Being a stationery designer means I have to think about a holiday long before everyone else does

I've said it before... I love designing stationery. There's only one downside to it. I have to be thinking about a holiday LONG before everyone else. I have to be in a "Christmas-y mood" months before I necessarily feel like it.

I try to release at least one new design for every major holiday every year. This year I've had a design in mind for my 2012 Christmas release for quite some time now. The problem was the more I mulled it around in my head, the more elaborate it got. After I discovered the fantastic paper art of Kevin Kidney, the design in my head got even more elaborate (click here to check out his great blog post on making a Christmas poster). It reached a point where I intended on handcutting every element of the design out of paper, mounting it just right, lighting it just right and then photographing it.

Then visions of trying to do all of this with the "help" of my feline studio companions, combined with their stray hairs and the inevitable creative meltdown that would ensue started to pervade my thoughts.

I was at a creative standstill (it happens to me often). So the design wasn't getting done and the time to release something in time for people to use it for the 2012 holiday season loomed closer.

Yesterday, I finally decided to break down and just do it. I figured I could create a similar look digitally (it wouldn't be near as cool as Kevin Kidney's, but OH WELL!).

I ended up visualizing the pieces the same as if I was going to cut them out of paper, except I created them as digital vector shapes instead. I did all the letters in Illustrator (a major feat for me) and then brought them into PS3 and did the Santa shapes with the rudimentary vector tools in PS3 and was just as happy with the result (if not happier).

Once I had finalized the art. I started incorporating it into various layout versions for different stationery styles.

First, a simple no-message layout for sending as a free ecard at pingg.com (for an added fee you can have it delivered in a cute digital envelope like the one below):

Then I did a layout to send as a free photo ecard at pingg.com so people can add their own photo to personalize it:

I did another version of the layout so someone could include a personalized message on the free ecard at pingg.com:

Pingg.com also does a cool printing and mailing service called "postal pinggs" (click here to learn more about "postal pinggs"). So for people who want to send out printed Christmas cards, all my above pingg layouts can be sent that way by pingg.com.

And, finally, I did a layout for a printed photo card for my zazzle shop, Rosehaven Cottage Stationers:

If anyone is interested in a DIY personalized printable file, I will make that available too.

Now my 2012 Christmas design is finally out of my head and available for other people to enjoy. You can't imagine what a huge relief this is for me. Now I can sit back and look forward to Thanksgiving instead of being haunted by visions of paper Santas being pawed at and chewed by naughty kitties... just a tad different from the sublime visions of sugar plums dancing in one's head.

The history of my love of greeting cards and stationery

Did you know that I have birthday cards from my first birthday? No kidding. I've loved them all these mumble-ty-mumble years. I have my birthday cards from just about every childhood birthday. They are all neatly mounted in a scrapbook on my shelf here in the studio. I take them out periodically to look at them.

Sounds weird? It's par for the course with me. Let me explain...

My parents got a super 8mm movie camera a few months before I was born, so all my first milestones (as well as my siblings firsts) were recorded on film. My mom painstakingly went through and spliced together our films along the way so we had long reels to watch whenever us kids could get her to drag out the projector for family night.

One of those home movies shows me on my first Christmas when I could open presents myself. The scene goes like this... I open a card that's attached to a present and am mesmerized by it. I can't read, but I pretend I can. I turn it over and over in my hands looking at every side of the folded card. From off camera, my mom steps in and coaxes me to open the still wrapped present sitting next to me on the floor. I open the gift, discover a beautiful handmade terry cloth robe with shiny satin turquoise trim. I throw the robe aside on the floor. I dig around in the tissue paper to see what else is there. Then I rummage around in the pile of wrapping paper, tissue paper and clothing box to find my greeting card again and resume "reading" it as I was doing before I was so "rudely" interrupted by the mundane task of opening presents. *harumph*

See?!?! I've always loved greeting cards! Any stationery really.

I eventually warmed up to the robe...

... See! I'm wearing it as I'm delirious
with excitement over drawing
with colored pencils (okay...
I just blinked, that's all)

My Grammy used to handwrite letters to me from the time I was toddler. She had a wonderful assortment of kiddy-friendly stationery she wrote on. I loved those stationery designs. As soon as I could write, I wanted my own assortment of stationery so I could write letters too. Sometimes I loved the art on the stationery so much that it made me ache inside to write on it and send it away.

Yeah, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool stationery lover.

I guess it stands to reason that I would end up designing stationery as an adult. You're probably thinking, "Yeah! That would be no brainer!" But it took me a while to come to that conclusion on my own. Now that I have, I feel like I've come "home".

I launched my new Etsy shop this last week, Rosehaven Cottage Stationers Fine Printables at www.RosehavenCottagePrintables.com. I've launched a line of professionally personalized print-your-own invitations (and other stationery). If you want to read how it works click here.

I've been having so much fun adding new designs. Some I've had in the back of my head for a while, but others are inspired by people that ask about a specific type of design they've been looking for. I LOVE when people give me special requests. That's all I need to get a creative spark and I'm off and creating! Keep those suggestions coming!

The new watermark I designed for www.RosehavenCottagePrintables.com

My photo "Land of milk and honey" led me to some creative epiphanies

The "recipe" for the above photo "Land of milk and honey":

Used my own textures Emerald Isle at 35% Soft Light and 

Lace Camisole at 65% Screen with strategic erasing

A couple of years ago, I was just getting into the groove of creating photographic art using techniques I'd developed through trial and error while learning Photoshop CS3. The above image is one that I produced back then (some of you may recognize it). The past couple of weeks, I've been revisiting this image in order to turn it into a suite of wedding stationery (hence this post).

