Monday’s, I have to say that unlike my former corporate life I truly look forward to them now.  I also love being able to share these Bestowals with you, truth be told, I did have another one scheduled and I still hope to add it here later today.  Michelle and I have been working behind the scenes on a little pet project and I was hoping to have it ready to launch this a.m., but I am so behind.  Let me tell you growing a human takes marathon worthy endurance; to all those that have gone before me you made it look way too easy. Sheesh, if waif Kate Moss could do it, it should be a breeze for me, right?  I get winded standing up, Kate just looks like a waif she obviously is part Hercules. For those of you that carried multiples?!  You should have been awarded the equivalent of a purple heart in the delivery room, I will never look at Octomom the same way. She may be coo coo but what she was able to achieve? Not even going to wrap my weary brain around it.

So back to the bestowal!  I brought back the ‘handmade’ stamp as I have had so many requests for it that it seemed like the right thing to do.  I have been getting requests for hand-lettered sentiments which I have been doing for select clients and thought I should start adding to the shop, they will be limited edition as my lettering evolves I want to update them accordingly. I haven’t added them to the shop yet I need to photograph the samples, but I can tell you that they turned out so good, they stamp beautifully!  I am a serious stickler about my stamps leaving a beautiful impression and it can be very tricky when you are working with such thin lines. I am giving away two of the new stamps of your choice, just answer the following question by Sunday, September 8, 2013:

What is you favorite day of the week and why?

I will announce the winner the following Monday! And the winner of  the Cantoni font giveaway is Suzanna, congrats!

P.S. I also added a new monogram style, I created this one for one of the ladies at Grey Likes Nesting and I loved the way it turned out. I love me some monograms so for this week only use coupon code MONO50 to get 50% off your own custom monogram until September 9th.

P.P.S. There’s still room to join in the lettering fun this Saturday in L.A. and get to meet the very round me, I will be in the a.m. class (the afternoon class has sold out!)

You may have spotted Angi of Angelique Ink’s  hand before and haven’t known who was the master behind it. You may have even pinned it a few dozen times (she has a bounty of beautiful styles), she has been quietly under the radar creating beautiful work for her clients from her Southern, California studio. Angi’s hand has an effortless air to it as does her personality, so kind and so very professional.  I am very excited to have had the opportunity to interview her and I do believe you will love reading her interview as much as I have (I love the sneak peek behind the scenes). Many thanks to Miss Angi for her time + generosity (divulging her secrets). And without further ado..

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I think a few of you may have heard of my friend and wedding font superstar Debi Sementelli, no?  She is of the Bellucia font fame (in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful and elegant calligraphy fonts around) and the equally gorgeous Dom loves Mary, both fonts have a very authentic hand to them and are perfect for projects that require a true calligraphy look. Debi always packs her fonts with extra glyphs and illustrations so you are investing in a true creative suite.

Thanks to you (I am sure), Bellucia and Dom loves Mary both shot to the top 10 rankings on my fave font shop and I am hoping that we can do the same for Debi’s latest font Cantoni!  Where do I start on this one? It’s a lot more casual than the previous fonts, perfectly girly (but not too sweet) and I think it works for a myriad of projects such as –Baby showers, Sweet 16’s, holiday cards (they are just around the corner) and anywhere you could use a cheerful calligraphic hand.  It is seriously packed with glyphs–1265 of them to be exact.  Seriously, Debi has worked overtime on this font offering! I think one of my very favorite touches is the inclusion of Roman numerals, who doesn’t love a great Roman numeral?

Like most good fonts when they launch there is an incentive discount and if you get yours soon you can get it for 30% off!  Oh, wait, you are a friend of mine so you get an additional 10% off!  Just use the code besotted at checkout and Cantoni is yours for a steal! Where is my head?  It’s Monday isn’t it?  I like to try to get a good Bestowal in so why don’t we give some Cantoni away?  Just answer the following question by Sunday, September 1, 2013 to enter to win and remember if you feel like really, really helping a fellow creative out spread the word on Debi’s new font, it would be so awesome if we could knock this one into the top 10 too!  What do we get out of it?  More fonts of course! Debi is on a roll and I know she is going to be bringing lots more goodness to us in the near future.

Who is your favorite female fictional character?  If that question is too hard to answer then let us know–

What is the first project you will be using the Cantoni font for if you win?

Good luck!

P.S. If you buy Cantoni this week and end up winning Debi will give you a full refund! This truly is win-win!

P.P.S. The winner of  Molly’s new book Modern Calligraphy is….Ingrid (such a touching story!).  I do have to say I LOVED reading your favorite words to write and everyone (as always) had such thoughtful answers. Molly even emailed me and said she wished she could give a book to everyone that entered, I wholeheartedly concur!

