Shop is open!

I'VE MOVED MY BLOG. From now on, my posts will be found here: Dear Monday blog
But I wanted to announce the opening of my site!!


It took only forever and a day, but it's finally open! What a relief! I'm excited and nervous at the same time about my site: Dear Monday

Use coupon code to get 15% off: 2851081206 (expires Dec2006)
I know it's a long number... just cut and paste! :)

moved!

I was going to post later... but i've pretty much transferred everything over. From now on my new blog address is dearmonday.wordpress.com

Hopefully this new "home" will make me post more???? Also I still have to do a header but for the most part, it's up and running.

hot hot hot

It's been so hot lately. It's always hot in July but this year it seems hotter. To top it off, we've all been sick. I think I got it worse than Little J and hubby. Nothing worse than being sick in a heat wave.

Nothing happening much on the stationery business side of things. Just prepping and finishing everything up. After I have everything in place... I'm considering a move of this blog. Most likely to wordpress. It's still free and you get to have categories. Yay!!! Not sure how much difference that'll make in encouraging me to blog more, but... I just like that it has categories, that way everything can be in its place. That's funny coming from me because I'm a slob. An organized slob. My husband always tells me I have so many piles. Wherever there's a flat area, there's a pile. LOL

BC 1st Friday: SKY

This is the first time I'm able to finish something on time to participate in Inkfinger's Blind Contour 1st Friday.
If you can't tell what it is, that's a rooftop against a SKY (this month's theme). Color was added because it just looks better. :)

I'm committed

I have on my website that the shop would be open late summer. yikes!

I had to give myself a deadline so I can hurry up and finish. I want to design again and get on with life. Right now finishing up the shop is like something looming over my head. No more wondering 'will they buy it?' or 'is it good enough?' Well despite myself, I managed to be about half way done. My next step is to take photos of the enclosure cards... I got so burnt out with taking pics of the greeting cards that I procrastinated. Photos are always a big hurdle, but it will get done.

Mostly just icky stuff on the 'to-do' list remains.

ugh SEO

I'm learning/reading up on SEO and all that good stuff. I'm beginning to realize that to really do it properly... my webpages are going to look like crap. Sigh. It seems like you'd have to put so much information on your page. I've been looking at examples of sites that have been successful with using SEO techniques... and well... most of those sites look jam-packed with info!!

I'm a big fan of simple and clean. I like stuff streamlined. Hmmm... I better save up money for advertising. LOL

Just wanted to add where you can learn more about SEO. Lots and lots of good info. And alot of work if you want it done correctly.
http://www.gnc-web-creations.com/seo-optimization.htm

wait and see......

I'm going to take a small break so I can concentrate on building an online site. I don't post that much anyway so it won't even seem like a break. LOL. There's a few cool (& cheap :-D) places I'd like to try advertising with or promoting with... but it just seems like a waste of effort if they are retail customers and they can't buy if they come to the website. So... taking matters in my own hands... not waiting on stores, not waiting on reps... I'll just change my focus, and hope for the best.

Things in the greeting card business is slow and some things are up in the air. I worry when someone has my info and pdf catalog and then doesn't get back to me unless I contact them. Are they competitors pretending to be a rep? Maybe I was too gullible... But I did ask for references. Ehhh I'd like to believe in the good of people and I'll assume they are just putting stuff together to present. Hmmm... guess I'll have to wait and see.

bright lights, sin city

We've been back and well-rested from our little getaway to Nevada. We had a great time visiting with husband's family but it sure is good to be back home. I was able to get about 8-9 hours of sleep most days (that includes a nap) but I still felt beat. Maybe it was the heat, altho the weather was pretty mild. Maybe it was the lack of humidity.

Everytime we go to the Vegas area, we always think... 'damn, we can sell our house in CA and get one there and not have to work (for a while).' But... my family and most our friends are here. Plus the weather is nicer in CA. The thought of financial freedom makes it sooo tempting. Sure we daydream about it, then when it does get hot and we walk out into a furnace of 105 degrees we're brought back to reality.

From where we were, we can see the entire strip. It doesn't translate well into pictures, but this is a partial view.

finally air

I'm coming up for air. It's like everybody I know just had a birthday. In the past 4 weeks there's been 8 birthdays, mine & husband included, and 3 for mother's day... just one more birthday which is my dad's and I'll be good for a while. Sheesh. I need to make new friends who aren't born in April or May! LOL

I finished up client's order of cards. Goodness I know why handmade cards should be priced accordingly because they take lots of time. There's not too much I can do except make sure to keep some stock just in case. I don't have to worry about that for now because I'm such a chicksh*t when it comes to approaching stores. HA! Just mainly concentrating on prepping samples to send out to stores and a few trade magazines. We'll see what happens. Things move pretty slow when there's a toddler around but mainly because I've got no skills in sales and chicken about it to boot. HA.

Wow this weekend the NSS starts. Soooo excited for all the paper people out there. Someday... someday!
I hope everybody has a great show. There's so much talent out there.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the moms and moms-to-be out there... Have a great day and enjoy your families!!! :)

2 cheers

Cheer 1: No ecommerce yet, but it's finally up: Dear Monday
A friend suggested to put a photo in the 'about' section but I don't have a recent one that's half way decent or that my hair doesn't look like tumbleweed LOL.

