Blog Moved

My blog has moved to:
http://appleberryink.wordpress.com/

My "Office"

I know many of you will never be able to come visit me in person. So here are a few photos of my office so you can see the space that I work in. I converted one of my daughter's rooms into a temporary office until I can save up enough to build an actual studio onto our home. This may take a few years of saving my hard earned pennies, but it will definitely be worth it!

Oh, and don't worry, I didn't kick my little girl onto the couch or anything, her and her sister are now sharing rooms and love it (so far)!

The photo below is the counter I use for all of my shipping and general organizing. Nothing too exciting to most, but having a large counter has been the best addition in the world!

This next photo is my daughter's work station (it sits directly behind me). They enjoy playing PBS Kids and messing around in Photoshop Elements. This used to be my old computer that I bought off of eBay. It worked well, until they thought it was a good idea to stick gum and starburst in it. Now it's a little crabby, maybe it misses the candy treats?

As you can tell from my office photos, there isn't room for customers to sit down and chat with me. So I like to meet with my Minnesota customers at our kitchen table. I know it's nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. 

You could say that my general sense of style for my home is minimalist, fairly contemporary all around. Having 2 kids has caused me to remove all knick-knacks. Now I find that having a cluttered home clutters my mind. Messes used to not bother me too much, now I like keeping things neat and clean. 

I hope you liked the little tour of my office, if you have any ideas on something you'd like me to write about don't hesitate to leave a comment and let me know!

New Venture

Well, it has finally happened. I'm going solo. No regular job, no part-time job, it's just me and my business 5 days a week. It's exciting and a bit nerve wracking at the same time. I finally have the freedom of being able to design for brides every day of the week. I had been working part-time 2 days a week for an advertising agency. But they decided they could use me as a freelancer, which doesn't guarantee regular hours.

So I have those 2 days available to work with my invitation customers. In the past I had really been getting behind because of my subcontracting. Friday's were piled high with orders that trickled in the 2 days I was out of my office.

Here goes nothing, sink or swim right? I'm going to do my best and run with this extra time I've been given. I know God will take care of my family, but it's up to me to not just sit on my butt and wait for orders to come in. I need to work for it, nothing comes easy.

Designer Problems

So the good thing about being a Designer is that you have total control over designing your company's logo, business card, website, etc. The bad news is that you have total control over designing your company's logo, business card, website, etc.

I'm never happy with a design for too long. I've just re-designed my logo and marketing materials for about the 5th time in the past 5 years. Yes, I need to stop it or no one is going to remember or recognize my logo because it's changing all the time. But I think I've finally gotten it to a point that I like it. I love this font, I love the new colors and I'm coming up with a new division, so I've created that logo and color scheme to be distinct, yet similar to Designer Photo Imaging's.

It's been so crazy trying to figure out how I'm going to handle this new division. I currently have a shop for Designer Photo Imaging (designerpi for short) in Etsy and one in 1000 Markets. That's been keeping me busy enough, but now that I've turned my focus to invitations and announcements, the name Designer Photo Imaging just doesn't fit anymore.

So for months and months, and probably over a year now, I've been contemplating a new name for my company. But I've gone through so much work registering Designer Photo Imaging as a legitimate business that I don't want to undo all of that. So my decision was to create a division of Designer Photo Imaging that will sell only invitations and announcements.

I wanted to come up with a name that started with A, in case it were ever listed anywhere alphabetically. I also had to come up with a name that had a website URL available, as well as a username on 1000 Markets and Etsy. I wanted it to be something fun and memorable. Not many people remember the name Designer Photo Imaging. I came up with that name several years ago because I started the company out offering photo services.

My decisions on naming it finally ended with Appleberry Ink. The colors are berry pink and apple green with brown as it's background or accent color.

Running a business isn't easy. You have to be the marketing genius, the designer, an entrepreneur, accountant and not to mention janitor! There are so many roles it makes your head spin sometimes. I have a lot of anxiety and stress at times. I try so hard to please everyone, my family, friends and customers. Plus I have to get in my workouts when I can so I can release that stress, running has become my passion. As much as it sucks during the run, once I'm done it's like "aaahhhhh that's better!"

I'm getting off track. I guess what I'm trying to say is that being a Designer, you become your worst enemy. It's nothing like customers, who say "change this, change that", that's easy, they know what they want. As a Designer I say to myself, "well, I'll change this and I'll change that", then I do it all over again. I let it sit for some time, then come back and say "what was I thinking!?!?". Then I go and change everything all over again and the process goes on and on.

BUT, I think I'm finally coming to the end of my changing ways for my newest design for Designer Photo Imaging and Appleberry Ink. The fonts are set, the style is set, the colors are set and it's feeling good to have that done.

