I spent a silly amount of time looking at unique portfolio designs for yesterday’s post and I was inspired by some truly fantastic business cards to create today’s feature on handmade business and calling cards. Since your business card is often either a first point of contact or a way of marketing yourself it is worth putting in the extra time and capital and present your business in a memorable way.

Nothing says handmade more than textile business cards. Graphics can be printed on printable cotton sheets or onto iron on transfers or they can be stamped or silkscreened, they are also a great way to use up your favorite fabric/felt scraps.

1. Blogger and crafter Jessica Levitt created these bright fabric business cards to spread the word about her crafty blog by machine stitching a paper card onto scraps of fabric cut out with pinking shears.

2. Designer and illustrator Rachel Novak made these elegant business cards by gluing fabric to heavy card stock and then gluing card stock with her information onto the fabric side. I love the look of these cards!

3. An example of fabric business cards with printed iron on transfers from Julie Antinucci

4. These business cards from Pocketful of Pinwheels were printed by Spoonflower where you can print custom fabrics on demand!

Clients love to ask designers to make things “pop” now you actually can with pop up business cards!

5. Etsy’s FAHpopups from Buenos Aires sells sets of 50 customized pop up cards for only $40 USD!

6. OrangeYouGlad design company created these funky pop-up cards for their staff.

If you have an earth friendly business consider creating some kind of eco business card like the ones pictured above.

7. These punny cards blooming cards from designer, illustrator and creative thinker Jaime Weick will bloom in four days if you get the bottom of the card/envelope damp.

8. I love these simple and modern letterpress cards printed by paperedtogether letterpress. They are made of handmade paper embedded with seeds so that they can also be planted.

9. Struck Creative created these clever seed envelope/business cards for Lush they were letterpressed with the business info and then filled with seeds.

Wood veneer business cards are lovely and rustic with a real modern aesthetic making them perfect for a range of business card styles. They can be die cut like the ones pictured here (10) from a tutorial on papiervalise’s blog and then stamped or stickered with your business info. Or you can stamp the blanks with a logo or pretty image like these little birds cards made by Vancouver’s Cabin (11). The blanks are available from Lee Valley for only $3.50 for a package of 50.

A little innovation goes a long way when it comes to business cards, where a regular business card might get tossed in the recycling a little work of art will be kept around and possibly even treasured. I know that I have a collection of cards that are too lovely to ever get rid of even though some of the businesses are no longer in operation.

12. I am head over heels in love with the die cut egg shaped business cards designed by Imagehaus for Amma Maternity and then printed on letterpress by the amazing Studio on Fire.

13. Ellie Snow, author and editor of Mint handmade these sweet cards embellished with fun paper tape and twine.

14. Even just choosing an unconventional shape like these small round cards made by Starr Design can make the difference between a great card and a boring one.

15. And sometimes simple is lovely too like colourful letterpress business cards from sweetharvey.

With so many options to choose from there is really no end to how creative you can get with your business cards, happy crafting!

The art and design world is highly competitive and completely based on looks, not how you look, but how you present your work. Having a memorable, unique and personalized portfolio can be an excellent way of getting noticed and getting the clients, contracts and sales that you want. If you are looking to break into illustrating children’s books, getting higher profile design jobs or you simply want to showcase your talents then you need a portfolio that is as brilliant as you are.

I have put together some great options for creating a portfolio that outshines the rest, but these printing ideas can also be used as promotional business materials. Hand them out at craft fairs and trade shows, or as additions to promo and media kits, stick them in as a “little something” with large orders or strategically place at related stores, galleries and cafes. For a little investment a stunning portfolio can generate a lot of sales and commissions.

MOO CARDS MINI PORTFOLIOS & STICKER BOOKS:

Moo Mini Cards and StickerBooks are a creative way to showcase your work and turn images into an unconventional portfolio. Since you can upload a different image for every card, you can design packages of the cards and then simply staple them together as shown, or design an inventive or handmade wrapper to complete the package. For a really upscale portfolio you could send both a mini portfolio and a coordinating StickerBook in a matching wee box!

