Custom Recap + Brklyn View Photography

One of my goals for this year is to network more and send heartfelt notes to people I really admire.  Jainé, the photographer behind Brklyn View Photography, is one of those people. I had been following her blog for a while, and when I saw her get published on Style Me Pretty I was so darn excited that I finally decided to email her and introduce myself. After exchanging a few emails (and enjoying really awesome burgers and drinks together) we decided to collaborate on some stationery and head shots. Turns out that Jainé is a paper junkie, and I'm a picture nut, so we were like a match made in heaven!

Jainé loves all things pink and fun, so we decided to create two stationery looks for her. One features lively confetti with her logo on the back, and the other has a hand embossed "thank you" on the front in gold, with bright pink and red stripes on the back. Sounds awesome, right?! I've been playing around with hand-embossing lately and loved that Jainé was on board.

I know, I know, these cards are totally awesome. The icing on the cake is that both sets of cards were paired with hot pink envelopes and gold envelope liners! And I'm not going to lie, I think I'm in love with hand embossing, it's such a beautiful way to add an extra element to designs. Labor intensive, yes, but so very worth it!

Minted Perfect Match Wedding Voting is Open!

I've been so busy lately that I haven't been participating as much as I'd like to in the Minted challenges, but I absolutely HAD to participate in their Perfect Match Wedding Invitation Challenge. When it comes to the Minted challenges, I try to stretch my comfort zone and test out some new things - whether it's patterns, typography or hand-drawn details, you'll see some things from me for Minted that are really different from my normal day-to-day items. That's what's so fun about Minted, having the opportunity to stretch and grow.

So here are my submissions for the wedding challenge, voting is open, so please go vote!

 

 

1. Blushful 2. Florals on Sapphire 3. Merriment 4. Pearlescent 5. Ombre Names 6. Sweetness 7. Infinite Class 7. Subtle Mosaic 8. Vine Knot

Custom Recap: Pink & Grey Housewarming Invitation

Today I want to share a customized housewarming party invitation I created based on my House + Warming design. I love taking a design and giving it an update through color and specialty paper, so I was super excited when my client asked for the invitation to be done in grey + pink and then printed shimmer paper. How awesome did these come out?!

I'm so smitten with this color combo, that I'm now offering these exact invitations for sale in the shop! If you love them as much as I do, head on over and check them out.

The Battle of Self Doubt, Business Doubt & Being Discouraged

Today I want to talk about the absolute biggest business challenge I have ever faced: myself.

I've been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to write this post, but at the end of the day, this blog is supposed to offer insights into my business - both the high and low. While I would love to only post about the great growth and fabulousness, that wouldn't be showing what really goes on behind the scenes.

Last week I shared some of my Common Business Mistakes, and while it was a scary mini-series to write, I thought it would be helpful so I wrote it, and it has gotten a ton of views, so thank you! Today I'll let you in on something that's even scarier to me, but I think it'll be even more helpful for you and the life/business you may be trying to grow.

Let's start off with my big confession: I seriously doubt myself. Like, all of the time. I doubt that I have the business savvy to really keep Believe Notes growing, I doubt that I have the accounting savvy to not have the IRS knock on my door and take me off to jail, I doubt that I have the actual design talent to create something timeless and versatile, I doubt that I have a warm & inviting personality and that I won't be able to make friends and be successful at networking, and I doubt that I have the ability to come off real and authentic in my blog posts.

Most days I am able to dock my doubts in the back of my mind and just plow through my to-do list,  but lately my to-do list has grown overwhelmingly complicated and my available time has dwindled to just about nothing. I'm so consumed by my business that I basically ignore all other house chores. There are stacks of laundry that need to be put away, my office is a mess, if it weren't for auto-pay, our bills wouldn't be paid, and I have a chronically empty fridge.

 my fridge, a few weeks ago: apple sauce, milk, eggs, beer, plain pasta. Oye.

