Great Gift Idea

One of my online customers recently purchased a large quantity of photographic cards to give away as gifts. She explained that she ties them up into the little bundles and gives them away to friends and family to say "thank you" or for other special occasions. I thought this was such a great idea, that I've taken a photo of a bundle of cards as an example. Please read the post below if you are interested in ordering any photographic cards.

Christmas Photographic Cards

I've just received a new order of professionally-printed photographic cards and I'm really happy with them. They're vibrant and work well with coordinating envelopes. If you are interested in ordering any of these cards, I can post between 15-16 cards for $6.95 by registered post. These cards are perfect for sending to loved ones overseas as all of the photos have been taken in Australia. I accept bank deposit and PayPal. Printed cards are $3.00 each and you will receive a free card up to the value of $2.50 for every $20 spent. Please mention this post.

One of my favourites...

Just thought I'd do a quick post of one of my favourite cards. Besides my love of leaves and everything green, I also like retro-style designs. A card like this is a little funky and, admittedly, doesn't appeal to majority of my Blue Mountains' customers. I usually sell cards like this to Sydney-siders from suburbs like Newtown or Bondi! I'm not sure why this is but it sure would be interesting to try a few markets in the city. The only problem is the stall costs they charge--as high as $100 for a trestle table. I can't perceive how I would be able to cover costs, let alone make any profit, and wonder how other stallholders are able to do it?!

P.S. I'm love that the blogger software let me insert images at a larger size today! I'm assuming that this is their new browser for uploading images--they look really effective at this size :)

Some of my latest designs...

It seems like all I do is feature greeting cards on this blog. Actually, I make a large range of products to sell at markets--but I guess it's just easier to photograph particular cards as I make them. Jewellery, for example, is quite diffcult to photograph well unless you have a model or similar. I have heard that some people use a light box in order the get the best photographic results. This would be worthwhile if I was to start an online shop in the future.

The cards above are quite feminine with their shades of purple and pink--a different style of cardmaking for me but very popular with my customers!

I ♥ lady beetles!

Whether you call them ladybirds (British), ladybugs (US) or lady beetles (scientific, as they're not technically bugs, and definitely not birds), they're just so cute! I'm not normally a great fan of beetles--I seem to have some sort of aversion to Christmas beetles and other larger winged beetles but lady beetles are adorable. Have you ever just been standing around and a lady beetle softly lands on you? This happened to me recently whilst I was at the markets. It was a moment of pure joy and then a rather assertive customer wanted my attention, so I had to forget about the lady beetle crawling on my arm.

My sister, very thoughtfully, gave me the handmade, recycled skeleton leaf paper which features on this card. The paper was a little pale and pasty, so I carefully dyed it to a vibrant green (♥ the colour green too, as you might have guessed!). The rest of the design just came together and I still have some more skeleton leaf paper left to make another card!

Materials: Wooden lady beetles, skeleton leaf paper, pattern paper, Stampin' Up! rub-on; This card is hand: cut, dyed, glued, drawn and embellished.

Photographic Cards - Aussie Images

 
Customers are already starting to ask me about Christmas gifts and cards! (I guess some people like to get organised early--I've always been one of those people who leaves everything to the last minute!) So, I have been designing some photographic cards with an Aussie flavour. I have just received an online order for photographic cards from a customer today. If you are interested in purchasing any, please email me and I can send you attachments of some of my most popular designs (or check out images on this blog). Professionally-printed photographic cards are $3 each. For every $20 you spend, you will receive a free photographic card up to the value of $2.50. Please mention this post.

Leafy Branches

This card really epitomises 'Green Gifts'. I must admit that I'm a little obsessed with leaves! Leaves represent growth, life and fresh air. Living in the Blue Mountains, I'm constantly surrounded by trees, leaves and leaf litter. I used to try to maintain my bush block and rake up the leaves but have since given up. Taming nature, to that magnitude, was a losing battle! Reclaimed cardstock was used for the background and to create the leafy branches (the grey piece was the front of an old notebook). It didn't cost much in the way of materials, mainly in time and perseverance.

Materials: Cuttlebug Happy Birthday and Leafy Branch embossing folders, black pen, inks; This card is hand: inked, dry embossed, cut, glued, coloured and drawn.

So Lucky!

My sister has been able to source me some more notecard envelopes in different colours! They're quite hard to come by and can cost as much as, if not more than, the regular-sized white or coloured envelopes used for greeting cards. Now I'll be able to make more notecards like the one below. I love using all my little left-over paper pieces and arranging them into unique collage creations!

Love the Bling!

It's been a bit longer than usual between posts because I had quite a few whole-day markets in August. I'm really enjoying it, and try to use the time productively while I'm there, but never seem to get as much done as I'd like! (That's a good sign--it means I'm dealing with customers rather than sitting around!) I still have so many ideas for 'Green Gifts', which I'm gradually actualising but I have to be patient--I'm only one person!

There are actually a lot of retail opportunities for a business of my kind--it's just a matter of choosing what to focus on. Good planning will build a financially-realistic foundation, whilst poor planning will just suck 'Green Gifts' dry!

I've posted a couple of pictures (above) of a wedding card which was lots of fun to make. I love hand drawn designs, but I suspect that most of my customers don't even notice them until they remove the card from its sleeve and take a really close look (click on the card images for a closer look yourself). Talking about customers, I have been getting some great feedback, many commenting that my cards are "different" from the norm. But I'm not really sure what they mean!
By the way, this card sold during August. Cost: $4.00; Materials: pattern paper, self-adhesive rhinestones, Stampin' Up! rub-ons, Kindy Glitz (applied to parts of the pattern paper), various acid-free pens.