An exciting new opportunity...

has come along and I am looking forward to my new adventure.  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am a die hard card sender and letter writer.  Throughout my formative years, I had it drilled into my head that thank-you notes and writing a proper letter were not only polite - it was the right thing to do.  I'm fifty-four and I'm still doing it.  About ten years ago, I started making my own cards (after having spent a good portion of my life keeping Hallmark in business!) and I not only love indulging my creative side, I am so pleased when the recipients of my little handmade greetings tell me how much it meant to them that I cared enough to send them a personal note.  When I started my own business five years ago (has it been that long?) I decided to make birthday and Christmas cards for all of my clients as a means of keeping in touch throughout the year.  Cards are an excellent marketing tool - and receiving a real, hold-it-in-your-hand card makes people feel good.  But - and there is a but - I will have to admit that the last two years of making over three hundred Christmas cards has really taken its toll on me - both in terms of the work and the drudgery of making so many identical cards.  In fact, I hated the design for the cards I made last year.  Earlier this year, I switched to printing birthday postcards - more cost-effective in terms of time and postage.  After tax season, I was even considering discontinuing my client marketing completely.

Enter my friend Joy and Send Out Cards.  She sent me a lovely card to introduce me to the concept and the business.  Signing up was tempting - but would my clients feel that my keeping in touch with them had lost its personal touch?  I decided to try it for a month on my friends and see what I thought.  Well, it's like this: I love it!  The response I got was overwhelming.  I started to re-think the client marketing thing.

I am not, by nature, a joiner.  A couple of years ago, I joined Melaleuca at the urging of my friend, Richard, who loved the products and thought I would, too.  He was right - I love the products and I continue to use them.  I didn't join the organization with the expectation of making a lot of money; I joined because I liked the products, wanted to use them, and won't recommend anything to anyone that I haven't used and like myself.  If I think something has value, is economical and adds to the quality of my life, I am more than willing to share my experience with people I think will benefit.

The other day Richard came over to put a curtain rod up for me.  That's a long, funny story about oddball rod bracket design and two intelligent people who couldn't see the obvious, but I'll do a post about that when I have some photos of the finished valance to share.  But I digress...  While he was here, we had lunch and he was telling me about the new real estate office where he'd moved his brokers' license.  Hmmm, I thought, a potential application for Send Out Cards as a marketing tool.  I told him a little bit about the company and he seemed receptive; I gave him the DVD that Joy had sent me so that he would watch it, too.  Later that evening, my phone rang.  Richard was totally impressed and was ready to sign up.  Wasn't I going to sign up as a Marketing Distributor so that he could sign up as my downline?  At that point, I hadn't made up my mind yet.  I forwarded him an email that Joy had sent me with a link to another video to watch and suggested that he sign up under Joy's number.

We agreed to talk more about everything later.

Joy is an encourager.  She spoke with Richard and answered his questions - but they both believed, and told me, that this was an opportunity that I should not let pass me by.  I was really on the fence about taking on a new business venture until Joy said something that resonated with me:  "Quite honestly, you are being handed a gift here and it would be smart to take it. It doesn't always happen that way. I asked Richard and I believe he would like for you to be in SOC as a distributor. He is ready and sees the potential with this."  That made up my mind - and boosted my confidence.  I decided to take a leap of faith and signed up.  With all this encouragement, how could I not?  Next I signed up one of my bookkeeping clients for the monthly service, and then Richard signed up as a Marketing Distributor.  So far, so good.  I'm not concentrating on the financial aspect of this new business right now - I'm concentrating on people and sharing a product I know they can benefit from using.  I already know from my bookkeeping and tax business that if you provide people with good service, you will be rewarded accordingly.

I am excited about what Send Out Cards has to offer.  You can check it out yourself by clicking here.  It's a great service, combining technology with an old-fashioned, personal greeting card in that special someone's mailbox.

Or a client - however you choose to use it.

My assembly line brain...

and methodical nature pays off occasionally.

Every year I make nearly three hundred of the same Christmas card.

