:: demystifying daycare, a plea ::

i had some helpers with me this week since the babysitter was sick (only emily is pictured here, but evan helped too) and it made me remember that i have a question that i'd like to ask everyone. everyone anywhere. i would like about 1000 comments on this post because i'm interested in ALL of the options. 

in the box, out of the box, near the box. this is an invitation for brainstorming.

my kids are in an awesome in-home daycare. but for a list of reasons that is important but not really right for delving into here on the blog, things are going to have to change with the daycare situation and because this change will more or less coincide with evan heading off to kindergarten in the fall,  I NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT.

how do you make half-day kindergarten + a younger sibling not yet old enough for pre-school (emily misses the cut-off by days and won't be able to go to preschool until she's a teenager, or so it seems) + a growing self-owned business that requires regular if not 100% full-time daycare?

i mean, on the one hand a nanny seems like the way to go, so evan can come home after school and i can be at work and emily can be taken care of all the while.

but we've tried the nanny situation before and maybe it's just us or something but nannies get sick a lot and then i get mad because inevitably they get sick when brian has court or some such trivial thing and so i have to be the one to ditch work and figure out how to still get the stuff done and have fun with the kids and not resent anyone or anything.

plus i like the idea of them being around other kids because again, maybe it's just me but i find that running a business and being home part time with the kids is not the recipe for tons of playdates. i think we probably end up with like fifteen playdates a year.

but i'm not even sure i have a grasp on what our other options are. here's my list. please add to it in the comments and feel free to (please do!) share your thoughts on making it all work.

OPTIONS:

1. a school-like daycare where the kids are separated into classrooms by age or whatever. this would separate emily and evan.
2. another in-home daycare, but i think this would need to be near home because of the aforementioned kindergarten thing, right? in other words, it would be best located in our school district or else i'd be leaving work in the middle of the day to chauffeur evan, right?
3. a nanny.
4. a shared nanny, like shared with another family or something, so that there could be more kids hanging out and being friends? maybe this is something i invented in my own wishful head.
5. latchkey for evan and something separate for emily. to the very best of my recollection i literally did not know kids with two working parents as an elementary school child, and so to me latchkey was this foreign place in the gym and the cafeteria where the weird kids went (i'm just being honest about my 8 year old prejudices here, folks) and maybe there they did weird things or maybe weird things were done to them? but maybe it's different now? or maybe it was always different? discuss.
6. something different altogether?

daycare mystifies me, my friends. clearly i need your help.

:: the things i wish i could outsource ::

there was a time, right after evan was born and lasting, i dunno, a year or more, that i wrote here every day. it went like this: get up, feed the baby, eventually eat something and get dressed and brush my teeth, do the day, whatever the day was to be that day, do dinner for the baby, eat with brian, kid bed, BLOG. and then after blog, or sometimes before, or during, FLICKR.

it was just part of the day.

now i feel like my days are so overrun with everything else the blog is reserved for whenever-i-can-find-the-damned-time. (and flickr? i'm not sure i've used it once since i uploaded the pictures from NSS last may).

and no, whenever-i-can-find-the-damned-time does not include now.

but i've been working so hard on bringing you (and the world!) aper + pink that i forgot to tell you along the way what it's like bringing a new business into the world when it's, like, a planned-in-advance business.

up up creative happened and grew and became. it was an unplanned but very much wanted pregnancy and it has grown to be a very pleasant child.

aper + pink was 100% planned, and while the execution (gestation?) has been purposefully condensed into a short, short period of time, it has at times felt like this overwhelming beast. not the business idea, but everything that goes into making a business idea happen at a certain time and on purpose.

there has been ordering, or i suppose i would be telling a truer truth if i were to say there has been 90% order planning (and unplanning, and replanning, and second-guessing, and third-guessing, and then back to the second guess, no maybe the first) and 10% actual ordering.

there has been physical organization and orientation.

there has been a lot of really awesome pre-launch marketing -- getting out there and talking to the people who i want to be my customers -- which has also served as pre-launch survey-taking and focus group polling.

but holy hell there's so much thinking that goes into this, and i don't mean the angsty "what on earth am i doing with my business" kind of thinking that i've gone through at regular intervals with up up creative. this thinking is more like, "okay. i have a plan. in my mind it is as clear as day. how do i get it across to other people in a way that makes it as crystal clear and fantastic?"

i'm a decent communicator. a decent teacher. i can usually take a large pile of information and carefully, skillfully, condense it into its finest, most digestible self. but taking the fine, digestible idea and building all the necessary scaffolding to hold it up to the sun? 

