Merry Christmas 2012

Christmas seemed to creep up on my husband and I this year, but we're both excited to be able to spend some time off, with our family and friends. We'll be bouncing around between Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island, and are very thankful that we don't have to fly anywhere!

Both the Believe Notes and Designers Care shops are currently closed, and will be re-opening in January with some much needed changes and streamlining. I'm enjoying the slight break and am using the time to catch up and realign. The end of this year has been both amazing and challenging, but full of growth and learning. There are lots and lots of things I'd love to blog about, I'm hoping to find some time to sit and write in the next few weeks.

I hope, for those of you that celebrate, you have a wonderful Christmas that filled with love and laughter!

PS - I have about 10 of my personal holiday cards left, so if any of you would like one, please just email me your address (believenotes@yahoo.com) and I'd be happy to send it your way

Holiday Gifts from Minted

I've been super busy this season with my highest volume of holiday sales to date - plus all of the orders from Designers Care - which means that, more than ever, I am doing almost all of my holiday shopping online. I'm one of those gift givers that really likes the gifts to be something memorable and personalized, but not super expensive, which is why I am so excited about all of the stationery gift options available through Minted.

One of my favorite ideas for a gift is a custom photo calendar - I mean, who wouldn't love to have a calendar that is actually nice to look at (instead of those freebies that your dad got during a business meeting??). The calendars are printed on thick, luxurious paper and are designed by some of the best designers in the stationery world.

Back in August my family took formal family portraits, as a gift to my grandparents, and what better gift than to use those photos to create a calendar! (I hope my Grams isn't reading this blog post!). You can even put in the dates of everybody's birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and so on! I'm positive my grandparents are going to love it! And I love how simple the design, by Kristie Kern, is!

I can't wait to pick out a few more designs - and I think I'll be picking one up for myself too! I just absolutely ADORE the Year of Art calendars! And when the year is over, you can can down the calendar and frame the art!

In addition to the beautiful calendars, I am also completely smitten with all of the Art Prints available now through Minted. While I personally wasn't able to submit any designs into the art print challenges, I think the community of designers worked together to create one of the most gorgeous art collections available anywhere.

And if beautiful art prints and calendars aren't enough for you, Minted also has some really handy (and perfectly designed, of course) journals available as well. They're super affordable, really lovely, and this one right here was designed by yours truly.

*this post was sponsored by Minted, in exchange for this post, I got a free calendar, which was really darn smart of them because I liked it so much I went back and purchased three more. Yes, I like them that much.

When Small Business(es) Meet High Stress

I had promised to share the real ups and downs behind owning a small business, and what's more real than a post at 7:30pm on a Saturday night?

The past few weeks have been overwhelming - in both good and bad ways. It's been about three weeks since I started Designers Care, which is a shop filled with gorgeous note cards that are hand stamped using designs donated but lots of talented designers. We've had over 100 sales and raised close to $900 to donate to Hurricane Sandy victims - I'd say the shop is absolutely a success.

But for whatever reason, I just don't feel very successful. I feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and beat down. October through December is my absolute busiest season - between holiday cards for Believe Notes, papers and finals for graduate school, busy season at my full time job, and then of course the chaos of the holidays in general - I feel like I'm starting to shut down.

One day, last week, I went to work without my glasses or my watch and I only had eyeliner on one eye. 

I'm finding that in my stress I seem to be focusing too hard on the negatives: orders are backed up (I must not be efficient enough!), I don't have enough time in the day (so I should get up super early and stay awake super late, right?!), I've made a few mistakes & one of my entire product lines failed (this was the hardest on me, by far). And even though, deep down, I know I'm not failing, I really, really, really feel like I am.

I also know that the more stressed I am, the more stress I put on my husband, and that of course leads to stupid bickering and hurt feelings. He may not be as busy as me in terms of working + school + 2 businesses, but he's NYPD and he certainly has't had a stress-free experience dealing with the hurricane aftermath. Long hours & overtime combined with seeing the underbelly of a city in crisis has definitely lead to an exhausted husband. He and I handle stress in completely different ways - he likes to sit back and do nothing but watch TV in order to escape, while I like to bury myself in even more work to take my mind off of things. But then, of course, we argue about the stress itself because I constantly push us both to do more, more, more, and he is trying to do less, less, less. At this point I think we can agree that we'd both like to just ditch the jobs, and school, and businesses and just try to catch up and cope with all the madness. And thank goodness this is temporary - things always calm down a little in January.