This post is a public apology, a heeded warning, sage advice and a gripe all rolled up into one.  Now that I am pregnant I have decided to become an extreme multi-tasker, it’s not working out as well as planned.  First, let me publicly and humbly apologize to the uber talented Rylee Hitchner and Pearl & Godiva.  A couple weeks back I got an email from Pearl that she wanted me to do some lettering for a Rylee Hitchner shoot, it was all the stationery for a mock wedding, all I heard was “Rylee Hitchner shoot.”  I adore this girl, her talent is in spades and Pearl’s work is amazing as well.  Let’s step back a couple steps here, a couple weeks ago I had just stopped being fed through a tube and was just sitting up again, yes, I am getting better but no, I am not even close to being back on track. There is something well known in the world of both impending motherhood and motherhood it is called ‘pregnancy brain’ wherein you don’t think as clearly and in my case not at all. Did I mention I was just getting back to sitting upright?  Two weeks would not be enough time if I was 100%, it would be impossible in my current condition, plus the project had to be shipped overseas and to not incur exorbitant fee’s would need to be sent at least a week+ in advanced.  Let me also mention some other fun facts my ‘p’ brain was not considering A) I hadn’t been lettering at all for at least the last 6 months B) I am just learning to string words together with my lettering C) I don’t do wedding work or lettering in my business which makes a spec (gratis) project foolish for me, but all I could think of was ‘Rylee Hitchner’.  I was in essence a bit star struck.  If I was in my right mind I would have politely declined, but since my brain has been replaced with this new fangled non-rational one I said “sure!”  I think you might be seeing what a disaster in the making this is, no?  I missed my overnight deadline as I thought I had an extra day (see pregnancy brain), then we decided the morning of deadline I would send my work digitally and they would print there. Mind you as mentioned I am still not 100% and maybe it was also stress induced but I started getting sick again a couple days ago, the day of the rushed project my fingers had become sausage size (it’s called edema), I could not bend them to hold my pen holder and nib. From sitting down too long my ankles and feet swelled to disproportionate sizing (hamhocks come to mind). With only a few precious hours to work with I went to plan B a gorgeous font by my friends at Magpie Paperworks. I already knew this was a disaster but I still wanted to come through with something. I sent digital comps in the morning (comps are visual renditions of what you are presenting to the client) to make sure I was headed in the right direction, my heart raced, I was sweating, my fingers were numb. Hours ticked by, I begged for feedback on the comps so I could adjust accordingly, I did not hear back I kept working in between being sick. Alas, I threw up the white flag of surrender after hours of working and not getting feedback–I had to give up.  I sent the comps again + all the original files and got a-“Sorry, we are not going to use these”. Not only was I sick and swollen, my ego had been as Pearl likes to use the word, “gutted”.  I crawled into bed, cried my swollen head off (I cry easier these days) and fell asleep for the rest of the day.  Don’t get me wrong, I know this was a mishap of grand proportions, even with my brain not working properly I clearly see my role in this disaster thus my public apology.

Now on to the heeded warnings + sage advice a.k.a how this whole fiasco could have been avoided. Let’s talk spec work (where you work gratis in exchange for potential exposure).  I am all for spec work if it makes sense for your brand and your business.  In my case, where I am at currently I don’t have near future plans to add lettering or wedding work to my offerings (I am not confident enough in my skills) so this was a very foolish (read stupid) move. I took this amazing opportunity away from someone that could have benefited from the experience + exposure and that is my worse regret (again see pregnancy brain and how I am not thinking).

When taking on spec work, you should treat it as if it is a paying client and vice versa on the part of the individual requesting you to do this work for free. I plan to offer a download soon of a checklist on this, but in the interim here are some things I learned in regards to spec lettering projects–Create a timeline for you and your ‘client’, make sure you have a list of all your deliverables and the dates due ie. when will you send initial comps to client? Date when you expect to have feedback from client? How many comps you will be providing on spec before you will ask for a fee (this will eliminate the spec client from taking advantage of you)? Get the exact wording of everything from the client.  I had worked on another spec lettering project a while back that did not come into fruition and the client said I had ‘free reign’ for the wording, so I took the time to come up with the bride and grooms name, dates, etc. When I sent to the spec client they said the names were not ‘X” enough and the shoot was for the summer (where I had put in fall dates).  I had to start over again (lettering, cleaning up artwork, re-formatting files and re-creating comps–hours of work). Most of you that are working on spec jobs it’s because you are trying to build your portfolio and get exposure, which means you probably have a full-time job on top of running a household and being informed that all the work you created which you eeked out precious hours for is now null and void, that’s just not okay. Tell the client you will be happy to work on spec if they provide you all the copy (wording) and of course agree to your timelines.  You will be nervous enough trying to create the most beautiful lettering for the project you should not have to think of what you will be lettering.  You may worry that if you make these demands the client will walk away, this could happen, but more than likely the client will have more respect for you and treat you as a creative equal and realize that you take your craft seriously and are a true professional (unlike someone we know, yes, I am talking about moi). Hindsight is 20/20, looking back I would have not taken this project on, it didn’t make sense for me, but when I did I should have had something in writing so that both myself and my client were accountable.