i've tried three separate times now, or i guess four, to outsource the design and development of the website for aper + pink. i've also developed three almost-complete e-commerce websites. and each time i've changed course, or made the plea to others for help with the coding work, or the design, i've not seen that the real issue is this: i'm having trouble wrapping my head around all the content, and instead of sitting down with that i've been trying to throw Function and Pretty at it. 

oh that i could pay someone to climb inside my head and grab all the bits and bobbles related to aper + pink and then put them through some kind of strainer and turn them into the actual stuff of the business. 

which is to say: i'm going to have to take the next few days to climb inside my head and gather bits and bobbles and spend the time it will take to actually mold them into the business. i was really hoping i could avoid that part by hiring out the website work.

i guess i may do it all myself after all, since the very hardest part is on me.

damn damn damn.

:: on limits and e-commerce ::

i've spent a good portion of all available free time over the last three weeks -- which admittedly, with the holidays and moving into the new studio and all, hasn't been much free time -- working on the e-commerce site for the new print shop.

any of you who has spent any time setting up, comparing, designing, or implementing an e-commerce site feels my pain, i'm sure.

and all that pain has been tripled as i've simultaneously developed three different carts at the same time, pitting each against the others in a battle of design accessibility, pure e-commerce power, technical support, customer service, and ease of use.

i've run the up up creative e-comm site on, i realized recently, four different e-commerce platforms over the span of not-quite-two-years and i've extensively tested an additional three platforms.

each has its strengths and weaknesses. each drew me in for one reason and drove me away for another.

just a few days ago i got a very kind email from someone who had been visiting my up up creative e-comm website for inspiration as she looks to build her own stationery biz site in the coming months. she cited mine as being very user friendly, i think. i get weekly emails asking who designed it. so i like to think that it's a decent site.

but i'm here to tell you: i often consider nixing the e-commerce functionality on that site.

i'm sitting here on a sunday night wondering why i'm spending so much time developing an e-commerce presence for aper and pink (the new print shop, for any uninitiated folks out there in readerland).

there are a few reasons why, but chief among them are these:

1 - the custom design and print-shop work i do is complicated. people have questions. they have special requests, want special sizes, want to combine and uncombine and recombine things. they think their project is different, somehow, than what they're seeing on the page in front of them, and often they're right: it is different. having a functional e-commerce site tends, in my experience, to make people see limitations as brick walls. if only five sizes are listed for sale on an e-commerce website, it's easy to assume that those are the only five sizes available.

2 - i do not see myself in the goods business as much as i see myself in the service business. sure, my customers and clients walk away with tangible (and sometimes intangible) goods, but the value that they get from coming to me rather than going to someone else is that i provide a service. i make their lives easier, or i accomplish something they didn't think could be accomplished. i think e-commerce sites work very well for goods-based businesses but do not apply quite so neatly to businesses like mine when part of the lure is that you can get something made just for you.

3 - i am equally ignited in my work by two things: the things i create and the people i create them for. i like working with and speaking to those people at least somewhat directly (if digitally over email, much of the time). e-commerce sites, when they work properly, they make it so that the buyer and the seller needn't interact. this is the thing that's perhaps got me the most hung up. i don't like not interacting.

4 - i do pretty alright, sales-wise. my business continues to grow. but here's a little secret: the percentage of my income that comes from sales through upupcreative.com is, well, insignificant would be too harsh a word, but it's close. most of my sales come from emails, phone calls, or convos on etsy. they come from someone asking me a question and me answering it. and i kind of think that's the way it should be.

of course i insist on doing much of my shopping online. i don't like pushy sales people. i don't even like pushy sales emails. i am turned off by sales, discounts, and promotions. i know what i like, what i want, and what i need and i don't need anybody trying to convince me of anything. but if i'm looking to buy something complicated, or special, or whatever, i prefer for there to be a person on the other end of things.

and on the other hand…

nothing makes me crazier than a lame website. i like knowing enough to be able to create kick-ass websites for my businesses that do what they need to do and do it well. i've (gasp!) enjoyed working through the development of these three side-by-side comparison demos of the new aperandpink.com shop because it's rewarding making the technology bend to my will and do it prettily.

i just wonder if it's worth my time when it may actually work at cross purposes to my businesses' objectives. sure, e-commerce sites may save me time processing orders and sending and chasing after invoices, but they do not help me build, for example, a safe haven for graphic designers who want high-quality, kick-ass print services they can't get elsewhere. they don't help me convince my wedding and print customers that the sky's the limit. instead, they suggest quite the opposite: that there's a very specific set of parameters defining what's possible.

i realize it's crazy, but i'm considering heading off in a new direction with my websites. i'm considering turning away from e-commerce and towards gallery- and info-based sites. it's very 2004, i know. give potential customers as much as i can in terms of inspiration and information (pricing, ideas, etc.) but then let them come to me when it comes time to order, which is what many of them do now anyway.

what do you think?

