Amy Sayre Photography's Thank You Cards

I love postcards. Like, LOVE them. Every time I talk with someone about a fun side project (moving announcements/thank you cards/whatever), I'm always like, "have you considered a postcard?" 

Postcards are just so simple and easy. Write a message. Throw a stamp on it. Mail it. Done.

So when Amy - the best friend - came to me and asked if I could help her with a Thank You for the Referral card, I was giddy when she said she'd like it on a postcard. 

I helped Amy make over her website a while back now. We wanted to stick with the same theme to come up with these thank you cards. See, she'd been re-vamping her business for a while and it was really paying off. She was getting more and more referrals and as they came in, she wanted a way to say thank you to those who had sent those referrals her way. 

Enter this little postcard. 

When someone sends a referral to Amy Sayre Photography, Amy can easily fill out this postcard and stick it in the mail.

It's as easy as filling out an address and a couple of lines. Anyone who owns a business knows how important referrals are and how important it is to show your appreciation to the person who is responsible for them. The problem is when you have a small business and you're doing all of the work by yourself. Here's what happens with me:

Referral comes in.
I do a little celebratory dance of appreciation directed towards the person who sent the referral.
I go about my day.

But what if I had a postcard like Amy's that I could just send off to the person who sent the referral to let them know how much I appreciate them? My life would be easier and people would know they were appreciated.

And that's what Amy can do now - show her appreciation to all the people that have spread the word about her stellar photography skills. With a cute little postcard.

One more picture, just because that little bird is so sweet.

Amy now has in her hands a good amount of these postcards and I know she's already sent several out. She is such an inspiring business woman and I will be following her lead and designing my own referral postcards soon (I'm declaring this right now so I will actually knock this off the to-do list, where it has been for a good few months now. :/).

I hope you're all enjoying your weeks so far. I'll be back later this week with a random house post. :)

Want to see more postcards? Check out these that I did for my sister-in-law's appreciation brunch or these I did for moving announcements. 

Kitty Haw Vintage's Calling Cards

My friend, Trish, opened her very own Etsy Shop a few months ago. I was naturally giddy, and just so glad to have a fellow Etsy shop owner that I already knew and loved.

Trish's shop is called Kitty Haw Vintage (named after her great-grandmother) and it is the perfect fit for her. For as long as I can remember, she has always been in love with all things vintage, so to see her take that love and make an Etsy Shop out of it was so cool.

When you visit her shop (which you can do here), you'll see all kinds of different vintage pieces. Dresses, coats, shoes...she even has a 1970's R2 Sweet Tooth Cookie Jar for crying out loud. Her shop is cool, people.

Here are a few of the things you'll see when you visit. Click on any of the links to go straight to the listing.

1970's Rainbow Sundress // A Day in May Dress

Vintage 60's floral and starburst cups

80's Pop Star Black and White Checkered Pumps

Trish seriously has such great style - make sure to visit Kitty Haw to see for yourself (but then come back here so I can show you what she had me do for her shop. :)).

About a month ago, Trish contacted me to help her with her business cards. Only she didn't want business cards at all. She wanted something to match the vintage-ness (not a word, I'm pretty sure) of her shop, so she wanted more of a calling card. Like the cards that people would give each other back in the day that pretty much just said their name. I loved the idea and was super excited Trish came to me to make it happen.

Here are the calling cards that we came up with.

We made the front nice and simple, with just Trish's name.

How much do I love the 'Remember Me' up in the corner? See it there, just nice and subtle?

Since we don't live back in the day when you can just leave your name with someone and they can most likely find you easily, we thought we'd add a back to the cards with Kitty Haw's website address.

The map is something that Trish's boo found for her. It's an old school map of Detroit.

This was truly a unique project and I loved that Trish contacted me to carry out her plan. :)

So seriously, go now to the following and check out Kitty Haw Vintage for yourself:

Kitty Haw Vintage on Etsy
Kitty Haw Vintage's website
Kitty Haw Vintage on Facebook

If you see something you like on Etsy, make sure to 'like' Kitty Haw on Facebook to get 10% off your order. :)

Seven Business Myths and Ten Fonts

I feel inspired this week to share a blog that I came across because of one of my BFFs. I just think it's too good not to share. I thought that there might be someone else out there that's trying to get a business started or struggling in their existing business that might benefit from an encouraging read.

What I am realizing about having my own business is that one day will be really good and then the next day will be...a little less good. When this happens I typically try to just keep moving forward, which I've always thought was a decent way to do things (in life in general), but I've also found that it helps to read something that really motivates and inspires me. I found that something this week and I would like to share it.