So yes, I feel like I'm failing sometimes - at being a good friend or wife, at cooking healthy dinners, at being present for the people around me. I can beat myself up all I want for missing a deadline or making a mistake, but then I get an email like this and it all seems to melt away:

Jackie,

I know you've been totally swamped! If I can help with anything, let me know. 

By the way, you really inspire me!

--Ann

 

When I'm up at 4:30am working on a design, bleary eyed and exhausted, I can't imagine being any form of inspiration for anything (other than maybe Dunkin Donuts). But I wake up almost every morning to amazing emails from amazing people and I remember that I am not in this alone, and I am not doing this for myself. 

And even in writing the blog post, I may be feeling uneasy about it in the morning, but I wanted to share some of what really happens during high stress - you may be seeing beautifully styled photos, and RTs from fabulous people, but that isn't the whole reality. The whole reality is me at 7:30am in my office building noticing that I have eyeliner on one eye.

Designers Care

As many of you may know, I live in Queens, New York City. Although, I've got to be honest and say that, even though I've lived here almost three years, I still don't really call Queens home. Home, to me, is the south shore of Long Island on the water. I'm one of those people that actually takes comfort in the smell of low tide, which is why when I moved to Queens, I found a place right on the water. Most of the people I know are also water lovers, in fact I think it's fair to say that if you live on Long Island, you've got water running through your veins. And trust me when I say that nobody ever thought the water they so loved would ever turn against them.

Oh, but it did.

Two weeks ago Superstorm Sandy smashed into the East Coast, wrecking everything in her path. Maybe another time I'll write about what my personal experience was during the storm, but for now just know that I'm safe, my home is safe, and my family is safe. After the storm came through, and people lost everything, those of us that had power sat in absolute stupors in front of the television looking at the wreckage. The news coverage was (and still is) 24/7 about the crisis. For me, it took days before I actually realized what happened. When I went back to work, I found myself staring at the computer screen unable to really move.

I wanted to help. I thought about volunteering, but I knew I didn't even have enough gas in my car to get to the areas that were hardest hit. Plus, if I heard about a single pet that died, well, I'd be a wet mess on the side of the road - I don't know why I'm such a softie for animals. But I still wanted to help. Everybody wanted to help. In fact, as soon as the storm was over, I went online and the entire designer community was reaching out to me to see if I was OK. They kept asking if there was anything I needed - but there wasn't, I was fortunate to have had no damage. Although still, the aching feeling that I needed to find a way to help.

And then I had this crazy idea. What if I found a way to use stationery to help? So I put an exploratory idea out into the design community: Would anybody be interested in donating a design to me so that I could use the design to make a stamp and then create gorgeous hand stamped note cards to sell with ALL proceeds going to help the storm victims?

The answer was a unanimous and overwhelming yes.

Friday, November 9th, I threw the question out there. Within 48 hours I had over 60 designers involved, a submission kit created, an army of designers pitching in, an Etsy shop opened, and the decision to donate proceeds to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief.

Designers Care was born.

I knew we'd need support, so I reached out to a few of my favorite vendors to see if they'd be willing to get us off the ground. Simon, over at Simon's Stamps, was the first person to support us by donating the our first 20 stamps. We then raised enough money as a group to purchase the remaining 40+ stamps and ink pads. Envelopes.com was so extremely generous in providing us with some envelopes, and we're still hoping to get more paper and supplies donated to help us keep growing.
Over the course of the first 24 hours, the amazing Jennifer Wick quickly created a shop logo, while Rebecca Bowen helped raise the start-up costs, and Kim Dietrich Elam researched some legal/logistical issues. My mother rolled up her sleeves and jumped in to help too, creating a new email address, setting up all of the shop listings and helping me coordinate emails and inquiries. She'll also be helping me fill all of the orders and send out to customers. The design community became so involved that we created an entirely separate place for us to work together in creating the new initiative.