:: julie's first day out ::

four strange and unusual things i did this morning:

1. i showered. i showered even though i showered yesterday. i did this because crap! i am going to see actual people today! every-other-day showering is for people who work at home, damnit!
2. i packed a lunch. kinda. i'm way out of practice on this and really more like threw some food into some containers and put it all in a wegman's bag and who knows if there's enough food or too much or what.
3. i stopped at starbucks because i've got a gift card and i stood in line and i did this weird internal dance to the tune of "i'm a commuter commuting to my studio that is not in my house and i'm standing in line at starbucks with other people who are commuting to places of employment that are not in their houses."
4. i packed my laptop into an ill-fitting laptop bag because, oh, did i mention, i'm not going to be at my house today, and being not-at-my-house will not work so effectively without my laptop.

and also, two things i would normally be doing today that i kind of forgot i won't be able to do today from not-at-my-house and hmm, this is going to take some getting used to:

1. laundry. i have at least three full loads to do and usually i'd sort of throw one in here and there throughout my at-home workday. need a new plan. your advice is welcome.
2. make pizza dough. also not going to be possible from the studio. which means that dinner tonight? i'm going to have to figure something out. more advice welcome.

this is going to be weird. good-weird, but weird.

:: kick-ass short-run fine-art printing heading your way ::

richard branson, i learned today, started his airline because when he was in the music biz he hated flying on other people's airlines and he thought to himself, "i can do it better." and then he did it.

yes, i'm comparing myself to richard branson, because we're totally analogous. in this one case.

so, here's the basic deal...

as you probably very well know by now if you're a reader of thishereblog, i've been running a design studio / print shop / online retail establishment for more than three years now, and every six months or so I go through the old "should I or shouldn't I outsource" debate. 

to date, other than my wrapping paper which i had offset printed here in rochester, i've kept all printing in-house, but not for lack of trying (at times) to outsource.

at one point quite recently, after the 33 weddings that came of the september experiment, i decided something needed to give. so i went out into the "street" and asked every short-run-type graphic designer i could think of (and read every related post on every related forum) and i came up with a list of seven or eight printers to try.

cut to mad spree of account setting up and sample ordering.

then cut to me getting the samples and being un.happy.

then cut to me being frustrated and wondering why there isn't someone out there who will print my orders on MY printers with MY inks and cut them on manual cutters in small batches, paying close attention to things like making sure things are centered and even and that, you know, crop marks aren't showing (one of the top-recommended print shops actually sent me my order with crop marks visible on almost 20% of the order they were cut that irregularly) and generally doing things the way i insist on doing them. (as i've said before, like it or not, i care deeply about quality and paper and the art of printing.)

cut to me waking up on a sunday morning with an epiphany: i am in a perfect position to be the printer i am always looking for. i've made the contacts, i've got bulk accounts with major paper distributors who ship to me straight from the mill at a crazy discount if i order thousands of dollars' worth at a time and can do it on their production schedule. i've got equipment and lots of practice being a perfectionist about printing.

and so. so so so.

i will be opening a short-run print shop. actually, it will be a

fine-art

short-run

indie-powered

designer-loving

eco-friendly

in-house

kick-ass

anything-but-basic

print shop equipped with everything you need to wow your clients and amaze your friends.

i'll be featuring vibrant, water-resistant pigment inks and all the best cotton, recycled, and bamboo paper you can imagine. oh, and want something a bit more exotic? how about sugar cane? kenaf? or perhaps some self-adhesive kraft paper? done.

the thing is, for most people, printing is the un-fun part. it's the tedious, error-ridden part. it's the part that brings swear words to their lips and tears to their eyes. it incites arguments between otherwise happily engaged couples just trying to keep invitations personal, practical, and affordable.

but I love it. i love learning the tricks and figuring out how to avoid the troubles. i like discovering new methods and new substrates.

i mean, i read blogs about printing. i really do.

the official launch will be in february 2012 at aperandpink.com but in the meantime, i'm always still print-print-printing along. i'm bringing on new customers now and hope to continue doing so as february approaches.

and now you finally know what i've been scheming. yay!