I admit that I've given in to using address labels in my arthritic old age,

but I did decorate the envelopes.

And as an afterthought, I used a metallic silver pen to embellish the cheap,

but cute, envelopes a little.

I even made an attempt to resurrect my dormant calligraphy skills.  Not my best work, but given my lack of inspiration for a really great card this year - they are in the mail!

Still working on this year's...

season's greetings - but I'm nearly finished cutting the card stock.  I decided to go with a flat card this year; I'm terrible at making a presentable fold with heavy paper.  The actual design is still in flux, but the theme is ornaments and a little glitz.  My two associates are no real help at all with this - they're only interested in when I take a break.  Speaking of which, I think I'll see what's available in the fridge for dinner...

Making progress...

on the Christmas cards!  The envelopes are decorated (from cheap to cute with one roll of the stamping wheel!), both the address and return labels are affixed, the postage stamps are on and the card stock is about half cut for the cards.  I had hoped to be at least half finished today, but I spent a little while this afternoon cutting fabric for another small holiday gift project.  It just feels good to accomplish something tangible in a day's time!  Of course, my associates are not really much help - but they are good company.  Considering my recent culinary failures, I decided to lay off any attempts at baking today; I don't know if it's the oven that needs a rest or me.

Tomorrow - mini-loaves of banana bread!

I've been wracking my brain...

trying to come up with a design for this year's Christmas cards and it seems that a great idea has been staring me in the face for about a week now!  I usually make about three hundred cards to send to both my clients and my friends - all the same design.  That completely freaks my friend Jill out; she is a stamper and card designer extraordinaire and she can only make about ten cards exactly alike before she has to move on to another design.  I guess I just have an assembly-line brain - and I'm only creative up to a point.  Anyhow, for about a month now I've been making  sketches and prototypes and it finally hit me today when I looked at the pile of Christmas stamps on my desk.  In return for my trying to do my small part in forestalling what appears to be the inevitable demise of the US Postal Service by buying several hundred Christmas stamps and gleefully mailing my holiday cheer the old-fashioned way, the postal service inadvertently provided me with an idea for this year's card design.  The OCD in me loves coordination - so I'm using the ornament theme for the cards, envelopes and stamps.  Being frugal with supplies - since postage is at forty-four cents! - is the reason I'm willing to brave the dreaded WalMart crowds to buy white card stock and envelopes - I already have both red and green card stock as well as all the Christmas rubber stamps any one person could possibly ever need in three lifetimes, not to mention a Cricut Christmas cartridge with the cutest little ornament design.  And so I venture forth into the holiday shopping throng...

Finally, back to the drawing board...

and making some cards again!  Believe it or not, these cards began life as the basic layout for Thanksgiving cards last November.  Seriously.  Then Christmas came along and I had cards to make for that and well, you know how things get pushed aside.  I dug this old Hello Spring! stamp out of my stash the other day and decided to put these cards to good use.  Nothing fancy - I glued the green background to ivory card stock.  I stamped the image on white card stock and then colored selected sections with watercolor pencils.  I experimented with watercolor crayons, but I wasn't happy with the colors.  I finished them off with a sage ribbon threaded through two holes punched in the top center of the card.  I was pretty happy with the way they turned out - and inside is a timeless quote from Ward Cleaver: You're never too old to do goofy stuff. 

Now if that doesn't say spring, nothing does.

Such thoughtful clients...

I have!  I know that I wrote about Jill, the cardmaker extraordinaire, the other day - but I forgot to post the photograph of the card she made for me.  Isn't it pretty?  She not only makes amazing cards and scrapbook pages, but she's also a stamp designer for Sparkle & Sprinkle.  Such talent!

Then yesterday, one of my longtime clients came to drop off a big envelope of tax stuff - and his lovely wife, Chrissie, sent me this scented soy candle.  The fragrance is Creme Brulee and it smells just wonderful.  I can't wait to light it!  Thank you, Chrissie (and Nick)!

Running late...

