Personalized wooden blocks

Check out this wonderful tutorial! You can transfer colorful images like the one above using an inkjet printer, elmer's glue and mod podge -- AMAZING!

Tutorial: http://matsutakeblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-transfer-inkjet-images-to-wood.html

Combine this idea with the plain wooden blocks you can purchase on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33409617&ref=sr_list_1&&ga_search_query=wood+blocks+plain&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_page=&order=date_desc&includes[]=tags&includes[]=title

What a wonderful gift for a new baby -- personalized play blocks!

Superhero card saves the day!

One of my readers won the "Tell Her Three Reasons Why She's Your Superhero" card in a recent giveaway. When I notified him, he told me:

"I just had my 20th reunion and my wife (who didn't go to school with me) was instrumental in making the event a success. She is my Superhero!"

Nice, eh? I loved hearing that!

Today, I received a note from him:

"She got it today. I stayed home with our son and she substituted at school today. I put it in the mailbox with the other mail before she got home.

She came in with tears, she loved it! It was perfect since she had a rough day. She substitutes in the special needs room at the elementary school and this year's class is especially tough.

Thank you for having the contest and allowing me to touch the heart of my favorite person in the world. Being unemployed, I don't get that opportunity very often these days."

I'm a bit of a pushover for a sentimental story and I have to admit to tearing up when I read his note.

Thanks, Scott, for passing this on! You've made my day!

Because I'm so pleased with how much the three reasons series cards seem to touch the hearts of those who receive it, I'm lowering the price of all of them by a dollar.

Enjoy!

Powell's: Order Two!

Getting my first order at Powell's was pretty exciting. 54 cards seemed like a really big order!

Today, I heard back from them. The card buyer told me: "Your cards did very well. I am so pleased."

Hooray!

She's upping the quantities considerably, so now I'll be putting together an order of 156 cards.

Whoo hoo!

The timing is actually quite perfect as I've been gearing up for a couple of little crafty events, so I've been trying to increase my inventory anyway. At the end of the craft season, I should have some extra to get a really good start on this big order.

This also comes at a time when I've been making serious eyes at the iPod touch, which I've just learned can connect me to email and the internet when I'm away from home. Honestly, when I'm out and about, I go through serious etsy withdrawals and the thought of being able to stay connected is pretty thrilling to me. This big order might just be the excuse I need to make a fun little purchase...

Thanks for listening!

(P.S. The text on the marquee on that Powell's photo is photoshopped, of course!)

"Brown" Princess Invitations Done!

Here she is! The customer approved my comps for my new African-American princess invitations yesterday and I was able to pop these into the morning mail later that day.

She'd asked for soft green accents, which go so beautifully with the pink dress.

I LOVE these!

Now I need to find artwork for an Asian princess...

Adding "Brown"

I had a customer ask me if I could customize my Princess invitations so that she could order a brown version.

Totally ethnocentrically (and I'm not even white!) I told her that I could change the hair or dress color, whatever she liked.

Of COURSE she was asking if the princess could be customized to an African-American version! Duh!

And how did I miss that opportunity??? Anyway, I found that great artwork and added an option to my princess birthday party invitation listing.

SUCH a good idea! (wish I'd come up with it!)

Halloween giveaway going frighteningly well!

I'm pleased with the traffic I've gotten to my Halloween Card Giveaway so far!

In the past, I've been reluctant to do a giveaway on my blog because I was afraid that I'd get a lame 1 or 2 responses. This would just be so sad!

But then I looked around at various web resources for ways to publicize my giveaway. There are a bunch of great ones! Just google something like "free blog giveaways" and you'll get a whole list of different sites that feature some of the great stuff you can enter to win on the internet! Because blogs are typically less trafficked than, say, a national print campaign, your odds of winning these prizes are a lot higher!

On many of these sites, there's a link for your to submit your own giveaway.

This discovery encouraged me to go ahead and do it -- the idea is to get some new eyeballs over to my store.

Here's one of those sites:

http://freebloggiveaways.com/

It was really easy to find a link to submit my giveaway information.

When I did, I was also given a choice to purchase a small ad with the assurance that the ads typically received many times the traffic that a simple listing would get. Okay, I was sold and the price was quite low, so I went for it! I've highlighted my ad on the right.

In order to enter my drawing to win one of five Halloween cards, you have to leave a comment on my blog letting me know which card at my etsy shop you like and why. You can enter a second time by becoming a follower of my blog. By becoming my fan on Facebook, you get a third chance to win.

All of these, of course, expose people to my cards and may result in future sales, so this is excellent. I've seen a serious uptick in the traffic to my site. And people's comments have been seriously kind.

In addition to promoting the giveaway on the free blog giveaways site, I also purchased some spots on Project Wonderful. My favorite pop-up card blog is http://extremecards.blogspot.com/. If you visit Carol's terrific site, you'll see my ad on the right side. She's also very kindly plugged my giveaway in a recent post (so right back at you, Carol!).

All of this activity has resulted in a satisfying number of entries to my contest -- 20 so far!

It's hard to tell if any of this activity has resulted in any sales yet, but, heck! It couldn't hurt... and it's kind of fun to try something new!

Halloween Giveaway!

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The five winners of this contest have been selected. They are:

Janil, Whimcees, Darcy, malibu.bunny.xo and PeaceSweetPeas.The lucky five have been sent emails letting them know.

Thanks to all who participated in my giveaway -- I REALLY enjoyed hearing all your terrific comments. It's the first time I've ever done a giveaway from my own blog and it was so successful that I'm planning on doing it on a regular basis.

Thanks again!

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I love these Halloween Pop-Up Ghost cards! I'm so pleased with them that I want to share them with YOU, in my very first giveaway!

This giveaway will select FIVE lucky winners, each of whom will be sent that spooky card.

To enter, all you have to do is visit my etsy shop and leave a comment here letting me know which card in the store you like best and why. You comment must include your email address so that I can contact you afterwards to award you your prize (or be sure that I can get it via your Blogger profile).

To enter a second time, become a follower of this blog and leave another comment (if you're already a follower, just leave the comment).

You can enter a third time by becoming a fan on my Facebook site (again, if you're already a fan, just leave me a comment letting me know).

I will select five random winners after all entries are in Tuesday, October 20th (midnight, Pacific) and announce them here, on this blog post.

Good luck!

Molly

Knight Invitations with Child's Face

I just completed an order of Knight Invitations. This is the first such order that took advantage of the option to have them personalized with the child's face.

It's funny, I get "runs" of a certain type of invitation. This is my month for Knight Invitations!

Hey Cancer Card Featured Today!

My Hey Cancer! card is being featured at the Evergreen Moms blog today! I sent them a card to give away to one of their readers.

Take a look now!

Recycled Magazine Gift Bows

How About Orange is full of wonderful little ideas, like this one for making gift bows out of recycled magazine pages. The one above is from a map of Chicago.

Enjoy!

Giveaway with Craftypod!

I've partnered with Craftypod, my absolute favorite podcast, for a fun giveaway. All you have to do is leave a comment at the Craftypod blog (telling me which card you'd like to win and including your email so I can contact you) to qualify to win a pop-up card! Hop on over now!