:: on the importance of disappointment ::

i realize this may be a little bit too much info for some of my readers, but i promise i won't dwell on it long.

emily was conceived on our first try. we had kind of talked about another baby a little bit here and there and then one saturday afternoon, on a hike with evan, we decided that it would be OK to start trying to have another baby, figuring that it might take a little while and that by the time the baby would be born, evan would be 3 or so.

cut to me, two weeks later, peeing on a stick and running sneakily out to the kitchen to brian to show him and ask, "could this even be possible?" and possible it apparently was.

hormonal teenagers take note: it can happen on the first try.

we were excited, of course of course,  but i also remember thinking that there's a very good thing about having to try for a few months before a baby is conceived: the disappointment of not being pregnant a few times solidifies in your minds that you really really want to have a baby. when the baby just appears in your belly without any prior disappointments, it can be jarring. even confusing.

which is why on monday of this week, i started looking for studio space despite all of the unsureness i was feeling on sunday. i decided that the only way to know for sure how i felt about it was to look and to either fall in love with the idea or not fall in love with it. i decided that i would look and force myself to suffer the possible euphoria and disappointment that would come and that would help me know whether to go for it or not.

the first space i fell in love with was smaller than my attic. the price was ohsoright, but smaller? that's a no go. and there it was: real, true disappointment.

the second space i considered was far too expensive and while it was close to the kids' babysitter's house, it was surrounded by accounting firms and medical offices. and yet: even more disappointment.

by the end of the week it was abundantly clear: whatever i feel about going full-time (still not ready) and hiring an employee (ditto), i am completely ready to take the next step and move this gig out of the attic -- where i bump my head on the ceiling each time i stand at my paper cutter -- and out into the world.

the place i settled on is ridiculously perfect even in its imperfection. it's a room of its own, with ceilings that i couldn't even hit my head on if i drank fizzy lifting drink, settled snugly into a corner of the space shared by booksmart studio, pistachio press, and a small cadre of other artists. i feel like it should be called "both-and studio" because it's both separate and connected, both private and shared, both mine and not mine, both still-just-me and not-still-just-me.

i move in january.

:: the first business trimester ::

it's four now, and i'm just sitting down to work, which on a sunday is pretty much unheard of. usually i toil my sundays away since i have no childcare on monday and only part of a day on tuesday. sundays are important days, work wise.

instead of working i spent 20 minutes on the elliptical and 5 hours sweeping and mopping my house from top to bottom. (note to self: if you are going to spend five hours sweeping and mopping, 20 minutes on the elliptical is kinda irrelevant.)

my work break has much less to do with needing to clean -- let's face it, i clean so seldom that there's basically always a need to do it -- and much more to do with needing to do some business thinking.

it's the same reason i've been absent here on the blog these last 19 days.

i'm thinking. planning. assessing. polling. synthesizing. crunching. fantasizing. gut-checking.

business is slow this month -- because i made it that way. i've taken off random saturdays to sit and stare at my husband, or my in-laws, spent sundays sliding furniture around in order to uncover bunny-sized dust bunnies. i've gone evenings (not many, mind you, maybe even just one) completely computer-free. i've taken long lunch breaks and walks around the block.

sales are way down, of course, but thanks to work i did all year for minted and snapfish, i'm reaping the rewards of the holiday season without much effort at all on my part.

i have my reasons for creating this slow, slow november.

i am at a point in the growth of my business and my family life where i need to figure out what the next few years are going to look like.

brian would like to have a bit more of me on the weekends and has suggested a few times that it might be time to think about a more full-time daycare situation for the kids. and i've also had a business epiphany that pushes the issue further. 

i have a really excellent business plan and i've crunched the numbers and done some market research and floated the idea by friends and colleagues and it's excitingly possible. doable. but to do it right, and it's the kind of thing that really has to be done right, it will require three things:

1. a significant investment - of somewhere around $10-16K - that it will take between 9 and 12 months to recuperate, which I realize isn't bad at all from a business investment standpoint.
2. a dedicated space (i.e. commercial or industrial studio space), which adds to the investment tally and extends the time until break-even.
3. an employee. which, yeah, adds to the investment tally and, right again, extends the time until break-even quite a bit more. this part of the equation also adds the potential for a lot more stress.

i'm not totally good with stress. my tissues seem to be stress sponges, sucking up all the cortisol and adrenaline and other yuckiness and turning them into raw, pulsating panic that strikes when least expected, sometimes even waking me from a dead sleep. 

i am surprisingly okay with issue number one, the investment, but the second two are too big for me to take lightly. they're major. crazy major. to make those two things (a studio, an employee) work with my life, i'd definitely have to up the week-day daycare and in order to compensate, work less on the weekends. i'd be signing myself up for a full-time day job working for myself and being someone's boss.

let me tell you, it doesn't feel great knowing that i have this viable business idea that has the potential to really be wildly successful and that all i need to do to make it happen is commit to it fullheartedly and step up and take the reins and yet i'm sitting here writing a long thinky blog post about it.