Cheer 2: Client I designed CD for made a sizeable order of my cards. That'll keep me busy for a bit. Good thing I ordered lots of supplies.

website is almost up

yippee! I'm so glad the website is pretty much done so I'll be uploading in a day or 2. It didn't take long at all once I decided on what to do. It's really basic and it shows some samples. It is good for now and I can always make it better later. I just wanted to get something done! After this I'll be start working on the shopping part of it. Still deciding on if I want a separate site or same site. hmm...

Time wasters

Yay. Today was the last of the doctor appointments. Well, it was actually the dentist but they are doctors afterall. I've been really bad about flossing so a few days before the appointment, I floss diligently and hope they don't ask me about it. I was told I have healthy gums and everything looks great. Whew. I got a new crown put in and was good to go. This counted as my outing for the day. Sad. LOL.

I've been procrastinating about the website. What did I do when I was procrastinating? Reading forums about the show 24. I've never done this but I've gotten obsessed with the show and I wanted to be with like company. There's only another 6 episodes left so then I won't need to do that anymore. Alias has started its last season tonight. It was once a good show, hopefully the final season will be good.

I know it doesn't seem like it, but I swear I'm busy.

I love Target but...

they kill me sometimes. I'm gonna get depressed for a minute here. I went to Target for last minute Easter stuff and I perused their card section. Normally I kind of avoid it but some cute cards with fabric on it caught my eye. They have some of the most adorable cards! There's tons that look really elaborate if you were to do it by hand, and they were all reasonably priced. *sigh* Awhile ago I would've felt why do I bother making cards. But now I just think: mine are cute too and I'm not aspiring to be in Target. :)

At least with greeting cards there's not a huge price gap between chain store cards and boutique/indie design type cards. Most of the time, the price difference is a few dollars. Sure, there's cards out there for $50 a card, but that's so few. It's not like fashion where a dress could be $20 in a chain store versus $500 by a designer. Yikes.

Anyway, today my mom has the day off so she watched Little J. I wish I was able to do more creative stuff but I had to go to the doctors. I've had a doctor's appt once a week for the past 5 weeks. Geez I guess getting older is high maintenance. Plus I'm one of those people who (sorry TMI) never know when Aunt Flo's coming or if she's coming. I think Little J is a miracle. But thank goodness, after today, healthwise I seem to be *normal*. One more dentist appoint next week and then I'm done with doctors for a while... Unless... we want to have another little one soon, then I go back and see what options we have. I think we'll see where nature takes us and hope for another little miracle.

I've been neglecting the website because I've been having too much fun making cards. It makes me feel kind of crafty. I really like working with my hands, I wish I had more time. I'm looking at shopping carts again and really interested in the Zen Cart. I had my mind on Mals-e since it's something I could handle but Zen just seems to have more options. Reading about Zen and php and ssl and and and.... makes me want to cry... or do something unrelated like go look at a celebrity blog. hehe. I don't know what happened to my brain. When it comes time for a retail site, I'm leaning towards hiring someone if I go with Zen especially if I want to customize. First things first, I still need to finish catalog, preliminary website and I still have to reshoot the product photos.

To end on a good note, the client I did CD design for, wants to order some cards. Yay.

Just give me 2 lines

This weekend I went to a film audition. A friend of my husband's is making an Asian movie... more like a movie for the Asian community. Since I'm bilingual I was asked to participate/help out. I thought I knew what to expect... but then I wondered is this for a role? is it for a voice dub? It turned out we had to kinda "act" in front of the camera. Crap. I'm all for helping hubby's friend but this is kind of embarrassing.

I get my Vietnamese lines and I REALLY have to study it because in front of strangers, it feels foreign. Anyway there's a really cute girl who looked like she's studying the lines too. I asked her 'Do you go to these things alot?"
Girl: "You mean auditions? ...yeah"
Me: "Oh, are you an actress?"
Girl: (shyly)"... mmm yeah, you could say that. Usually it's English speaking, it's very rare that I get called for this."
(I was trying to size up the situation here)

Anyway, I read my lines with 2 guys. 1st guy... he was so nervous but he was able to get thru his lines.
The 2nd guy... it was hilarious. The director had us read in English (yay!) and the 2nd guy could BARELY read his lines. Poor guy. So the director told us to switch to Vietnamese. The guy said he can't read Vietnamese. (Who told him to come down? LOL) It's not his native language and neither is English. The director asks what his native language was and 2nd guy says Laos and French. So anyway we finished up reading in Vietnamese. LOL

How did I do? Oh I sucked and I was nervous. But I must not have sucked that bad if I was asked to stay to read a couple of times. In my opinion I sucked... but I really thought it was fun. Embarrassing but fun. It's really hard to 'act' like I have the hots for this guy I'm talking with when the 'actor' can't read his lines and I could barely understand him. heeheehee

As for the girl I spoke to earlier... she read with a few guys too. All the guys got sent home after one take.

On my way out, I talked to hubby's friend. He thanks me for coming down to help them out. He wants me to be involved in one way or another, with a role or behind the scenes. (He always says stuff like this so it's not like I'll be given anything.) I told him it'd be cool if I had a teeny tiny role with 2 lines. This is faaaarrr from any Hollywood production but it would be NEATO to see how everything works and come together. I'm hoping everything works out for him and anyone else behind it.