Now my new problem is going to be getting Appleberry Ink up and running on Etsy and 1000 Markets, then taking down Designer Photo Imaging on 1000 Markets and minimizing Designer Photo Imaging on Etsy to just sell the photo artwork.

Whew, that was a load off my mind. If anyone reads this feel free to post your own thoughts on running your own business, or if you're a designer vent about your designing struggles. Or if you're just an average Joe, what do you think about my new division's name???

It's Wedding Season!

Getting married? Start your new life out right. Invite your guests to your big day with my new vibrant colorful wedding invitations that don’t waste paper and your guests are sure to love! Don’t even think about those old traditional envelope in an envelope paper wasting grandma style invitations sold in huge catalogs by large corporate big wigs, yuck!

My oh so beautiful invitation designs come in any color you can imagine! They are also offered in two exquisite papers, metallic pearl or white linen. What you see on screen doesn’t do them justice, if you want to see them in person I have a sample pack in my shop that you may purchase.

These invitation designs are not only used for weddings, I have had them ordered as bridal shower invitations, bachelorette party invitations and save-the-date cards. But you may also use them for any other occasion you have worth celebrating in style!

The best thing about them is that they have ALL the information on ONE card! The directions can be printed on the back and you can even add a map! There’s also a response card that can be designed as a postcard, so you’ll save money on stamps! But you won’t only save money on stamps for the response cards, but the invitations as well! There are only 2 cards in the envelope, so you don’t have to purchase the 2 oz. stamp that most invites require, yea, who doesn’t love saving money!

Please visit my Etsy website at www.designerpi.etsy.com and you may go to my Shop Policies section for information on pricing, envelopes, shipping and more: http://www.etsy.com/shop_policy.php?user_id=5888705

I'm going to miss her

Sunny's stories are moving to www.settsie.blogspot.com and I'll be removing this post on designerpi within the next month.

I won an award!

I just started designing wedding invitations in March of '08 and I've just recently won an award!!! I'm so excited and if there happens to be any brides that voted for me reading this, THANK YOU for voting for me! I was one of 17 wedding invitation designers in Minneapolis to receive it. It was through Wedding Wire, which is affiliated with Martha Stewart.



I know my blogging has been lacking, but it's only because I've been so busy with invitation orders. So it's a good thing that I have more business than I would've imagined when I started this endeavor. Anyway, I should get back to work, just wanted to share the news!

Origin of the Wedding Ring

Why do people wear wedding rings?

The meaning of the wedding ring can be traced back almost 5,000 years. It is said the wedding ring tradition was first originated by the Egyptians who some 4,800 years ago twisted plant material (such as hemp) into rings and bracelets.

They believed the round symbolism of wedding rings was linked to an eternal love with no end. Use of the wedding band symbol is mentioned in the hieroglyphics on the walls of Egyptian tombs as translated by archaeologists.

Some 2000 years ago, Asian puzzle rings were commonly used as wedding bands. It is said that sheiks and sultans required each of their wives to wear one as a pledge of fidelity while he was away.

If for some reason, the woman removed her ring, it would fall apart and be very difficult to put back together without knowing the answer to the puzzle.

My goodness but we’ve come a long way since then!

Traditions of Wedding Rings:

The Wedding Ring Exchange Ceremony.

Before 1940, only about 15% of bridegrooms received rings. The tradition of the double ring ceremony first started to become popular during World War II where around 60% of couples exchanged rings. This percentage rose to 70% during the Korean War.

Although it is not known what the percentage of wedding ring exchange ceremonies exist today, one can only assume that it has increased steadily over time. What can be more romantic than two people who promise to love and honor each other, using wedding ring symbolism as an acknowledgement of that pledge?

The Proper Way to Wear a Wedding Ring:

Is there such a thing as wedding ring etiquette?

Ancient Egyptians and Romans believed that the ring finger of the left hand follows the”vena amoris” or vein of love, which is directly connected, to the heart.

Therefore, many wedding rings were worn on the left ring finger, as it was believed to link a couples’ destiny. Even though Science discredits this theory – many romantics at heart still follow this practice today.

Another theory suggests that during the 17th century, wedding rings were typically worn on the thumb and then moved to the 4th finger of the left hand during the wedding ceremony.

It is believed that during a Christian wedding, a priest presents the ring to the 4th finger after touching three fingers on the left hand and saying, “In the Name of the Father – Son – and Holy Ghost”.

In Summary:

There is no other piece of jewelry more tied to emotion than the wedding band. The wedding ring symbol transcends into an extension of the wedding ring vow itself…

“To have and to hold
From this day forward
For richer — for poorer
In sickness and in health
Forsaking all others…
Till death do us part.”