One day last week I came home from my full-time job, exhausted and in dire need of some R&R. I needed to clear a spot on my sofa just to sit down, seriously. I looked around and noticed that my dining room table was covered in envelopes, samples, stamps and boxes - with just a little area cleared for my husband and I to have dinner every night. My sofa table was stacked with "inspirational magazines" - but wait, what color is my sofa table again? There was a giant pile of empty boxes sitting by the door, waiting to be taken to the recycling bin - one of Miss Juliet's balls was in there somewhere, but she was too chicken to dig in an get it herself, so she sat and cried and begged for me to reach into the pile and get it for her. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed, guilty, upset and out-of-control. Usually I'm able to come home from work and fold laundry, go through mail and tidy up. But lately I've been so busy filling orders and designing for Minted challenges, launching my wedding line, and prepping for the holidays, that I literally come home from work each day and go straight to my computer. I feel like a bad wife, and feeling like a bad wife is a sucky feeling (even though my husband swears I am not exactly the mutant stationery zombie that I think I am)

The hardest part for me, honestly, is the doubt around whether or not my business is legitimate. While my sales have increased, I'm still not anywhere near where I want to be. My Shop has days with zero visitors and weeks with zero sales. Granted, some weeks I have more sales than I can keep up with, and that feels fantastic. But on the weeks with nothing, I feel like a failure, and I start the doubt cycle again. I'll also add that I have a particularly hard time in the beginnings of the month, because all of the statistic stuff for website/blog/shop go down to zero. It's overwhelming when I look at the zero on the charts and have to think about how hard I'll be working over the month in order to get my numbers where I'd like them to be.

Speaking of numbers, I know I want more exposure. It's a goal, and I'm definitely working hard at it. I had reached out to a bunch of advertisers in the beginning of September and was so overwhelmingly surprised and happy that ALL of them not only supported my business, but wanted to feature me as "hand picked" or the like. I was on a high, until I realized that while I had money in my savings, I didn't have enough to pay for all the basic advertising. Well, that totally killed my high. I know it takes money to make money - and maybe I should take the risk of pulling money from my personal savings to pay for some of the ads?

So, at this point you might be sick of hearing me talk about this, and you might be looking for my advice or a tip of some sort. Well, I don't have one yet. I'm not exactly sure what my next step is from here, but I'm going to make sure it's a smart one (who wants to make a stupid step, right?!). Maybe I need to reduce the variety of products in my shop to just a select group of things I truly, truly love. Maybe I need to recruit my mother to help me manage some of my accounting & paperwork. Maybe I need to take some money from my personal savings to help get the exposure I want/need. Maybe I need to have more defined business hours. Maybe I just need to be patient and keep on doing what I'm doing (success doesn't come overnight, right?).

There really are some big and exciting things coming with Believe Notes, and I know that I'm running a good business, but I think we all get to a point where we need to think a little more strategically about the future. I do promise, though, that whatever happens, it'll only be in the interest of improving Believe Notes as much as possible.

Believe Notes + WellWed Magazine

Good morning everybody! I am super excited to share that I'll be featured in The Hamptons issue of WellWed Magazine this coming Fall/Winter! I got to create some fabulous place cards (hello black and gold embossing!) and my little add features a sneak peek of the new wedding line!

You can also visit my designer page on the WellWed Hamptons website:

I can't wait for the new issue to come out! WellWed always puts together such fabulous inspiration shoots, and I am so excited to be featured!

Oh, and what do you think of the little wedding invitations preview? If you've been by the shop lately, you might have noticed the soft launch of just a few invitations. I can't wait to announce the whole line!

Common Mistakes Theme #3 - Learning to Say "No"

We're now on our last theme for common mistakes that happen with small businesses - or at least, the mistakes that have been common to my small business. This last one is probably the hardest, and I know a lot of you deal with difficulty in saying "no". I'm no pro now, but I'm much better, and here are some of my experiences.