I mean, wouldn't you think I'd have my Christmas cards made, addressed, stamped and in the mail by now?

I just can't make up mind...

on design or color...

and this one is all wrong!

I'm think I'm getting warmer with this one.

Nope - too pastel for Christmas.

How about the homespun look?

Back in business...

and getting ready to ship some rubber stamp sets I sold in my Etsy shop.  I had to get a new 9-volt battery for my postal scale.  Yes, I put my tongue on the old one and got a bit of a shock, but it apparently did not have enough juice to power the scale.  I have been going through my rubber stamps and stamp sets and culling out the ones I am never going to use - or use again.  I've sold six sets so far and I have more to list.  When I moved into this condo, my friend put shelves in the entry closet for my seasonal decorations and office supplies.  We left room under the bottom shelf for my rolling stamp carts - but I ended up cramming four jam-packed carts in there and I practically have to unload the whole closet to get at what I want.  Not a good thing, I discovered when I was looking for the Thanksgiving theme stamps.  So...  I did the unthinkable and broke up some Stampin' Up sets to keep the ones I like and will use and I'm going to make up some oddball lots of stamps to sell.  I also listed about fifteen full sets on Etsy - most of which I had never used.  

Will this downsizing ever end?

Cards and books...

I've been a busy bee - I made my friend Madeline some note cards to send along with her funny thank-you card.  I even put my Cricut to use - one of these days I'll make something really spectacular with it!  I've only had it a year or so - sometimes gadgets elude me.  The Cricut and its design software is one of those gadgets - but I will master it one of these days...

As you can see by the stack of books on my table - I've had my nose in a book since last weekend.  I read the rest of Ford County Stories by John Grisham.  I think those short stories are some of his best work yet.  I also read Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark - very suspenseful.  She's closing in on her former mother-in-law for the title of Queen of Suspense!  I'm in the middle of Patricia Cornwell's The Scarpetta Factor - and I am once again questioning why I even bother with her books any more.  Her plots just get more and more outlandish and I had forgotten how seriously sick I am of how perfect and noble she makes Kay out to be.  Lucy's angst is now just annoying, Benton is as big a jerk as he ever was and Marino - well, just when you think he can't get any more stereotypical detective on you - he's off and running on another cliched tangent.  I'd pass it along to Richard right now but I hate not finishing a book.  Besides, I have to finish it so I can complain about how excruciating reading it was.  I've only ever not finished two books in my life - both of them in the past year - imagine that!  It took me this long to figure out that it's really okay not to finish reading a book if you don't like it.  And I've been reading since I was four!

The Madeline Challenge...

A couple of weeks ago, I got a nice little package in the mail from my friend Madeline.  She had gone to a yard sale and found this bunch of stamps and thought of me.  It's a cute hodge-podge collection of stamps and sentiments.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate them all into a thank-you card.

This morning, Petey said, "Mom - why don't you put these pretzels away and make Madeline that card?"  Apparently, Peter is not the procrastinator that his mother is.  He is one insistent gingersnap kitty cat!

And so I made this deliciously tacky card using all of the stamps.  The paper in the typewriter says Live Laugh Love Much.  I was hoping the star would look like it was shooting out of the machine, too.  Oh well.  The little glittery blurb under the star says Just a Note - but it's hard to tell, even on the real thing.  I even added some bling to the Thinking of You!

I tried to arrange the sentiments inside into a coherent note - not bad!

There was even a Created by stamp for the back - how cool is that?  The finishing touch was the Gone to the Beach stamp - like a company name or something.  I'm going to make her some nice cards to fill the little box I'm recycling back to her - I hope she likes them.  I had fun making the silly card!

For me?

My friend Jill made me this gorgeous card - complete with a bookmark!  It's so pretty, I can't bear to tear the bookmark off the side.  She is a cardmarker extraordinaire - you can check out her work here.  I love it when someone takes the time to make me a special card!

If you would be so kind...