Isn’t it amazing how a small circle of metal, an unbroken circle, symbolizes eternal love, continuing its endless flow through time? This universal symbol has been an important part of the wedding ceremony for many generations.

While there are no hard and fast rules on the exact science of wedding ring wearing, most people opt for wearing theirs on the ring finger of the left hand.

One Last Wedding Ring Tip:

Which goes on the finger first… engagement ring or wedding band?

After the wedding ring vows are exchanged, and the Bride is officially married, she often chooses to put the band on her wedding ring finger first and then the engagement ring on top of the band. The symbolic nature of this order is so that the wedding band is closest to her heart:)

source: http://www.weddingbandsinc.com/wedding-band-guide.html

Organization is Key!

My eye has been twitching for the past 4 days, it's really starting to bug me. I googled it and it said that eye twitching can be a sign of stress and anxiety among a few other things. I have been pretty stressed out lately, so that's what I'm betting it is. Why am I stressed you ask? Well I think it has to do with organization. I had started to let things slip a bit since business has been slow. Winter brides are few and far between, but soon the spring brides will come a knockin' and I want to be ready!

So I've been stressed and have had some anxiety about my income and expense records. I had recently bought Quickbooks Pro to enter all of my expenses and income into. What a pain! I had January-September that needed to be entered, ugh! So I did it, I FINALLY sat down and did it! It feels so good to have it done. Now I feel like I can move forward successfully. The important thing is to keep up with entering expenses/income on a regular basis. I plan on getting a couple pictures of my newly organized office up here, I just have to take them! One more thing on my "to do" list. ;)

So ladies, if you're ever feeling stressed, try picking around the house or organize your favorite room. You just may surprise yourself on how much better you feel afterwards! Maybe my eye will stop twitching now! :)

Customizing a Blog

I just have to say, I'm very impressed with those who customize their blogs. I had one of the average templates for a little while, then I saw Flyleaf Books blog and I noticed a button at the top of her page. So I clicked on it and WALA, there were hundreds of other templates!

Being a designer I was like a kid in a candy store. I found one that was clean, yet elegant and girly. Some blogs feel very cluttered to me and distract me from reading the content of the blog.

So last night I spent a few hours monkeying around with the html, something I never thought I'd be able to work with, but I did! So here is my new look, feel free to comment. My next step is organizing the side bar and adding other blogs to it. I want to make this a nice blog for brides to come and get resources for their wedding day.

And if you're not a bride, let this blog be an inspiration for colors, style and other invitation ideas! I do more than just weddings. :)

Wedding Invitations are Expensive!

Why are wedding invitations SO expensive? What is the average age of today's bride, 25-30? I got married at the ripe old age of 23, 1 year out of college. I didn't have $500-$1,000+ to spend on my wedding invitations and rsvp cards. What new grad would? I had to create my own wedding invitation from scratch and it was quite the process, let me tell you.

Do you want to hear about it? Ok, well first I had to find my colors. That was determined by whatever bridesmaid dresses I found that would fit all of my girlfriends perfectly. I went with the mix and match styles from David's Bridal. I really wanted ice blue as my wedding color, but the closest they had was periwinkle. Onto the wedding invitations! My mom and I searched high and low for the perfect shade of periwinkle, bringing with us the fabric swatch everywhere we went. We found some and I decided to do vellum paper on top with the words and print a photo I took of a rose Greg gave to me when while were still dating.

So the layers went this way: bottom - periwinkle card stock, next layer on top - periwinkle card stock with 4 notches cut in each corder to hold the rose print and vellum with writing, the next layer - rose photocopy, top layer - vellum paper with text. Sounds simple right? ;) Then the conundrum of finding somewhere that would print on vellum very cheaply. The place I was working at had a laser jet, so we used that. Only thing was that it would jam every 25 or so sheets. Ugh! I had to chop each 8.5x11 sheet into 4. The periwinkle wasn't too bad, but each layer on top of that got smaller and smaller, so I had to calculate each one and cut, cut, cut. Then I had to punch out 4 corners for the 2nd layer. Once all of that was done I got to assemble them, horray! That wasn't a picnic either. Fitting each corner of the rose picture and vellum into the corners of the invitations. What a pain!

That was back in 2001, when I didn't have much access to a computer other than work and I had just started my Graphic Design career. I didn't know how to navigate the internet very well, so I couldn't see if there were wedding invitation designers like I am now, that would've done it for a fraction of the cost of the really expensive large wedding invitation companies.