LULU BOUND BOOK PORTFOLIO:

Artist and illustrator Jade Nellans created the beautiful and professional portfolio pictured on the top of this image and the mock children’s book on the bottom using Lulu an online self-publishing program/company that offers a wide range of services and packages for writers, designers, and artists, including marketing and design services.

SHINEBOXPRINT MINI PORTFOLIOS:

These matchbook style portfolios from ShineBoxPrint come in a couple of sizes and are a classy way to showcase your images to a potential client or publisher. They also make business card booklets which would be ideal for dropping off to retail spaces or including in promotional packages or handing out at networking events….really the possibilities are endless.

I hope this post has inspired you to showcase your work in an exciting way-I would love to see pictures of your unique portfolio designs!

sarah + abraham cupcake toppers featuring olliegraphic illustrations

I recently began offering cupcake toppers, a new product that I’d been thinking about for quite a while but couldn’t quite figure out what materials to use and the best way to assemble them. I’m so grateful to Stacy at InkSpot Workshop for answering all my questions along the way. I love how they turned out!

I decided to take some pictures of the process so that I could share it with OMHG readers. The pictures below are slightly different than what I finally ended up offering (stickers on card stock circles), but the process is pretty much the same.

1. Print your design on card stock paper and cut the sheet into 2.125″ strips.

2. For a scalloped edge, I like to use the Fiskars Scalloped Squeeze Punch.

3. For a straight edge, I like the Fiskars Large Circle Punch.

4. Apply a line of Elmer’s School Glue (or a similar glue) from the middle to the bottom of each circle.

5. Set the top of each lollipop stick into the glue and press it into place.

6. Allow the glue to dry completely. For one-sided cupcake toppers, that’s it – you’re done!

7. For two-sided toppers, apply glue to the lollipop stick.

8. Place another card stock circle onto the glue.

9. For toppers with a scalloped edge, you may need to adjust the second circle slightly to get the scalloped borders to line up with each other. Once it’s in place, allow the glue to dry completely.

Today I wanted to do a post on handmade autumn parties.  I hope it inspires you to throw an autumnal bash to celebrate the coming of the fall and the changing of the leaves!

1. A Wild Rumpus Birthday Party is a fun and exciting way to celebrate your little monster’s birthday, the party decorations pictured here are from hostessblog.

2. What better way to bring the leaves of fall to your table then with real pressed leaf table cards from Toronto’s  mapleshoppers.

3.Brighten up any party room with these oversized October themed tissue paper pom-poms made by MySillyBear. If you are feeling crafty Martha Stewart has a great tutorial for making easy tissue paper dahlias!

4.I found this clever use for candied/caramel apples on ClementineChicago’s blog post on autumn treats.

5.These chocolate filled candy acorns by andiespecialtysweets are almost too cute to eat.

6. Monogrammed and personalized fall cookies from beaucoup would make very special party favours or party treats.

Happy Fall!

September might be here but nobody told Halifax about it-we are in the middle of a heat wave. Today it was 34 degrees Celsius (44 with the humidity) that is 93-111 Fahrenheit=HOT! This unreasonable heat is thanks to Hurricane Earl, the storm that has the whole city running around buying generators and stocking up on candles. There is the potential if the storm hits here Friday night for the city to loose power and (gasp!) internet too, so if I am offline for a day or two that is why, although I might resort to standing in the hurricane with my Iphone trying to get a signal so I can post an article! Since everyone is talking about the potential storm I thought it would be fun to do a storm themed post, and hope it keeps the nasty weather at bay.

The “I will be grateful for this day” print from Vol25 is exactly how I will feel if we get a little sprinkling instead of a full blown hurricane and this aqua cloud from Italy’s atelierpompadour is so sweet, it certainly makes me grateful for the rain!

If we do get a big storm these finds are a bit more appropriate; a rainy day pillow from Modernality to snuggle on the couch with by candlelight and a pair of superhero shoes made by smallfly if things get really bad. A Cloudy Day linocut by littlebirdesigns is the perfect image for a stormy day on the East Coast and I also love the whimsical sweetness of Heidi Burton’s “Pale Irretrievables” illustration.