Expenses?  This is tricky, if you have the budget I would say count this as the money you are spending for your exposure/advertising (the materials and shipping), if you don’t have the extra money (and can’t borrow it or find another way), you can be honest with the client and tell them how badly you want to do this project and that you will do an amazing job but you need assistance with materials or shipping (especially if it is an overnight job overseas). I haven’t worked in nearly six months, have incredibly huge medical bills and my shop has been pretty dead, buying materials and then the potential of over nighting the finished project overseas is an expense I could not afford right now (again, not thinking at all). I hope this little tid bit helps, it’s hard to know what to expect when this is all new to you. When I ran my PR business I would tell my interns and jr. staff ‘all we have are our reputations’, you need to preserve that, think about how you want to be perceived and be authentic to who you are (much easier to be you than someone else).  I like to think of myself as a professional and I take great pride in my work, this little (okay, big) fiasco was not a representation of who I am and my principles–in a word I f’d up, I hope I may have saved you from doing the same.

P.S. This spec advice should also be considered for whatever your medium is–photography, writing, styling, graphic design, etc.

photo by rylee hitchner

I have discussed this subject in detail before and gave my pro’s & con’s on both.  Today, I am going to discuss why I am completely migrating to Etsy versus my own shop (for now). These last 2 months for Besotted Brand have been painfully slow, not working as much as I used to for the last six months because of my condition and  having two dead months doesn’t work for me.  I had to evaluate money going out versus money coming in and carrying two shops–an Etsy shop and a stand alone needed to be addressed.  My stand alone shop had no fees associated with it when a client purchased a product but I did pay a $30 fee each month to run it on the platform that I was using. I also had to pay an outside postage company for all my international shipping which ran $16/month to use their system.  Why would I need an outside postage company?  As of this writing, the U.S. Postal service does not have an option to send international first class mail from home you have to buy Priority mail to send even a single stamp and international priority mail is very expensive! Cutting both the platform and the postage company out I have started saving immediately almost $50/mo. it may seem small but it all adds up and over a year I will have saved $552. I don’t know about you but I could use an extra $500!  I absolutely 100% would not have done the move if I couldn’t have used my own dedicated url.  I did a very easy re-direct, it’s free and I can use my own custom website name on all my packaging and branding.  As much as I adore Etsy I would never put “my shop.etsy” on anything that I used to promote my brand, I think it confuses the potential client, (contrary to popular belief not everyone is familiar with Etsy). This is my word of unsolicited advice, if you have an Etsy shop, run don’t walk to secure your custom URL, what does that even mean?  It means your shop name.com ie. www.besottedbrand.com.  It looks so much more pro and keeps continuity with your brand, especially if you are say selling products that have labels that you want your site name, versus your name + etsy.  You should be securing you URL’s any way you slice it, whether you have an Etsy shop or just a company idea.  This may seem obvious but you should also try to secure your own personal name as a URL, you may want to use it one day and it would be a shame if you couldn’t because someone other than you bought it already.  I am going to segue here for two seconds and tell you to buy your custom URL if you have a blog as well.  Even when I was on the Blogger platform my blog had my custom url www.besottedblog.com versus besottedblog.blogspot,com again for the same reasons, it looks a lot more professional like you are taking this seriously, which are right?

Speaking of familiar, my Etsy shop was out selling my stand alone shop 3:1, it was no contest, I was getting more exposure on Etsy. The thing I love about the Etsy shop is that I could print shipping labels directly from Etsy and my clients would get automatic shipping notifications upon shipment. I felt that for my International clients especially it is nice for them to have a larger entity (Etsy) to go to if there was a problem, I think it gives clients a sense of security that a stand alone shop would not. The biggest con is not being able to customize my shop as much as I like, but by migrating I can give the Etsy shop extra attention and hopefully generate more steady sales and eventually build a new custom shop!

I get asked about opening a shop every.single.day and I am happy to try to be of assistance via these little posts!  I also get asked where I source my packaging + products, do not email a store/business about this, it’s akin to asking a woman her age or weight, it’s not appropriate and can be construed as offensive.

P.S. I have had a 50% coupon ( 5050sale) on all custom stamps for a bit now, it’s only valid until August 30th so take advantage of it and stock up!

P.P.S. The images are some items that have been out of stock forever that are finally back in!!!!