In addition, I am dealing with a major font addiction and I'll share some great fonts that I've found lately (most of them free) and where you can find them. That's how excited I am about fonts this week. Yay!

So my friend Heidi and I are both aspiring entrepreneurs and we let each other know if we come across something particularly interesting that is related to business. She recently texted to see if I had heard of Biz Ladies, which is a part of another website, DesignSponge. Biz Ladies is a series of blog posts for woman entrepreneurs where you can find topics on anything from time management to accounting and finance to ethics and etiquette. In other words, this is a blog that I will now become obsessed with (in addition to fonts, of course).

The article that I came across first is called 'Seven Myths That Make Earning Ugly', and it's the article I wanted to bring to your attention today. The author, Tara Gentile, is a business coach and blogger and sets out to bust seven myths that business owners face. Being someone who is only seven months into her business, this article helped remind me of some important things. Here's an excerpt that falls under Myth 3: I do not need to make more money because I love what I do.

Your time, energy and circumstances (hello, work-from-home moms!) do not reduce the value of what you do or produce. Value is value. It’s your job to better understand the value of your work to your customers and clients and then constantly improve on how that value is perceived so that you can truly make (lots of) money beautifully.

Am I the only one out there that thinks that pricing has been one of the most difficult parts of doing this whole business thing? It's definitely been something I've struggled with, which might be why this excerpt impacted me.  But as I've kept moving forward - realizing that I should constantly be checking to make sure I'm giving my brides a valuable experience - I've become a little more confident each time I've quoted a price.  Articles like these have helped give me that little push I needed to do this.

So, go...read the Biz Ladies articles. Add it to your google reader. Put it with the rest of your bookmarks. Or just memorize the address and check back multiple times daily like I do. I'm pretty sure you won't be upset you did.

OK...now on to part two of this blog post: fonts. (Fonts!) I've found some great fonts lately and just wanted to share. I'm always looking for new fonts, especially script fonts that will look great on a wedding invitation.

(By the way, all of them are free with the exception of Hiatus. Hiatus is from Veer.com, which has the most beautiful fonts I've ever seen, but is a little pricey.)

You can click on the name of the font to find where it's found.

1. Before the Rain

2. Better Heather

3. Channel

4. Halo Handletter

5. Hiatus 

6. Respective

7. Freebooter Script

8. Doris Day

9. Honey Script

And for all of you Christmas font lovers, here's a fun one. Right in time for all of the Christmas hoopla. :)

10. Christmas Card

OK, that's enough for now. I know there are other font lovers out there, so I'll make sure to share if I get any fun, new fonts with you. :) 

I hope everyone has a fantastic Halloween. For some reason I've been all about it this year even though I never have been before. Luke even said the other day, "so...you're really into Halloween this year, huh?" I don't know what it is, but it's even surprised me. 

Happy Halloween!

Business and Harry Potter

I am so extremely glad that it is Friday. I feel like it has been one of those weeks where I'm not really living my life; instead, I've somehow lifted out of my body and am watching my life happen from 10 feet above me. Let's just say I've felt overwhelmed.

Here are the highs and lows.

High:

Seeing HP7 at midnight.

At the age of 28 I decided that I should develop a deep love for Harry Potter. My Star Wars loving husband has always complained that I have nothing "nerdy" about me (clearly he didn't know me in junior high). Well, now he has a 30 year old wife that goes to the midnight showings of Harry Potter. I hope he's satisfied.

Low:

Feeling completely and utterly inadequate as I tried to navigate through this week, teaching middle schoolers how to start their own business.

You see, I'm working at a local community college at a Kids on Campus program. Kids ranging from elementary school to high school can come and take all sorts of classes - from a Mythbusters class to a Basic Study Skills class to a Chess class (which happens to be taught by my husband) to a Web Design class. The class I'm teaching is called 'Be the Boss' and it's about starting your own business.

I have to laugh that I'm even in this position. I mean, I did start my own business and that does give me a sense of satisfaction. It really does. But to actually be put in a position where I am teaching kids the ways of business is just scary. Like meeting Voldemort in a dark alley scary (Harry Potter reference? You're welcome.).

But here's the great part. After a week of feeling like I didn't quite know what was going on and I didn't really know if I was making any kind of difference, I had parents come in and tell me that their kids loved the camp. That they came home excited about it every night. That they showed them the website that they had made that day in class and they were really proud of it.

So...that's something, right?

And on top of it all, I finished 150 beautiful wedding invitations, designed some more, and met with a beautiful bride-to-be and her fiance about their upcoming wedding.

And now, I think it's time to take a nap.