Client Project: Holiday Card

I just finished folding, labeling, custom stamping, stuffing and sealing over 300 holiday cards for a client. It's a folding card printed on beautiful, shimmery pearlized heavy weight paper, making the photos really pop.

The last step was to take the cards to the Post Office and hand-cancel every one of them so they won't get defaced by the machine that cancels the stamps. Additionally, I was able to request that the cards don't get sorted by machine to further guard them from getting mangled before reaching the addressee.

There are a lot of steps involved in creating custom cards but when everything comes together it's very gratifying!

Photos by Steve Robb

Detail from holiday card

At the printer! 
I just finished up a holiday card for a client and although it wouldn't be fair to show it before my client's friends and family get to see it, I thought it would be ok to show some details.

Here is some script hand-lettering I did for the panels of the tri-fold which incorporated some little playful icons describing the text. All the colors match the envelope liners I will be creating out of a beautiful hand-printed paper.

I have to say, I really got hung up on the script 'p'. I couldn't remember how to write it so I had to look it up online. The letter 'h' was my fave though. I could do that letter forever with all its wavy, intersecting lines! I'm looking for a client named harry h. hohner...

I'll post the actual card (and custom liners and envelopes and Zazzle stamps) sometime in December when my client (who is wonderful to work with!) says it's ok.

Happy Groundhog Day 2010!

Welcome to another Groundhog Day. I'll just bet it's felt like so much more than 365 days since the last Groundhog's Day and I appreciate you coming by to check out my yearly GH card.

I've been creating a card for this rodentastic holiday since 1992 (To be honest, I've skipped a few along the way) and I'm happy to come back to it in 2010 despite the crushing deadlines, a sick 4 year old and lack of enough sleep. But enough about me...

See you again next year!
You can check out a bunch more Groundhog Day illustrations on this blog by clicking HERE.

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Holiday Card 2009

On November 17 I received an email from a client asking me to produce her family's holiday card to make it into the mail by December 10. Sounds like plenty of time until you consider what needed to be done:

• Conceive and design a tri-fold card (and in this case I was provided with wonderful photos by Steve Robb). Make revisions based on client's feedback.
  
• Hunt for paper samples at multiple stores to line the envelopes and scan and email them for client to choose.
  
• Order the envelopes.
• Order the chosen liner paper (this took 10 days to arrive. TEN DAYS and the day before I received them I was informed that my order would be short!).
  
• Find someone to address the envelopes (both regular and return addresses). Lauren Karp is a goddess.
  
• Go away for Thanksgiving. Wait for printer to reopen and send approved design.
  
• Get postage stamp options from which client may choose.
• Design the outside of the envelopes using colors from the card as well as colors from the liner and the postage stamp.
  
• Cut the liner paper. I did this by hand to make sure they were done right.
  
• Assemble the envelopes (attach the liners and stamps- thank goodness for self-sticking stamps!).
• Fold and stuff the cards (while keeping a critical eye out for any printing issue).
• Lick (bleh!). OK, not really- I used a sponge to seal the envelopes.
  
• Hand cancel at the P.O.
• Send client the following photo taken at the P.O. with my phone so she could see the completed package as I was canceling them.

In the end, the cards arrived on the 11th and after assembly the cards were in the mail by 12 p.m. on the 12th. Not bad!

I was so happy to work with this particular client on her card. She was clear about what she wanted/liked and was able to communicate the changes she wanted to see.

Thank you C.M.!