When I first started honing the technique I now think of as digitally painting a photograph, I wasn't being conventional in my use of Photoshop.  I use what is known in Photoshop vernacular as "destructive" techniques of erasing, burning (darkening), and dodging (lightening) directly on the layers of an image instead of using masks that were "non-destructive". I couldn't get my head around mask layers (still can't). I think it's because I need to see the result of every stroke of my stylus as I make it the way I see the result of every stroke of the paintbrush when I paint traditionally.

Secretly, I've felt like I'm "cheating", haunted with thoughts like, "If other Photoshop users knew what I was doing they'd be appalled because I'm using this tool the wrong way!"

Over time, I realized I'm not "destroying" anything with my technique, because I always work on duplicates of the original photo layer. Using the word "destructive" is... well... destructive.

When I decided to think of what I do as "strategic" erasing instead of "destructive" it changed my perspective. I've come to the conclusion that if it works for me, then it's okay. No one is here in my studio staring over my shoulder going "tsk tsk".  The result is what matters. And if my techniques free me to create something I couldn't create otherwise, then I say, "So what?!?!"

It seems that life lessons I learn often come around full circle. Just as I had to get over a mental hurdle with embracing my way of digitally painting photographs, I've recently had to get over the mental block I've had about creating suites of wedding stationery. And the above photo is what led me through that journey.

Imagine me being a stationery designer but having a mental block about creating suites of wedding stationery! I'd tackle and conquer the designing and layout of a wedding invitation no problem. But when it came to designing the coordinating stationery (e.g., save-the-date cards, enclosure cards, response cards, etc.), I'd just poop out. I'd get a bad case of creative ADD and frolic on to the next pretty and shiny creative project that came along. Doing the layout of the same art again and again seemed too repetitive. And repetition=boring.

I decided that wedding stationery wasn't really my thing. I'd do other stuff instead.

That only worked for so long until I was approached by someone asking me to specifically design suites of wedding stationery for a new online venture in which they wanted me to be a featured designer. Talk about a good swift kick in the butt. It was time for me to get over the hurdle that I'd been avoiding.

In most of my creative pursuits I engage in a great deal of "mulling"--a process of thinking and thinking about something and letting it form in my mind. That's what I did.

I mulled...

and mulled...

and mulled.

If not reined in, mulling can transform from a stage in the creative process to a stage in the procrastination process. It almost happened that way for me this time. Fortunately, the image of "Land of milk and honey" swirled around in my head in all that mulling and began to form into stationery designs that intrigued me so much I had to get them out onto the computer and see them come to life.


Click the image to see everything larger

Click here to see the e-vite version I did for pingg.com

Again, when I changed my perspective from thinking of designing a wedding suite as a "repetitive" process into thinking of the process as "evolutionary"... things changed. The creative ADD went away and was replaced with a fervent creative drive that kept me at the computer designing (often into the night). Nothing really changed except my perspective and the accompanying vocabulary with which I approached the creative task.

It's made me think... what else in my life could be approached with a slightly different "vocabulary" that would make all the difference? I suspect quite a lot.

What about you? Has this experience ever happened for you?

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!!!

Working with paper

I am rediscovering that I love to work with my hands. That's probably why I'm taking a floral design class, a woodworking class, and teaching myself how to do handmade bookbinding. You'd think this would be a "no brainer" for me that I wouldn't have to rediscover, but for some reason I've forgotten this over time.

So yesterday, I decided to tackle the construction of a handmade booklet style portfolio to hold a set of 12 cards. All I had was something similar I'd picked up at the store. I pulled it apart to make a template, and then dove in to construct my own. It took me three tries, but I finally mastered it so that I like the result.

Now I can feature my notecards (like the Vintage Botanicals Collection) in nice neat little box that is pretty in its own right.

When I listed this on the Etsy store I decided to include a free set of 12 sheets of hand-cut and hand-embossed writing paper that are cut to fit into the notecards.

The story behind this paper is pretty cool. When we moved into Rosehaven Cottage, the previous owner had left reams of vintage paper, tablets, ledgers, and such in the attic. When I opened up the unopened reams of paper, I found a very high quality off-white paper that had a wonderful feel to it. But the size was an odd one that didn't fit current U.S. or European standards so it has sat without being used much except for the occasional visual aid in Sunday School class. Recently, I found some wonderful corner embossing tools and had the idea that I should cut down the vintage paper and make it into writing paper. Voila!

I told you I'm enjoying working with the my hands.

What's New at My Etsy Store

I've been busy getting up-to-speed with a wonderful new piece of production equipment that lets me produce my own digitally printed work. It's been an adventure, I must say. But in the process, I was able to produce some cards and gift tags with my latest work on them that I actually like (and I'm really hard to please when it comes to reproducing my own work). Hubby and I both agree that the digital printer does a beautiful job. I'm so happy! The semi-gloss cards feel smooth and satiny to the touch and look like I had to send them out to a 4-color printer. It also means that I can now produce my work in-house at my own prices instead of being at the mercy of those print-on-demand outfits that do digital printing but charge WAY too much. I'm really thrilled about that.

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade dustinginpearls.etsy.com