One hen has now become a flock (of sorts)

A while back I designed an egg carton label to put on a carton I was returning to a friend that generously gave us some eggs from her backyard hens (click here to see the post where I wrote about it).

My original hen illustration on the labels looked like this

Well, last week a very nice lady emailed me to ask if I did bulk quantities of personalized egg carton labels. She wanted to keep the cost low so she could sell the eggs from her own backyard hens for a reasonable price and not have to fold in the cost of an expensive label. Since my online printer only does a more expensive label, I told her that a great option would be for me to design and lay out the labels to print 3 on an 8.5"x11" sheet and make a ready-to-print pdf file available for her to purchase and download (at www.RosehavenCottageDownloads.com). Once she purchased and downloaded the file, she could take it and have the labels printed at her local copying center onto non-scored adhesive-backed label stock and then cut the labels herself. She found out she was able to get the label stock inexpensively by ordering online and only pay for the printing. She loved the idea.

Once she sent me a photo of her hens that are a variety of colors, I wanted to make the labels even more special . My original hen looked a lot like one of her hens, but her other hens looked so beautifully different. So I went about creating two more hens using the photo as inspiration for coloring. That way each sheet of labels will have 3 labels on it, each with a different colored hen.

Here's the first color variation I did

The photo of my client's hen flock was so good I could see all the nuances of colors in their feathers. I set about trying to capture it while keeping the renderings illustrative and simple at the same time. I think I pulled it off pretty well.

The second variation I did was based on a gorgeous hen with iridescent feathers

In the end, my client loved the final product and will soon have personalized egg cartons full of eggs. It makes me happy just thinking about it.

Personalized egg carton labels for great homegrown eggs

A couple of weeks ago, a very good friends of ours dropped by with a carton of homegrown eggs from their backyard hens. My friend chose the breeds of her hens so there would be a variety of egg colors--pale blue, pale pink and tan. We got to enjoy all three colors in one carton. One of the eggs was unusually large and when we cracked it open we were delighted to find it had a double yolk!

The carton the eggs had been transported in from their house to ours was a simple clear plastic egg carton from the store with the commercial label taken off. I thought it would be fun to design a label for the carton so we could return it to them with a very special touch.

Once I did and they had the carton back, I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if anyone with backyard chickens could make their own personalized egg carton labels?" I started ruminating on the idea to come up with a solution.

It turns out the solution was easier than I thought. The online printer I use for all my personalized stationery designs (zazzle) can print customizable bumper stickers that are the perfect size (3"x11")! What's even cooler is the stickers they produce are printed on vinyl and are fade- and water-resistant! Sweet!

So I set to work getting the design I had made for our friends set up for print-on-demand at Rosehaven Cottage Stationers. I set it up so the labels can be personalized easily in the text and font of the customer's choosing.

Now I'm wondering what other color combinations and designs backyard chicken wranglers would like to see. And what other versions of the little hen should I make and in what colors? What do you think? I'd love some suggestions to get the creative juices flowing.

P.S. Because of county ordinances we can't have our own backyard chickens so I have to live vicariously through all of my fortunate local and blogging friends that do have them. I LOVE when you share photos and stories!!!