it also doesn't feel great knowing that my hesitation is a very female hesitation. something tells me that a man in my position would already have been down to the SBA talking about loans, would have scoped out studio space, would have talked to the woman at daycare about extending the kids' hours, and would be spreading the word about the impending new hire. that i'm not doing those things makes me feel a bit wimpy.

brian is already telling people - you know, family members and such - about my new business plan, which makes me cringe a little bit. or not cringe. wince. like it hurts to talk about it. and hurt i guess it does, because i know he's right that i could easily be racing forward into the wild blue future. 

but there are things i just can't ignore. i can't ignore the fact that i'm a total introvert who isn't exactly jumping up and down at the thought of working day-in and day-out with the same human being, having to communicate each day with that person. having to advise, guide, teach, correct, and listen to carefully enough to make the business - and the working relationship - work.

and i can't ignore the fact that emily is only two and i still want a little bit more time with her. she's at that age where we are starting to be buddies, and i really do not like the idea that i got to share the early buddy years with evan but might choose not to spend them with emily. it's a decidedly motherly thing to worry about, that i won't know my daughter as well as i will know my son, but it's there and its un-ignorable.

so here i sit, feeling so much like a mother in her first trimester who is nervous and excited and bewildered, who doesn't want to tell anyone about the baby yet - just in case. here i sit with a kick-ass plan for a really kick-ass business, one that would be both a new direction for me and a really logical extension of everything i've been doing since november 2, 2008 when all of this started.

if i don't move forward with the plan, i know i'll mourn the loss. i don't know that i can go as far as to compare it to a miscarriage or an abortion, since i've never experienced those, but there will definitely be pain and mourning and the sense that something amazing didn't happen. but while that sounds to some like a reason in and of itself to move forward -- take the plunge in order to avoid the mourning, the pain, the loss, the regret -- to me it's not so clear. avoiding that sense of loss isn't enough to make me ignore the fact that i'm not sure i want the life that bringing this new business to fruition would bestow upon me. the life for me, and for my family.

it's all so damned complicated.

there are some things that i am pretty sure of. 

1. i like working. i wouldn't trade in my job for staying home full time in a million years. i LOVE my kids and i LOVE that we have mondays all to ourselves to just do kid-and-mom-type things. out and about in the old things and here at home things. but i do actually hope to even out my life a bit more over the next few years so that i can do more of my work during "normal" work hours and less at night and on weekends.
2. i like that my job is flexible.
3. if anything, over the years i've wished it would be even a little bit easier for me to take breaks, deal with illnesses, etc.

beyond those things, i think i need to do some more house-cleaning, by which i mean soul-searching. i hope you'll indulge my silence about the specifics of the business while i do so.

and um, yeah, please do stop by my shop, as well as minted and/or snapfish, if you're so inclined this month. you'll be contributing directly to my ability to take the time to figure shit out.

please and thank you good night.

:: today ::

printing.
planning.
psyched.

:: oh yeah, thanks ::

i just wanted to pop by again quickly today to say thanks to everyone who has been reading the blog lately, and everyone who has been emailing with me about things i've been writing about, and just generally all the folks who have spoken with me in real life or otherwise about the direction my business is taking.

this morning a plan presented itself to me pretty much fully formed and i'm so psyched about how the details are so crystal clear to me. nothing has ever felt this easy before. so easy and new and different while being the most logical extension of everything i've been doing for the last three years.

more soon. for now: thanks.

:: more going ::

the goal: for all of my in-stock greeting cards to be out of stock. yup, friends, if you didn't know it already, i'm not going to be selling the greeting cards come january first.

the plan: keep reducing the prices until they're all gone. in october all cards were on sale at 25% off and several styles sold out in prompt fashion. on november first, the discount went up to 50% (meaning each card is only $2!!) and it will remain there until november 30th (or whenever everything's gone). if anything is still left then on december 1st they will go down to 75% off.

so without further ado, here are eight more styles that you may not know about, but should. happy shopping, friends.

love & subliminal messages

getting older, in pink

happy this, that, and the other thing (holiday card)

damn you (birthday card), in orange

crazy love iii (peanut butter)

oy-o card (hello, just because)

best/worst dichotomy card

upright thanks

now enjoy!

