing around over the last month, I had a few moments of sanity and reason and managed to book some slots on Etsy for some showcases.I figured that those who would buy on line for the holidays would do so before Thanksgiving. And I also thought that since everyone would be home on Thanksgiving, that they may do a bit of cyber shopping. I was right! I got loads of views and hearts, and I think a sale or two!! I still have one showcase left for the year on December 9th then it's back to the drawing board (literally!) for some new art for the new year.

Wedding

It's all finally over now. My first job doing stationery for a wedding. Don't know if I will ever do anything like it again. But it I learned a lot, and those that do it for a living...God bless them. What a load of work!!

I did all new art for the invites and had tight specifications as well as tons of revisions and new requests. I really wanted to get it right and really really wanted to make my sister in law and husband to be super happy with everything. In the end it took me over 100 hours of work to get the Save the Date cards, invitations, response cards, driving directions, map, escort cards, order of service, handkerchief cards, and table numbers done. I did all original art, all the layout and design, all the printing at home on my Epson R1800, all the cutting, trimming, and pasting and putting together. And in the end my sister in law was thrilled!! So I call that a success!

The invitation

My sister in law's middle name is Fern after her grandmother who passed away some years ago. So in honour of her grandmother who couldn't be there she wanted a fern illustration as a theme on the stationery, I spent hours pouring over the fern it went through loads of changes until I was happy (I think I am a harder client than anyone who actually hires me) I need to be happy even if my client was happy with the first sketch out. I did the final fern in Illustrator, and did each little leaf and stem just right until it looked great.

The Map

The map was by far the funnest piece to do. Since I know the area really well where they were getting married and I knew them very personally, it was fun putting in points of interest to them. I put in "Zoomies Yacht" which is were my sister in laws father has his boat moored. I also put in the Starbucks that my sister in law stops at every morning on her way to work in Little Italy, the Gaslamp Quarter where they love to go to dance, and Best Buy where my sister in law and her husband to be go every Sunday as an outing (they LOVE that place!!). I added a few more places of interest for those guest coming from out of town so they would have fun while in San Diego too.

The Order of Service and Hankie Card

The order of service was done twice, yes that means I double side printed, cut and folded 120 of these things which took 3 days to do to find out that someones name had been spelled wrong and had to do the whole lot over again. I wasn't thrilled, but wanted it to be right as I knew that if there was a mistake it would only make me look bad even though I was going off the information I was given to I was all to happy to do them over. The Hankie card was then attached to a antique lace handkerchief that was attached to the order of service and every lady and girl that came to the wedding was given an Order of Service with a hankie. I thought it was a lovely touch.

Escort Cards

This was quick and easy to print, cut and paste together. If the guest was having fillet Mignon with sea bass they got a blue card and if the guest was having chicken with shrimp they got an orange card. This made it easier on the servers to get the right food to the right guest.

Table Numbers

Finally the table numbers. Would you believe only days before the wedding I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that with out table numbers the escort cards would be no good! I thought only Brides woke up in the middle of the night with those kinds of last minute "OH my God I forgot about....." Well this time it was me. I made up the table numbers the next morning rushing to ... you guessed it the Paper Source to get the backing I needed.

On a Blog

It is always so wonderful when others find you and your art and like it so much that they want to share it with others. I am so delighted with every sale I get in my Etsy shop and thrilled every time someone adds one of my pieces to their treasury. Now one of my most treasured pieces has found a spot on Susan's blog. Check out Kiddlebug, a fun blog for moms. Finding Winter Cardinal is the image of the day for her blog on fun things to do with your kids this winter. Thank you Susan for making my art a part of your site!!