An Aqua Clouds ceramic bowl from CeramicaBotanica would make a gray day lunch party that much nicer and this tiny needle felted Little Blue Cloud Cottage made by chetanddot is helping with my thinking about fluffy white clouds instead of nasty angry ones.

I hope that you are keeping safe and having fun storm watching wherever you are!

I was commissioned through Etsy to create the artwork for a sweet cupcake poem to celebrate a little girl’s first birthday. First I illustrated everything the old fashioned way, with paper and ink, then I digitized the original art to create the colouring pages and painted the original illustration of their family portrait. I am so happy with the results that I am giving away five copies of the pictured colouring book to three OMHG readers!

This is a special giveaway with different rules than usual-while I love contests I am always a little sad to see a pile of entries flood in for giveaways when articles with great content only get a handful of comments. So in order to enter this giveaway, rather then tweeting, following or facebooking I am asking readers to go back through OMHG articles, discover new tutorials, tips and interviews and then comment! You will receive one entry for every comment made on a post OTHER than this one.

Just be sure to come back here and leave the title of the post you have commented on!

Winners will be chosen randomly on September 7th at midnight and the three winners will be announced on September 8th. Winners will not be notified by email, so be sure to check back to find out if you’ve won.  All prizes must be claimed within one week of the announcement.

By entering this giveaway, you agree to the Oh My! Handmade Goodness giveaway policies.

Happy Commenting!

by Brittni of papernstitch

I was laying in bed one night trying to get some sleep, and this idea came to me for an easy, patterned vase. It’s simple….use a pair of baby/infant tights for an instant patterned look. Of course, this idea could be used on any existing vase, but if you are looking for more of a project, I’ve got one for you…

Using some inexpensive votives, you can create a modern vase like mine for under $5. Note: I used several three pack sets of votives from IKEA by C Halskov/H Dalsgaard. I couldn’t find them on IKEA’s site. But the ones I used are these without a candle inside them. Anything that is the same basic shape would work just fine.

Materials: Votive Candles, Heavy Duty Glue, Scissors, Infant size tights (the smaller the better) or leggings

Step by Step: {click image above for larger view of step by step} 1. Gather materials and clean votives so there is no dirt or debris. This will help the glue stick. 2. Glue two votive bottoms together with a thick bead of glue. Wait to dry. 3. Next, glue the top of a third votive to the top of one of the glued votives. Wait to dry. 4. Now its time to grab the tights. Cut the tights in half as close to the middle seam as possible, so the legs are separated. 5. Pull the tight leg over the finished piece, with the closed toe at the bottom and the tights opening at the top. *If you are using footless tights (like the ones I used for the striped vase) it doesn’t matter which way they are put on. 6. Cut off the excess at the top of the opening, leaving about a half inch to an inch to tuck back in. 7. Use your heavy duty glue again to glue down the extra trim to the inside of your votive. 8. Add short stem flowers and water. And you’re done.

Extra Tip: If you’re having a hard time finding a patterned tight that you like, go for a solid color instead. And before you cover over your newly made vase, use a drawing pen or non-bleed markers to create your own pattern by drawing it yourself, right onto the tights. Just stick a piece of cardboard into the leg first, so its stretched a little when you draw and it doesn’t bleed through to the other side. I used this technique for the smaller vase in the photos, and I like how it turned out. Very easy.

For more ideas for quick and easy projects, click here to visit the tutorials page filled with more than 30 diy’s.

This post is to celebrate my friend Megan Rose’s completion of her cross-Canada cycling adventure. She biked from Denman Island, British Columbia all the way across our massive country to finish her trip here in Halifax, Nova Scotia-over 6,000 kilometers later! She biked a fair bit of the way by herself and I for one am hugely proud of her. People do the trip every year, but not MY people, so I wanted to acknowledge her total amazingness with some of the handmade bicycle finds available on Etsy.

1.From Paris, home of the public bike system Velibe, comes this beautiful bicycle themed bag made by Ikabags.

2.This sunny yellow kids shirt from WrenWillow has a silk screened BMX print-perfect for a cyclist in training!