:: on the question of what my ART is ::

even though i suggested yesterday that there are two halves to the nss story, there are more. more factors that go into deciding how i want to move up up creative forward in 2012 and beyond.

one of the factors is a strange one, and it's one that i'm going to have to deal with before i deal with any of the others.

i said all that stuff i said yesterday about my ideal customers, but there's a way in which perhaps those folks i so badly want to be my customers aren't completely ideal after all. there are things i care quite deeply about that the customers i profiled yesterday don't care as much about. or don't care about at all. or don't value or prioritize financially even if they do possibly care.

and part of the weirdness in the equation is that these are not things i used to care about. they are not things i cared about even a few years ago. and they're things that i even feel a little bit hypocritical caring about.

i really really care about the quality of the final product. i know i "only" print on a pro photo printer, something that, yes, any schmoe with enough money, a USB cable, and the ability to hit cmd-P can do. but i've spent years learning all about the inks and papers that combine to create the very best, most vibrant output. i've cultivated business relationships and have so grown my print volume that i can now order my paper at significant discounts. and i've learned tricks. 

at nss last may i was situated near a company that prints on the same paper i print on, using a comparable (and in fact more expensive and slightly more advanced model) printer and i noticed that their output, while vibrant and dense, was pixelated - and even quite rough in places - around the edges of elements. and immediately i knew exactly why, and it's such an easy thing to correct, but it took me three years to figure out.

after my september experiment, when i was staring down the barrel of a significant number of orders and two printers to print them on, i realized i would never be able to keep up that volume, even though my goal for future volume is actually significantly higher than what came in throughout september. 

and so despite all i've said about in-sourcing and wanting to control the output and the quality and wanting to have my hands on things, i started looking into outsourcing at least some of my printing.

i did crazy amounts of research and found the top five or so recommendations for the kind of work i'm looking to have done and i started requesting samples. i got paper sample books, printed sample books, and i also ordered small opening orders with three shops that had the best paper options for me using my own designs, just so i could compare them with my own output here in the studio.

the first order to arrive came in wrong. the back was printed in the wrong orientation and so arrived misaligned, turned 90 degrees, and cut off on one side. also, the color intensity was weak and there was that pesky rough-edge pixel problem. i requested that the problem be corrected and a week later i got the corrected order. a week! for ten prints that were supposedly expedited. the back was correct this time, but the print quality was the same.

the next order to arrive was actually so ugly i actually gasped when i saw it. it arrived extremely promptly, i'll give them that, but ohmygod i was shocked at what i received. the paper, supposedly a premium matte-finish paper, was shiny. not glossy, mind you. not luster. just kind of shiny. like sort of matte-shiny. it's hard to explain but it's awful. and the trimming isn't square or consistent, and on 5 of the 25 prints, part of the crop marks appear on the top corner. for real. and the whole stack is significantly curled. and oh. the pixelly problem again.

if only i could get my hands on those printers myself, i'm positive i could produce significantly better output. and the trimming? come on.

and the thing is, this quality is acceptable to a lot of people. i got lots of recommendations from graphic designers and photographers i know and trust. these places are the best in the biz.

i did find one place that prints with the same ink and papers i use here in-house: giclee printing on heavy duty fine-art 100% cotton paper. the cost there is $9 for a 5x7 print if you order a minimum of 75, which in order for me to make profitable would have to marked up to about $21 per invitation, envelopes excluded. which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. perhaps i'm underpricing on these because my market won't support the price i probably should be charging, but certainly they're charging a premium for a level of output that just isn't expected by most.

including my supposedly ideal customers, who i've asked about their printing expectations. what they've told me is that while they are in awe at the quality of my prints, it's just not something they're willing to pay for. it's not a priority for them. they have, in fact, often asked for printable versions that they can have printed at places i'd be appalled to use because the quality is so shoddy. 

and the thing is? until i started doing all of this and learning everything i can about printing in-house, it wasn't a priority for me, either. 

and yeah. i know, i'm not my own ideal customer. i came to this realization awhile ago and i'm pretty good about remembering it. but at the same time, there's something that still nags at me - something that makes me question whether anyone who doesn't have their hands on the goods each day, who isn't a printer themselves, prioritizes the kind of quality i've come to think of as a benchmark.

or, more to the point, are the people who prioritize paper and quality output and the time and expertise it takes to make paper magic happen, are they really at all interested in digital printing? are the people who have the money to spend on this kind of quality, who care deeply about it like i do, are they all really much more interested in letterpress and even screenprinted work?

and further: do i want to make it my job to educate people about the high quality stuff they can get without a letterpress printer? do i want to devote time and energy to creating my own market?

and finally: do i see myself as an artist? a printmaker? or a graphic designer? is the art i create the design (and the design only) or is it the final product?

if it's the final product, which is the model i've been operating under for awhile now without really acknowledging it, then how do i begin to create a desire for the kind of art i'm putting out there? how do i create my own market?