My friend Heather knows a lady from her meetings who is dying and could use kind words and cheerful cards.  If you would be willing to send her a card with an uplifting note, please email me and I will give you the lady's address.  Our goal is for her to receive at least one card every day, until, well, you know. 

Aggie & Monty and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day!

Making progress...

on the client Christmas cards.  On the left - ready to go.  On the right - well, waiting for finished cards - which are on the last step.  They will be done today!  And I finally sold that danged violin!

Paper cutter's elbow!

Okay, I love my Cricut Expression machine, and I used it last year to make my Christmas cards, but it's just more work to use it when you're just cutting squares of paper, so... I've resorted to my trusty Fiskars rotary paper cutter and I've been cutting out the squares for the cards - all weekend long...  As of this moment, I am suffering from what I call paper cutter's elbow.  Stiff shoulder, tired elbow and stiff right hand.  I want to jump head first into a vat of Tylenol!

All right, maybe I didn't cut paper all weekend.  But it sure seemed like it.  I did some meaningful work on Saturday at the office and a client did come in to do his weekly invoices.  The dogs and I watched Quigley Down Under for the umpteenth time - that movie never gets old and neither does Tom Selleck!  I did some writing and then I re-read The Tightwad Gazette looking for money-saving ideas.  Yes, I re-use zip-loc bags but I draw the line at re-using aluminum foil.  You can check out the website here.  On Sunday, we had Big Hug Sunday - that means Mom stays home with Aggie & Monty and we play and snuggle all day.  I know, I know - they probably don't care, but I do.  When I ran out of things to do around the house, we watched Silverado.  I get a kick out of Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum trying to be cowboys - but I really enjoy Kevin Costner's stellar performance as an idiot.  I watched both of my Netflix movies (3:10 to Yuma and Journey to the Center of the Earth) on Wednesday and Thursday so I had to resort to movies in my cabinet at home.  Both of those movies were pretty good; I was surprised to learn that 3:10 to Yuma is based on a story by Elmore Leonard!  I am not a big Russell Crowe or Christian Bale fan - and now I want to see the original with Glenn Ford.  Brenda Fraser was his goofy self in Journey to the Center of the Earth - it was entertaining - a great kid movie.  I love him in the Mummy movies - but my favorite is Blast from the Past. - especially when he dances.  Yikes!  Enough movie talk - I'd better get to work!

An amazingly productive day...

For getting a late start, I have had an amazingly productive day so far...  I say, so far, because I have to stop at the store on the way home - and I hate battling the crowd.  I'm just as guilty of waiting until the last minute to get my Thanksgiving stuff, but...  It was raining this morning and I didn't want to get drenched going out to the car, so I putzed around at home for a while.  I toyed with the idea of staying home, but I trudged off to the office, rain or no rain, and I actually got a lot of work done.  And I finally came up with a design I like for my Christmas cards!  I think I kept procrastinating because I didn't really like the stamps I had chosen.  I'd never used them before - so I knew they wouldn't be a repeat - but I just didn't like the whole design.  So, when I was rummaging through my other Christmas stamps, I found one that I haven't used in years - and never for client cards - so I came up with a simple design and I liked it!  I ordered my red card stock today and it will be here on Monday - so this weekend I can work on the embossing part of the card and all of the paper cutting I need to do.  I also found this great (cheap!) source for envelopes online.  Maybe when I have some extra money I'll order some of the cool translucent envelopes.  I sometimes mail my cards in clear envelopes, but the postman looks at me like I'm nuts.

Is it Friday already?

Well, what I was going to do today was tackle my cookbook project, but instead...

I worked on my client birthday card mailing for December.  My first year in business, I would address the birthday cards when I did the tax return, put the date where the stamp goes and stick then in my monthly birthday file.  Then all I had to do was slap a stamp on it and mail it at the appropriate time.  Boring, but effective.  That plan sorta got away from me last tax season - and my helper never bothered to do her cards at all - so my birthday greetings went by the wayside for a few months.  Paperwork was not her forte, as much as I like her.  I hate to say this, but if I want things done my way, I guess I am just going to have to do everything myself.  So - I did my November cards the other day and I have finished December today.  I need to make more cards and then I can do January.  Hopefully, I will be caught up by the time tax season comes along and I can go back to my original system.  And yes, I have successfully put off working on the Christmas cards for one more day.  I have, however, typed up my Christmas mailing list to print on clear address labels; I don't think my hands can take all that addressing by hand again this year.  Old Arthur, as my mother-in-law would say.