3. I love these little bicycle notebooks from Halifax’s very own,  MyHandboundBooks

4.Bring the love of biking into the nursery or bedroom with a sweet print of a bird on a bicycle from barkingbirdart

5. Reduce, reuse, recycle and make your house beautiful with a clock made from a recycled bike wheel from pixelthis

6. Bring the outside in with a bicycle wall decal sticker made by JMcreation

7. These Keep Moving coasters made by AngelEllie are a great way to remember to always keep moving forward!

8. Embrace silliness with this whimsical t-shirt from darkcycle clothing available in a number of sizes and colours.

Happy Cycling!

Read more about Megan’s adventures on her cycling blog or listen to her music (and a song about bicycles, of course) here.

by Jessika Hepburn, O Happy Day Handmade

This month I am excited to offer readers an interview with monthly contributor, Arianne Foulks of Aeolidia, a successful design company known for its uniquely artistic and beautiful designs. In this interview Arianne gives readers an inside look at handmade design, the Aeolidia team and their design process.

1.Can you please share a bit about the beginnings of Aeolidia and how the Aeolidia team came together?

I started creating websites for myself and friends just for fun when I was in college (in 1997 – and yes, I had a Geocities page!). I kept up this hobby, slowly starting to charge a bit for my work, until I was laid off from my customer support / project management job and found myself with time to really work on my skills and take on more projects.

Shoshanna, my best friend from college, had moved up to Seattle, and was also doing freelance web work, so we decided to combine forces and work together. A few years later, my husband, Chris, decided he wanted the flexibility and freedom of working for himself, so we spent about a year getting him up to speed (he was already savvy at making websites, but hadn’t worked with ecommerce before, and wanted to improve his CSS skills).

We started working with a third designer, Lauren, and that has been perfect for us! Chris doesn’t do site design, so before we had Lauren, Chris was often waiting for me to finish up design work so he would have some work to do. Now with both me and Lauren designing sites, Chris always has plenty to do.

2. Aeolidia is best known for its creative merging of art and web design to create beautiful, unique designs for small businesses, what inspired you to develop the Aeolidia style?

This hasn’t been a conscious decision, but is just the way our design style evolved. We start most of our site designs based on custom illustrations from our team of illustrators, and our illustrators have a cute but quirky aesthetic.

We usually work with somewhat cute and quirky crafters/designers as clients, so it all works out!

If we need a less-cute, more-professional type site design, I nearly always give these to Shoshanna, because she comes from a background of doing more mainstream sites, and I’m just awful at them. If I don’t like it myself, I can’t design it.


3. Aeolidia works with some amazing illustrators, can you tell us a bit about their designs and how they came to work with Aeolidia?

I am good at putting the elements together to create a site design, but not so good at drawing things from scratch. Sometimes our clients have a very specific idea of what they want, and hunting for stock illustrations wasn’t very satisfying.

Early on, I knew of a handful of illustrators that I admired, and I wrote to them all, asking if they’d like to work with me. I wasn’t expecting much of a reply, but I had a lot of interest, and we set them up. I’ve been working with some of them for five years now!

Since then, I’ve contacted an illustrator or two when they look just perfect for us, and I’ve had people contact me, though I’ve been strict about only working with people that I think fit our style.

4. A large portion of your clients are involved in the handmade industry, obviously attracted by the handmade style of your designs, do you prefer working with small businesses/artists, why?

Yes, absolutely! I love working with like-minded people, for many reasons. We tend to get along and have a fun time working on the project together. Small businesses are more understanding of other small businesses, so they tend to pay their bills on time, try to make our job easy, and understand if something comes up on our end to slow us down a bit.

I’ve been approached by larger businesses/companies before, and when they start talking conference calls, non-disclosure agreements, and in-person meetings, I know it’s not a good project for us. The Aeolidia team all left our office jobs for a reason! We enjoy working one on one with the business owner and keeping things personal.

5. What are the benefits to having an artist illustrated or handmade aesthetic for websites and logo design?

For one, if you hire an illustrator, you aren’t going to see your illustration on any other website, sign, or brochure – it will be immediately recognizable to your customers as yours, which you don’t get if you purchase stock art.

