I just came across a blog of a lovely young lady and her beautifully large family. She has 8 children all from the same man that she is still married to. How great is that. Not knocking other people that don't fit this scenerio but it great to see that some traditions still exist in the US.This is the latest design that I have been working on for http://blondechampagne.blogspot.com/ The writer of the blog is a great girl. Her writing is fun and full of witty sarcasm. Check her out.My days have been full lately with hotel cost comparison for my overseas business trip, gym visits, entertaining my daughter and other research attempts on various issues including freelance jobs.With being a freelancer for hire, it can be very difficult to find business that will trust work that comes from a small design company. We are certainly as capable as any employee with any large design house we just avoid the hassels of commuting, daycare, getting to daycare on time! and other hassels of working away from the house. We are just, if not MORE committed to our work since it is MINE, not someone elses, business. It makes every customer that much more valuable and precious to us. Keeping it short tonight. More to do before the weary can sleep.
Ok, I have to be sappy for a little while and I will add in my designer mind when applicable. Today was my daughter's birthday. My one and only precious little person. We had a wonderful day, it beginning with her waking me in the morning and asking "Mommy is it my birthday now" and I replied yes. She wanted homemade pancakes for breakfast, some cartoons and for lunch she chose http://www.chick-fil-a.com/Home.asp sandwiches. The best sweet tea and chicken sandwiches. From there we picked out what style of cake she wanted to celebrate with and she chose cupcakes. One for me and one for her. She wanted the one with the pink frosting and I got the yellow frosted one. When we got home, I put the number 4 candle on hers and sang Happy Birthday to her. We then endulged in our cupcake eating celebration of her being born 4 years ago. It was priceless I tell ya. She has been attempting all day long to prove to me (or maybe herself) that she is a big girl now. No more baby stuff. Too many examples to explain but it was great. She is trying to do alot on her own and be a "know it all" in a good way. Then we went on our nightly walk where I usually put her into the jogging stroller and we take one of the dogs with us. Tonight she decided that she wanted just the two of us to go and that she didn't want to be in the stroller, that she wanted to ride her little 3 wheeler. She did it, the entire 1.6 mile walk that we do. I was totally amazed.After dinner and her bath, she was playing pretend tea time. She has always liked to play like she is serving me some tea or food of some sort. So I asked her if she wanted a tea time for real http://www.tea.co.uk since she likes to imagine using my own tea sets. She was very excited to be having a real tea party with mommies tea set. That is where we are now in our day. As for designing, my thoughts wondered as I was making the tea, about how beautiful the artistry is with a good tea set. My British friend gave me a real tea pot from England the last time that I visited and it is a treasure to me. It is so beautifully hand painted. http://www.rushgideon.com/index.cfmWhile out shopping for the cupcakes I was noticing how unfriendly the packaging for the cupcake is. The girl put them in the plastic store bags to carry out and the minute I picked it up, everything tilted and messed up some of the cupcakes frosting. I had bought a larger package for her birthday party. Small things like that I notice. I am very detailed oriented and notice alot of things that other people don't necessarily. Still at the store, I wanted her to have a balloon so she picked out a beautiful one shaped like a butterfly. http://www.balloons.com/ There were other shapes of a dragonfly, hearts, Care Bears and so on. How do they make the shapes for balloons? I have wondered about that before. Who came up with the idea of giving out gift bags at birthday parties? When I used to go to parties, any gifts that were given were to any kid that won a game that had a prize with it. Oh well, my pet peeve I guess. There were so many precious moments to today. Me and my girl had a great day together and I pray for her to have many more. I encourage anyone's feedback on my blog as well as any insight to my web site at www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com I appreciate you taking the time to read my thoughts and for giving me any advice on the blog or my site. Thank you.
That is what I am hearing on the television as my 4 year old watches some cartoons before bed. It is a little thing that we do to allow her to settle down some before breaking the bad news that it is bedtime. It is amazing enjoying and watching the process of a little baby coming into the world and then nurturing them, them depending totally on us for their every need and then slowly they grow, learn, explore, express and turn into such a neat little person. 
My daughter turns four tomorrow April 20 and I am being a bit emotional. We are having her birthday party with a friend bringing over a pony for rides for an hour. It will be so much fun. I am traditional in that I will make cupcakes, not a cake. Cakes are too messy for 4 and 5 year olds and I have those ice cream cups like you get in school. No muss, no fuss, I hope.Anyway, about business. I haven't progressed very far with the gift tags. I have alot on my plate and that is just another little thing that I offer. www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com If you are thinking of using my services, I am a graphic designer specializing in personalized greeting cards but I still have the knowledge for anything pertaining to design so give it a try.My next step with the business is to beef up my exposure. One way I am going to try is to use www.prweb.com I read an article at workZ.com that talked about things to do that will bring more visitors to the site. Really and truly I don't expect the site to be a main portal for clients (because it certainly has not been) but I want it there as a "store" for shoppers. Window shoppers certainly welcome to check out our products. Most of my work is word of mouth and cold calls around where I live.I am seeking anyones input that wants to give it. If you are visiting the blog here, go to my site real quick at www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com and please feel free to let me know the feeling you get when visiting. 