Theme #3 - Learn to Say "No" When it Comes to Doing Favors

I could go on and on about the lessons I've learned from this theme (maybe another blog post someday). When I first started my business I was happy to get whatever experience and project I could. However, as my business grew, I found myself needing to value both my work and my time. I could no longer bend over backwards for people in ways that cost me significantly more than I was charging them. While I don't want to give a specific example for this one, I can tell you generally how this goes:

An old friend from highschool/work/town contacts me and asks for invitations/announcements/cards but really doesn't want to spend a lot of money. They ask what I would be able to do for them, and I basically agree to give them whatever they wanted for such a small amount of money that I knew I really would be losing money. But maybe I'd get a referral, so I convinced myself it was worth it. Then the old friend/coworker/dog-walker would want to make ten thousand design changes, and what about matching envelopes, or skinny labels, or textured-shimmery paper? And, oh, they needed them within two days. You get the picture. I know we all want to help out our old friends and acquaintances, but unfortunately undervaluing your worth as a designer is just not a good business practice.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't undervalue your work
• Offer a flat percentage as a "friends and family" discount off of regular, full priced items
• Not everybody is your "friend or family"
• Unless I sit next to you at Christmas Dinner, I am going to charge you regular pricing for any super-fabulous-totally-custom design
• Learn the word "no" and use it when you need to
• Have a contract that outlines your services and exactly what you'll be delivering (I am working on mine right now!)

So there you have it - the three main themes of which I've learned most of my small business lessons. My main themes were Theme #1 - Rushing Isn't Always Good; Theme #2 - Test Things Out and Theme #3 - Learning to Say No. Like I said in the introductory post, I'm not highlighting mistakes I've made in a way to put myself, or anybody else down. I'm actually doing it for the opposite reason - hopefully you'll be able to learn from these mistakes, or maybe they seem familiar already and you have your own ways for dealing with them.

The point of this mini-series is to show that mistakes happen, we learn from them and hone our business practices so that the same mistakes don't continue to happen. I'd love to hear your input on if this mini series has been helpful, and if you have any experiences you'd like to add.

Common Mistakes Theme #2 - Test Things Out

So we're onto the second theme in the Mistakes Happen series - I'm sure you're already laughing at how similar Theme #1 sounded to you. Let's move right on into the second theme...


Theme #2 - Test Things Out

There are lots of techniques and tools out there, but just because other people have mastered them, doesn't mean you'll be able to pick it up over night. Test things out thoroughly before offering to charge money for it. Here's an example:

Remember these pretty pink silhouette little girl cards? We used little crystals on the fronts of the card, and I had heard somebody recommend self-sticking crystals, so I decided to use them. I spent hours attaching them to the cards, and once they were all done, I packaged them up and sent them off. A few days later my client emailed me to let me know that she got the cards, but all the crystals fell off. I was devastated. I reprinted all of the cards and used the clear crystals I had always used in the past (I knew they would stay glued forever!). The next day I wiggled each one to make sure they were secure, and then I sent them to my customer. My customer emailed me to say that the cards arrived and were in great shape, but that she had really needed pink crystals. I ended up mailing her a third batch of cards, without any crystals at all, so that she could try to find the exact pink ones she wanted. At the end of the day, my client was so fabulously understanding and patient, but I completely felt like a failure.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't ship something new until your positive it's good quality
• Communicate often - I should have told my customer that I was using clear crystals because the pink ones were back-ordered 
• Do more research - don't take just one person's opinion. Or if you are taking somebody's opinion, test out a sample of something first
• Double-check your work. When I switched to a new program for printing invitation envelope addresses, I found the new system botched a bunch of addresses. Unfortunately, I found out when my bride got all her invitations back.  

Anybody want to share how long their first orders with ribbons/crystals/bows/embellishments took to put together? Luckily my husband is super detail oriented, so he always helps me get things perfectly. But the very first order I had took us both nearly all night! 

Ready to learn a little more? Can you relate to Theme #3? It's all about learning to say no when people ask for favors - which is even harder when you know the person!