there are, of course, so many other things to consider, like what i can realistically accomplish within the confines of my own set of circumstances. like, from my attic studio, all 150 square feet of it, and my 17 hours a week of daycare plus all my nights and weekends. i need to be making the kind of salary that i could make if i worked a full-time job. that's what my family needs. if that's the case, do i really have the right to focus so much on the quality of the end product when the demand is not (yet, anyway) enough to sustain us? is it responsible of me to set out courting a market i don't yet know how to find or cultivate when there's a market of customers i relate to, know how to reach and inspire, and can find sustainable ways to serve?

or if i'm going to go whole-hog in the direction of artist-slash-printmaker, should i really be setting up shop with a letterpress and trying to really court the customers who are most interested in the kind of work i do? should i start providing both options - the giclee and the letterpress?

but from where? my garage, where an unused 1979 MG takes up space beside nine bikes and a human-powered lawn mower and about sixteen thousand other things? the garage i won't allow my kids in? the one that's unheated, uninsulated, offering no protection for any paper or ink, and in no way shape or form appropriate for the task?

these, my friends, these are the questions that keep me up nights i'm afraid. they're the questions that make decision-making so hard.

:: the other half of the nss story ::

my previous post on nss presented the gut/emotional side of things, because that's kind of what i like to do on this blog. this blog, since it's my personal blog, is the perfect venue for me to talk about - and think through - how intuition, gut reactions, and emotional responses feed into everyday business decisions.

but to be fair - to me and to my business - there is another key factor i'm considering as i ponder nss 2012. a key non-emotional, business-facts kind of factor. 

my ideal customers.

as i've worked through this year with my business, particularly in the months since nss, i've been increasingly aware of the need to get crystal clear on just who i want to be selling to. who i'm focused on attracting, serving, and satisfying.

when you're an artsy-designy type, and when you start out part time and kind of just want to see how and where things go, you don't always spend a lot of time thinking about this part of things. but for me at least, the key to focusing my efforts in a way that will allow me to make this business more sustainable, more profitable, and even more enjoyable is figuring out who i want to work with. who i want to sell to. 

the september experiment was a huge part of this. as i explained in my follow-up post on a practical wedding, i think a big part of the experiment was about nailing down who my ideal customer is and how i can best communicate to her.

there, i wrote this:

"There's sort of a business adage (adage? rule of thumb? bit of advice? moral? truism?) that says you should price for the customer you want. If you want a high-end customer, you need a high-end price. If you want a bargain shopper, you need a bargain price. 

I actually just gave this advice to two separate individuals in the last 48 hours.
At some point early on in this experiment, it occurred to me that at least in part, my goal for this experiment was to do this the other way around: find the customer I wanted and then let that customer set the price. And who was that customer? She was the kind of person who believes in the power of her voice and her dollar; the sort of person who would think carefully before naming a price. She was thoughtful, maybe a little bit rebellious. 

I agonized over my so-called pitch. I worked so hard on the video, on the FAQs. I was selective in which blogs I contacted. I wanted to make this an experiment about ideas more than it was an experiment about how many customers I could bring through the door. I wanted to focus on finding the right name-your-price customers. 

After all, it's just me here. Me and an ex-intern (back to school in September) and a very pregnant sister and a husband neck-deep in prosecuting bad guys. And two young kids in just-part-time daycare. So it's not like I wanted an onslaught. But I did want participation. I told Meg that my biggest fear was that no one would participate."

and the thing is, attending nss really in no way, shape, or form fits into a marketing strategy that speaks to the customer i'm trying to engage. i know it's a big part of becoming a serious and enduring stationery brand, which is why i was so excited to go this year, why i'm glad i went this year, and why i'm still slightly on the fence about attending next year. 

but as i hone my business objectives and focus my efforts, it's pretty clear to me that the six grand i spent on attending this past year could be put to much better use if what i want to do is attract the kinds of customers i want to attract. customers who want to do things their way. young people who seek their inspiration and information online and who haven't stepped foot in a boutique since their moms dragged them there to buy presents for their great aunts. people who want input in the process. people who want to be reassured that their way is the right way, even if its not the traditional way.

so yeah. there's the emotional part. there's the frustration i feel, and the resentment. there's my inclination towards being contrary and stubbornly striking out in my own direction. but there are also solid, logical, intentional reasons that attending nss may not be the best choice for up up creative in 2012, much as attending again would be fun.

i just had to put that out there because i felt like my other post only covered half the story.