Warm fuzzies, cold pricklies, the willy nillies, anything at all, just be honest. I will take whatever advice, feedback, criticism that you have to give. Thanks.One note of interest, that Pickler girl should've been voted off of American Idol tonight. Vote!!! My favorite is Taylor Hicks, I like his style and real passion for music. The other ones I like are Paris and the other guy Elliot. Anway check it out at http://www.virtualvermont.com/americanidol.html They had some honest write ups of the singers and there chances of winning and such. Well take care and thanks for visiting. Time for my midnight bowl of cereal.
I had this really nice blog and lost it. I was really getting into it and clicked something wrong and lost it. Now it is too late for me to recreate it. The short version is that I am doing some work for http://blondechampagne.blogspot.com/ Every year I do some volunteer work for those requesting it. This is something that I do every year to give back in my way. If God gave me the talents that I have, then it is only fair for me to share them. My goal in just about everything that I do, is to provide some happiness somewhere somehow and that is where my idea for the personalized greeting cards came up www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com
It is something that I am very passionate about. Many trips to the card stand always left me unsatisfied in my findings. I want to be there for people who think, darn I wish there was a way to have a card say exactly what I feel and look how I want it to. That has been my thoughts about cards and that is why I incorporated this as a part of my services as a designer. Boy the first blog that I lost sounded so much better but I hope that you enjoy this anyway.Take care and let me know what you think of my blog site so far.
I don't get the chance to watch much television at night but tonight I caught "The Apprentice" http://www.nbc.com/The_Apprentice_5/ . I like the show because it gives some insight to the more successful business owners and seeing them handle different scenerios with business. The trials and obstacles that they encounter are very challenging at times. The one I saw tonight, I have to say wasn't very original though. One was where they came up with ideas for the Boys and Girls Clubhttp://www.bgca.org/ theme. One deal a multipurpose room whereas the other team focused on just one concept of music. The second show had the teams doing product placement and promotional sales of a "pizza/sandwich" at the 7-Eleven http://www.7-eleven.com/ stores. Both shows were no-brainers. Sometimes there are some pretty tough stuff. It usually deals with having to stay within a budget. I also like the ones where they win or lose with a commercial.
Right now with the personalized greeting cards, I am at a crossing. I am wanting to stay with a mostly digital approach. To design the card and print it. Another part of me wants to experience with a scrapbooking approach http://www.creativememories.com/ to cards but I don't want to limit the product. There is just sooooooooo much of the scrapbooking style of things out there, and that is why I had the idea for a more of a digital scrapbook scheme. Where things can have that layered look yet not taking the chance of having embellishments fall off or not line up just right. 
The digital scrapbooking itself is a concept that allows for clean editing and image placement. I do the work and the client gets the product. Pure and simple.
Life does slow down alot when you and your family are ill. This virus has really knocked us all down for over a week now. I hear that many other people that I know around the country are suffering also.
On to business.
I have talked about color and paper with design. How about getting customers? Naw, that would sound like a sales pitch. But hey, I will take any of you that want to be one.
Let's talk about typography. This is a style of design that is very interesting to me.
http://abc.planet-typography.com/ Typography speaks alot about a design. The fancier cursive, Edwardian and such fonts, exhibit a more elegant, formal design. http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments
Whereas the Teen or a Comic Sans, is more relaxed and fun. The story goes on forever about designing with typography. There are some fonts that could ruin a design. You have the Home Sweet Home that you certainly wouldn't want to use on a business publication unless of course it had to do with cross sticking or crafts. You all I am sure, get the point. What it is, is that, we as designers, must take into consideration many elements of a design. From how it is going to be used, who is going to see it, the dimensions, colors and so on.
This is a better discussion than mine. I stay pretty layman about things but this is a good indepth example of typography. http://www.wpdfd.com/wpdtypo.htm Being ill this week has hampered my creative bug so all is slow.
I have a chance a few times a week to visit other blogs that I have discovered and some are way too far out there for me. Some even make me embarrassed but then there are some that touch me or have a valuable message. Here is one inparticular for you to visit. http://rwlrealities.blogspot.com/ Enjoy.
As a small business, with many of my projects, I will do the printing. I like having control over the outcome of the product. Kinko's http://www.fedex.com/us/officeprint/main/ and such is a good backup but I just learned that they are outsourcing most of their design work to an Indian company. I have no problem with India but I thought that Paul Orfalea took pride in his American born company. I was going to apply for the $10 (what a joke) and hour position to have more experience, but they hired out with the other India design company. It is all fine with me but it puts a bad taste with wanting to do much business with Kinko's anymore. On with the paper chat. Many people may not understand that there are sooooooo many paper choices. It can drive a person mad. I am partial to the regular ole HP photo stock. I will usually use the glossy for personal images since this allows for a much cleaner print of the photo and the matte for images that I design for not so personalized cards. For brochures, there is a great brochure paper also available; the same goes for newsletters. I like the 9mil, 52 lb bond for the gloss and matte pre-scored greeting cards. Through much trial and error over the years, I get the quality that I desire with these products used as my main supply. It is also smart for me to use these since I can just buy at the store and not have to wait for shipments and such. I will use Office Max normally for my supplies of the paper and other office products since they have a really attractive incentive with their Max Perks cards http://www.officemaxperks.com/.Boring as this all may sound, it is just one of so many challenges that are faced on any given day to a home based graphic design business. Thanks again for reading my posts.www.chumneyvisualdesigns.com