So don't go through the pain of making your own. You might think it's a great idea at the time (I know I did), but it's a lot of work. You should be enjoying the process of planning your wedding, not trying to design everything yourself (unless you're a designer!). :)

That's what I'm here for. I've priced my invitations competitively so you won't break the bank. But you won't be skimping on quality and style either. I've come up with a wide range of designs to fit most personalities, and continue to come up with more every day. But most important is that you'll feel good sending out invitations that convey your style and colors, and you get very personalized attention. Isn't that worth it's weight in gold?

Evite vs Paper Invites

I'm throwing my husband a 30th birthday party and am planning on sending out one of my invitation designs, why not? A small price to pay for advertising, plus I feel it's much more personal receiving an actual invitation in the mail. I feel we've gone too far away from the personal touch of hand-held invitations with the invention of the internet. Some people send out a mass email inviting people or use websites such as Evite. I understand you save money this way, but if you're throwing a party spending hundreds of dollars on food, drinks and decorations, why not throw in an extra $30-50 for personalized custom invitations?

Another problem I have with email or eviting your guests is that I've found that too many people attend based on who else is invited. I've been guilty of it myself, if I'm not going to know anyone, who am I going to talk to? Yes, I should put myself out there to meet new people shouldn't I? That's one of the beauties of an actual mailed invitation, the element of surprise on who's going to be there. If there isn't anyone you know there, you're forced to make small talk with strangers and who knows, you may end up meeting some pretty special people and create new friendships out of the deal!

If you've never gotten an Evite, it works like this: You set up your list of guests, send it out and when your guests log into the invitation you see everyone that was invited. You also see how people respond to the invitation, whether or not they're coming. I've talked to others about this and they agree. You don't want to believe that people would do this type of thing, but the sad truth is they do. Oh, and I forgot to mention, that if you're the sender of an evite you get to see when people open their invitation and when they respond. It's not a very good feeling when someone opens it, but then never responds. You know they got it, so why not just tell you yes or no, it's not that hard.

The other thing is that if you know someone that's "famous" and are inviting them, everyone else you're inviting will see that this "famous" person is invited. I hate to say it, but again, people will react to this type of a situation and come in hopes that they too will get to mingle with them and say to their friends "Guess who I'm hanging out with tonight!". It really sucks as the host that your friends would come based on something like this. And like I said, you don't want to think that your friends will react this way, but chances are that they might. Can you blame them? Put yourself in their shoes. Say a friend of yours knows Matthew McConaughey and you see his name on the list, wouldn't you like to get one chance to see what he's like in person compared to what you see in the movies? I'm not saying all people would react this way, some people don't give a darn, but there are those that do.

I've used evite once and got completely burned when 12 out of 12 guests didn't end up coming, It didn't matter that I sent the evitation out 5 weeks in advance for them to plan ahead. Since I had bought everything for the party I had to do something, so I invited another bunch of my friends, all who showed up. Not many knew each other, but it was a fun time anyway. Lesson learned!

So those are some reasons why I think people should go back to doing regular mailed invitations for any type of occassion. I'm working on getting together some less "girly" styled invitations for boy type parties. But if you're a girl throwing a party, any of my wedding invitation designs can be changed to any party that you decide to throw.

Welcome to my blog!

I'm not sure where to start, so let's start there! I've been designing wedding invitations since May 2008. Since I've opened my shop through Etsy (you can view in my previous post) I've gotten an overwhelming response from brides. My wedding invitations are unique because I print the directions on the back and offer a postcard style rsvp.

In today's economy people are trying to find all sorts of ways to save a buck. My invitations are very cost effective because you're not purchasing separate direction cards, separate reception card, separate accommodations card, etc. Postage also becomes a factor. When you're sending out 100+ invitations with the 2 oz. priced stamp you're going to be spending around $60+. Add in the cost of rsvp envelopes, that's another $40+. With my invitation design you only have the invitation and rsvp card, even if you decide to go with the rsvp envelopes you still don't need the 2 oz. priced stamp.

Do people think having the directions on the back is tacky? Most of them don't, if they do their standards are set too high. Let's be practical people! For my cousin's wedding, my husband and I were running late (of course having 2 kids) so he grabbed the invite, only to forget the separate card with the directions on it! Luckily we had mapped it out online days before to see where it was at, so we found it through memory. Whew!

People appreciate practical things. But my wedding invitations are not only practical, they're gorgeous, if I do say so myself! I get my artwork through stock photography sites and also design some of them myself. I could probably design some of the one's I purchase, but I don't have the time. Plus, why not support artists who enjoy making the designs that I enjoy using!

I get some of my color combo ideas from the clothes in my closet. What will I wear today? Oh, this creamy canary yellow would look great with this teal shirt and brown pants. Wala! A color combo is born. I also look at wedding magazines for ideas. That's what most brides are looking at aren't they? If there are any brides reading this post, tell me where you get your ideas for your wedding colors!

Visit my shop!