Vote for the Minted Joy To the World Holiday Challenge!

The Holiday Challenge at Minted is by far their biggest challenge of the year. Last year was the first one I participated in, and I only submitted two designs - neither of which made it to the second round of voting. I've grown so much since then as a designer, and I was determined to enter some really strong designs for the Joy To The World challenge this year - which I did! And I am super, super proud to announce that five of my designs made it through to the second round of voting!

The first prize is $7,000 - which would be AMAZING to win! I know I won't be a winner (um, hello, Minted has some of the most talented designers in the world participating in this challenge!) but I would still love for you to head on over and vote for my designs! While you're there, vote for the other designs too - your vote matters, so help Minted decide what to sell by voting. 

Here are my designs that have made it through to the second round of voting:

Surrounded by Love

 Snowfall

 Starry Night Family

 Trivium

Mr. & Miss-tletoe

So go grab yourself a cup of coffee (or glass of wine) and vote for your favorite designs - including mine! 

Custom Address Stamps by Believe Notes

If you've been following me on twitter you might have already read my tweets about my computer having a "corrupt" operating system - which I am convinced is equivalent of a Mac virus. Either way, it caused mayhem for me, and has kept me away from this blog for what feels like forever. Over the last two months all sorts of internet-related things stopped working, until finally I had no Facebook, no Etsy, no blogger, no email, no google, no paypal, no banking, and so on. I basically had no internet. It's really hard to run a business without any internet access.

Correction - it's really hard to stay sane without internet access. Thank goodness for the iPad, and it's limited, but enough-to-keep-me-sane internet access.

Anyway, my husband fixed my computer, and now I am back in business & back to blogging. Although, it is really overwhelming to come back and blog after such a long time. So much has happened and I want to share it all, but I'm behind over a month, so I need to organize my thoughts and share one thing at a time.

And so here we go!

One thing I am super excited to announce, is that I am now selling custom Return Address Stamps in the Etsy shop.

I am super excited to be selling these - as I've been making them for a while, and I love, love, love them. In fact, last year for Christmas practically everybody in my family got one! I've given them to friends and family as gifts for house warming, engagements, weddings, birthdays and so on. I think they are just perfect - and starting at $25, they are a practical gift too!

So head on over and check out all of the font options to find the stamp that works best for your occasion!

Coming Soon to Minted

My husband and I just got back from our one-year anniversary trip to Vegas and I am thrilled to come back to a Minted Editor's Pick for my "Bowtied" Books to Bottles Baby Shower invitation design.

The design features a pale lavender, linen textured background and a sweet, hand drawn bow. It'll be offered in several additional colors themes, and will also have coordinating thank you cards. Once the designs are up for sale, I'll certainly let you all know!

For all of you that have contacted me while I was away on vacation last week, I'm looking to spend some time today catching up on emails and Etsy inquiries - so you'll be hearing from me soon! Next week I will be traveling as well, but I'll have my computer and will keep my Etsy shop open and will be fulfilling orders as well as working on custom designs - so if you need anything, just shoot me an email at believenotes@yahoo.com. 

One Year

I cannot believe that it's already been a year. I'm beyond words. The year has been filled with so many memories - from our rainy honeymoon & carbon monoxide problem, to the candle-lit dinner my husband surprised me with just a few days ago. I can only hope the rest of our lives are filled with as much love, joy, laughter and learning as the past year has been. Happy Anniversary, my love!

Thanks A Million! Minted Submissions

As I mentioned in my last post, Minted has been having back-to-back challenges to keep us designers super busy. One of the challenges was the "Thanks A Million!" thank you card challenge. Thank you cards have always been one of my favorite things to design, and they were actually some of the very first items I had for sale in my Etsy shop.

It was a lot of fun creating these designs - I tried some new techniques and really pushed myself out of my comfort zone by using new fonts, textures, hand drawn elements and different type layouts. At the end of the day, I love the designs I submitted and am proud that it's such an obvious sign of growth for me as a designer.

handy, dignified, gratitude, curled, opaque, petite gratitude, sky high, steele

Voting is still open for the Thanks A Million challenge, so please head on over and tell Minted what to sell! 

Smoldering Business Cards - Now for Sale on Minted!

My "Smoldering" business cards are now for sale at Minted. Head on over and check them out!

"Smoldering" comes in three different color options and has a variety of options for the backer. they are the perfect new business cards for the upcoming hot summer!

Recent Design Work - Oh, Hello!

Oh boy! It's been over a month since my last blog post - I'm contemplating reintroducing myself! Just kidding, hopefully you remember who I am ;)

If you've been following my blog for a long time, you might have noticed a trend where I really seem to back off blogging during the months of December and May - if you're wondering why, it's because that's the end of the school semester (don't forget, I go to grad school at night!) Towards the end of the semester my evenings are filled with school projects, papers, finals and registering for the next semester. Not much time for blogging.

But, just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean my business has been idle. Believe Notes has been  launching new items, submitting to Minted challenges, and working on some wedding invitations to add to the shop. I have also been looking into new business adventures, and cannot wait to share some of the fun things that will be happening in the future.

Oh, and I've been buying fonts. Because, as I've said before, some girls buy shoes when they're stressed - but this girl buys fonts. Although, this past month has been a month of shoes and fonts - I guess that means I've been uber stressed??

Minted has been having challenge after challenge after challenge. It's been hard enough keeping up with that, let alone everything else going on! One recent challenge that I'm waiting to hear back about winners is the Cheers! Wedding Party Invitation Challenge. The designers were asked to come up with designs for engagement parties, rehearsal dinners, and bridal showers. Minted often has "special categories" for their challenges where they ask designers to design for a specific theme, and one of the special categories was for a tasteful lingerie shower. I always try to have a few submissions that cater to the special categories. So, without further explanation, here are the designs I submitted for the Cheers! challenge:

 Into the Sunset, Embraced, Best Necessities, Barely There, Antique Flora

Hope you head on over to Minted and vote on the recent challenges! Your vote always counts, so head on over and tell Minted what to sell!