I finally watched Get Shorty in its entirety.  It was absolutely hilarious!  I tried to get Tim to watch it once a long time ago and he didn't find the first few minutes humorous at all, so we switched to something else.  As I have probably said before, I never thought that John Travolta would amount to anything after Saturday Night Fever or Urban Cowpie.  I have been pleasantly surprised over the past few years - he cracks me up.  His Chili Palmer (I'm not going to say anything more than I have to, if that) is great - and Dennis Farina makes one terrific bad guy, even if his favorite word begins with F.  Of course, I had to watch Be Cool - just to see what happened next - and to see The Rock play a gay bodyguard.  I think I liked the supporting characters better in the second movie, plus John Travolta dances with Uma Thurman.  The funniest part was seeing The Rock (who wants to be a movie star and asks Chili to get him an audition) all dressed up in a blue polyester suit, standing in front of a mirror with big afro hair, smiling and smacking himself on the ass.  I thought I would die.  And then, if that weren't enough, his boss (played to the hilt by Vince Vaughan - who thinks he is black) makes a video of him singing You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man.  I nearly wet my pants.  Some movies really are as funny as the books they are based on.  I hope they paid Elmore Leonard a lot of money.

Busy bee...

birthday cards!  I finally came up with a new design for my client birthday cards - sticking with my bee theme.  The first two years I just used my business logo printed on a card, but I used all of those up (I printed them on my handy-dandy HP color laser printer - which, amazingly, I still haven't had to buy toner cartridges for!) and decided to come up with a new and cuter design.  For fall, I have done the hive and Be Happy on a white vertical card with a lavender background layer (I left my camera home!), but starting with January, I am going back to horizontal so I can run the inside through my other printer for the birthday greeting and add Smith & Associates. Yes, I'm putting off making this year's Christmas cards.  Couldn't you tell?  I have the design in my head, but I have yet to execute a prototype.  I ran across some cards from my first year in business and I'm going to be frugal (um, lazy) and send those to new clients who won't realize they are a repeat.  Sneaky, huh? I guess I'm having flashbacks to last year when I made this complicated card with a holly Cricut cut-out and glitter and well, they were pretty, but a lot of work and I made over three hundred of them - all the same.  It's the OCD thing...  My friend, Jill, who is an excellent cardmaker, makes several different designs every year because she gets bored making the same one over and over.  I've tried, but I can't do it!  There's something wrong with me...

Isn't this too cute?

I found this adorable Debbie Mumm desktop background (and lots more!) here. I like her artwork almost as much as Mary Engelbreit. I said, almost. I love the orange cat! I was actually looking for a country Christmas background, but there aren't any. Maybe soon!

I've been sitting at my craft desk all morning messing around with half-finished cards and I've got this nice little batch ready to put in my window display - for sale! I'm going to make a Busy Bee Cards sign with my Cricut in a little while and put it in the window. If and when I make some money (hopefully before tax season), I'm going to revise my window lettering, add my logo and devote one section of window to Busy Bee Cards & Crafts. I don't know if I already wrote about that or not - I'm losing my mind these days. I hate when I repeat myself!

I finally got all of the seasonal decorations junk that I got out of storage sorted and put away - and what I'm taking to the flea market next month is all together in one place. I'm going back to storage this afternoon (it's finally cool outside!) and get some more. My client, Jonathan, is buying my old washer and dryer, so he's going to help put some stuff in the back of my SUV to bring back to the office. I am determined to finish the "empty the storage unit" project by the first of December! I will get this mess re-organized; I will have an orderly life again!