I am so humbled, honored, proud and grateful to have the privilege of organizing such an amazing project. Designers Care has already become my baby, and I cannot thank all of the designers enough for helping me get it off the ground. Our goal is to raise at least $2,000 as soon as possible for Sandy victims, we're already at over $400 and we need all of your help! I would love if you could share the story, write a blog post, pin, retweet or whatever it is that you can do to help us sell as much as possible.

And please, please, please visit Designers Care and purchase some note cards. I'm offering small (2" x 3.5" cards) or note cards (4.25" x 5.5") in singles or sets of 4 or 5. Prices start at $2.25 for a single card and $8.75 for a pack of five cards. You'll have the options of white or kraft paper, and black, gold metallic or silver metallic inks. In the next few days I'll also be adding black paper and gold embossing as well as 4x6 prints that would be perfect as framed art.

So a huge thank you to all of the designers that made this happen, and to everybody that donated to help get Designers Care off the ground!

1 - Joy Comes by Mariel Joy. 2 - Full of Hope by Paper Next by Lesa. 3 - Love Peave and Joy by The Lovely Letters. 4 - You're Awesome by Geekink Design. 5 - Made with Love by Frooted Design. 6 - Un Grand Merci bhy le Poetik Studio. 7 - Thank You by Kristen Smith. 8 - I Heart NY by 2BSquared Design. 9 - Tweet Thanks by Pistols

1 - Strong by Susan Asbill 2 - Shine On by Bleu Collar Paparie. 3 - Left My Heart by Jennifer Wick. 4 - Home Is by Kerry Doyle. 5 - Sunshine Ahead by Stacey Hill. 6 - Go With The Flow by Laura Bolter, 7 - Happy Thoughts by The Occasional Hello, 8 - Hope by Robin Ott, 9 - Bless Your Heart by Felicity Paper

Danfredo Photography + Believe Notes

I'm one of those people that absolutely loves pictures - when I travel I bring more memory cards than I do socks. The past few months have been so much fun for me, as I've had the chance to work with a few really fabulous photographers. Photography just makes my heart sing, so you can imagine how excited I am to be able to feature gorgeous pictures in all of my holiday cards this year!

Danielle Rivera, the photographer behind Danfredo Photography, is a kick-ass lady in all sorts of ways, and she is also the pro behind the pictures in my holiday line! Yippie!

Not only am I super excited to have her photos be a part of my design work, I'm stoked about having had the chance to meet and get to know such an awesome person. You'll be hearing a lot more about Danielle and Danfredo Photography in the future, as I'm pretty sure you'll want to see our recent collaboration, which I'll be sharing on the blog in the future.

In the meantime, how awesome do her pictures work with my designs??

Head on over to the shop and get 5% off your holiday order, this week only, with coupon code HAPPIESTHOLIDAYS and you'll be on your way to seeing how amazing your photos look in these designs! 

2012 Holiday Wrap Around Labels

 Yesterday I announced that the 2012 holiday line is available in the shop, and today I am happy to also share the newest addition to the holiday line, coordinating Wrap Around Labels to perfectly match your holiday card!

Labels come flat printed with your address on one end and a blank space for you to write in the addresses of family and friends. The labels come in sheets of 5, and cost $30 for 50 labels, and they are free shipping if purchased with your holiday cards. 

So head on over to the shop and pick our your cards and matching labels!

2012 Holiday Cards Now Available

I'm so excited to announce that the 2012 line of holiday cards are now available for purchase in the shop. This year my focus was on adding traditional, but not stuffy, designs that worked for both couples, newlyweds and families. I wanted to play with simple designs and really strong typography - and I absolutely love the way the line came out!

Here are a few of my favorite new designs:

From Top Left: Light Hearted, Merry Everything, Snowfall, Dreams Come True

In addition to nearly 10 new designs, I have also added thick Felt paper as a paper option. So, this year, you can select from the standard 100% recycled paper, pearl/shimmer paper, linen textured paper and now thick felt - all for the same price! The felt paper feels almost like cotton paper, but at a much lower cost, it's a great way to add warmth to your holiday card.

To celebrate the launch of the 2012 holiday line, head on over to the shop and use coupon code HAPPIESTHOLIDAYS to get 5% off your purchase for this week only.

Enjoy, and happy holidays!!