:: nss recap, the five months later edition ::

lately i've been making - and talking about making - some small and less-small changes to how this little business of mine works. i'm cutting out the greeting cards, for one thing, because i need more room.

more room in my studio. more room in my schedule. more room in my brain. more room to make other things happen for up up creative.

so this morning, in response to some chit chat about some of the still-to-come changes, brian asked me if we're doing NSS again in may (of 2012). 

i said i let my spot go for now (they wanted my commitment long ago already and i wasn't ready to give it - or my money) and i need to think about it, but that i'd been thinking no.

the thing is, i feel really resentful about attending NSS this year. despite the good feelings i had at the time and all the stuff i said about already thinking about next year's booth and all, when all is said and done i look back at that experience and i'm mad. (for more reactions to the show, see this thread of posts here on the blog.)

right before my crazy name-your-price experiment was first conceived, i sprawled out on my belly on my studio floor (i wouldn't advise this, friends. i'm really not sure when this carpet was installed but i'm positive it was too long ago for anything good to come of sitting on it, let alone lying face-down on it) and i made a little mind map to try to explain to myself why i feel the way i do about NSS.

it's all in cursive and therefore difficult to read in a photo, so i've recreated it for you and made it nice and big. if you click on this small photo (below) you should be able to read the whole big thing (you may have to click on the link and then click on "see original" and THEN once the image opens click it once more to make it full size).

basically i feel conflicted but mostly i feel mad and frustrated. my gut keeps saying NO NO NO even though there are parts of me that feel like it deserves another chance.

brian thinks we should do it. do it differently, but do it. i'm still undecided.

at the end of the day (what a weird saying that is for an event that lasted more or less one week) the event cost me $5775 including hotel and travel (we were lucky that we lived close enough to bring everything ourselves and we also used points to cover about half of our hotel expense, and we totally scrimped and saved as much as we could on things (i.e. fabric walls) but excluding food (no small total in NYC, yo). the week of the show i wrote $1176 in orders, or about 20% of the cost of exhibiting, which is decent for the week of the show for a first timer, or at least i'm told it is.

but i haven't written a single wholesale order since then. 

i've tried, i suppose. i sent follow-ups to over a hundred individuals and shops that expressed interest at the show. i've offered incentives and such. i've been getting good industry press (the editor at stationery trends sends me individual requests for specific images she'd like to include in each issue, for example, and there have been others - a few magazines and such). and oh! i had interest in my calendars from kate's paperie.

but the stars haven't aligned and my heart hasn't been in it. i don't like that i get sales leads emailed to me weekly as a result of my appearances in stationery trends. i don't like adding those names and contact info to my now extensive list of retailers. i don't want to call them or send them anything. i'm a designer, not a sales rep. i like doing certain kinds of marketing directly to the people who will end up with my things in their homes, but i don't like all this sales work trying to convince other people to want to do additional sales work on my behalf. it doesn't feel right. 

so i've got time, still, to decide. i'm sure that in january there will still be spots available for the may 2012 show, just as there were last year when i signed up. but it's hard for me to figure out what could happen to change how i feel about the 2011 experience enough to make me want to give 2012 a go.

:: the more you know... ::

even though it makes me a bit sad if i think about it in a sad way (tautology much?), i've taken some steps these last few days to stop doing greeting cards. i did inventory, i removed all of the cards from my etsy shop (because my own shop tracks inventory, and my etsy shop makes that confusing and all not-worky), and i reduced the price by 25% for now.

which means it's time to stock up because it won't be long before they're all gone. i don't keep a lot of inventory on hand because i don't have a lot of space (my attic studio is small and not conducive to storage, what with it being unheated and uncooled and slanty-ceilinged). 

here are a few you may not know about, but should:

bitter / sweet dichotomy card

cah-gah-gen terrible twos congrats card

if you're happy and you know it

hero

i have a secret

so yeah,

thinking of you

crazy love X - tv shows

have a lovely wednesday, friends. sorry for the very sell-y post. i'll be back later with a link to my guest post on a practical wedding, so there's that!

:: stop doing ::

i mentioned this a couple of months ago: the stop-doing list. it's a list of things you're going to choose to stop doing so that you can do something else. it's a priorities list from the bottom up. and it's hard.

it's hard cutting something out. it's hard admitting that something you love just isn't as important to you as something else you love.

over the summer i made a stop doing list for my business, and even though writing it was hard, i knew it was right. 

but i still haven't actually stopped doing a single one of the things on the list. and i need to. there needs to be room for other things. 

so here's the story, friends. i'm going to stop selling greeting cards soon. that's the first really big, really impossible-feeling item i'm going to tackle. i'd like to turn over that part of my business to someone else if someone out there wants it. i'd like to find someone who wants to grow an indie paper business and i'd like to sell it to them for very little money - the break-even cost of my current inventory plus a small amount for copyrights, current accounts, etc. we're talking in the low thousands here, max.

i'm going to spend october looking for a buyer and if no one expresses interest then in november i'm going to start selling off my inventory at a reduced price in my shop.