I don’t think illustration is beneficial to every type of site (and in fact, we do many sites with no illustration work), but it’s perfect for certain sites. We do a lot of websites that sell children’s and baby products, and it’s nice to have something cute and cuddly or fun in the site design. We also work with a lot of artists and creative people, and a pretty illustration can tell customers that the site has something unique and creative to offer. It’s also nice to give a bit of a handmade feel to sites for handcrafted items.

6. Can you give us an example of the process you would go through with a new client looking for a web design and business branding with custom illustrations?

We have worked with hundreds of clients, and we refine and improve our process with just about every one. We’ve learned that it’s important to ask the right questions at the start so you can capture the client’s vision with the design.

If the client wants to do the entire project with us, we always start with the logo, so everything else will complement it. We have a bunch of questions we ask about the business, the target customer, and the client’s preferences. From there, we work on illustration and design, with lots of back and forth with the client to be sure we’re making something they’ll be proud of in the end.

When the design work is done, we then get it working with the website software, and guide the client through the process of setting up their site and adding their content. We know it’s useless to have a beautiful site if you aren’t able to update it, so we make sure to be there through the client’s process of working with the site. We provide tutorials, examples, and are always available to answer questions or make adjustments to how the site works/looks.

When everything is looking shipshape and ready to go, we do extensive testing of the technical aspects, while providing instruction for the client to test out the customer’s experience (payment, shipping, tax, contact forms, etc.). This way, they know exactly how their site works for their customer, and can suggest changes. Then we put the site live! It’s nice to pair this with Jena’s marketing consultation, so word will get out about the new site quickly.

7. Aeolidia has a number of team members, how do you collaborate with each other, do you work from a shared office or mainly via email?

We all work independently, with me scheduling and setting up projects, and Chris managing our billing and paperwork. Chris and I usually work from the same room, so we collaborate on projects. Shoshanna is in town, and we are in touch via instant messenger all day long.

For our out of town contractors, we stay in touch with them the same way we do our clients: we manage all of our projects through Basecamp, a online project management program that tracks to-dos and deadlines, and lets you post messages and upload files. I think most of us do the type of work we do because we hate the structure of a regular office/business setup, so I make sure to work with people who don’t really need any managing, and just let them do their own thing.

8. Do you have any design suggestions to give handmade businesses on choosing the right design/designer?

I would be sure first to look at some example sites they created very carefully. Is there anything confusing about the site, or do you see any problems with it? Is the design thoughtful throughout, or can you tell that it’s just a header graphic and background slapped onto a stock template? Is it easy to shop?

I would also check references. Start with the testimonials page, but don’t hesitate to contact any of their past clients to ask how the project went.

All of your communications with the designer before you make payment should go smoothly. If she/he is slow to respond, rude, or confusing, they likely will remain that way throughout your project.

A good business person will send you a contract and make it clear how/when you will make payment as well. Find out what’s expected of you during the project, and how much/what type of help you’ll get learning to manage your own site.

9. How do you market and promote Aeolidia? How has your promotional strategy changed (or has it) over the years?

I got very lucky at first, by designing a pretty high-profile site in the crafting world, so word got out about Aeolidia. We put our little “site by Aeolidia” link in the footer of each site we do, and new business has almost entirely been by word of mouth – either people seeing the link, or our past clients spreading the word (personally, or on their blogs/Twitter/etc.).

We had a brief period when people were worried about the economy when things slowed down, but mostly we get more demand than we have supply. When we redesigned the Aeolidia site early this year, I also started Facebook and Twitter accounts, which have definitely increased traffic to the site, and we see a lot of Oh My! visitors as well.

Sometimes I come up with marketing ideas, but usually don’t try them, because I’m worried about the flurry of work requests that will come! We have spent about six months of this year overbooked, all of us staying up until 3am trying to hit deadlines – no good. It’s hard to turn down fun looking projects and like-minded clients, so it’s a struggle to maintain a reasonable workload sometimes.

10. What are your plans for Aeolidia in the future-are there any exciting new projects in the works?

Right now, we’re just trying to slow down and stick to what we know during my maternity break, so you’ll have to stay tuned for excitement in the future!