Be Back Soon

In a few days it will be the one year anniversary of Everyday Hello. Looking back on this first year I feel incredibly proud of what I've accomplished so far, and incredibly grateful for all the support I've received from family and friends.

Lately it's been on my heart that I need a short rest from the business. So Everyday Hello will be taking a temporary break from selling products starting March 14th. This time away will be used to regroup, re-imagine, and seek some new inspiration for the direction I want to take this business. 

Before we close our doors for a short break I'd like to give you a last chance to purchase any products that are left! Here is a 50% off coupon for you with no limits or restrictions. Last day to buy is March 13th! So don't wait too long before the product is snatched up or discontinued forever! 

Coupon code: SEEYOUSOON

Use it at the etsy shop! 

Thank you to everyone for their support this past year. I am excited for what the future holds for Everyday Hello and I hope you will continue to be apart of the business's journey! 

Everyday Hello Redesign!

Hey all! So lately I've been in the works of developing a more clear cut brand for Everyday Hello. Part of that involves graphic design- logos, title, website, color scheme, etc. I am happy to announce that some of these changes are live!

Incase you don't remember, Everyday Hello's website used to look something like this:

I used to be pretty happy with this site. I was excited that (for the most part) I built the website myself. I used a template but changed and customized so many things. I had been meaning to get around to serious "branding" of Everyday Hello for awhile now. I did do some earlier but never really got a clear idea of what I wanted it to "look" like until now. Instead of explaining this new look I'll just show you!

To be honest I still don't think these pictures quite do the site justice! So make sure you check it out here: everydayhello.com  Oh and that reminds me, I finally have connected up the domain name to the site. No more yucky long url! Everyday Hello will now be much easier to find! Hooray!

If you visit Everyday Hello's Etsy page or facebook page you will notice that some changes have been made there too, to help keep the brand cohesive. I am so excited for these changes, and I finally feel like the design of the site, the logo, color scheme all emulate the brand of Everyday Hello! Be on the lookout for an updated blog look soon!

Good Morning Sunshine

Good morning everyone! I have so much love and happiness in my heart this morning. I feel so blessed by all the people in my life right now -helping to make me feel so loved and special for my birthday. Holidays are always a sentimental time for me and I love sharing them with my family and friends.

I also wanted to give you an update on the 23rd Birthday Sale that I hosted yesterday at my Etsy Shop. I am pleased to say it went very well. My profit for yesterday hit over $100, which (for my tiny little business) is really great! Thanks to all the friends that supported me in this and made some purchases. Also thanks to everyone lately for your general support of this business.

I feel like Everyday Hello has an exciting future ahead. I am feeling so great about this business and am making some dreams and plans to grow. I can't wait to see where the future takes us, and I hope you all are there for every step of the journey!

In some really good news: I will be releasing my brand new logo for Everyday Hello soon. (Some of you may have seen some updates about it on my instagram!) What an exciting time this is! God Bless!

Perfect Pair Card Sets!

I will very soon be releasing There are now 4 new listings on Etsy!

 Each listing is 2 paired up cards that compliment each other and can be used for almost any occasion! 

As a blog reader, you got a sneak peek earlier! Here are the links! Let me know what you think, and favorite which set you like best! 

Stars and the Moon Card Set

Honeycomb Card Set

Golden Hello Card Set

Love & Hearts Card Set

These sets will be making their debut soon  are available now! Visit Everyday Hello Etsy Shop to check them out!! 

Gold!

Today my mom was working on a craft project for her kids at school. It involved spray painting yogurt containers to become flower pots for little sprouts the kids were growing for Mother's Day. Well the paint ended up not being able to cover up all the wording on the containers so she turned to plan B. Find something to cover up the body of the container. She found some gold contact paper and covered the containers in that. They looked awesome after and the kids are going to finish decorating them at school! My mom had a bunch of gold contact paper left over and of course she gave it to me. (Usually crafty leftover materials end up in my hands). So the first thing I did was start playing with it! 

Obviously I tried misting it first! (See last post) And it kind of worked. I used the same honeycomb stencil as last time and the same mint color- I misted the contact paper and it was all sorts of runny. I dabbed off the wet parts and was left with something like this! (below). I actually kind of like it. It reminds me of old pennies (in a good way). Then I decided I should try cutting out words! They turned out alright but I did get a few creases. Small cut out pieces of contact paper are apparently really hard to get to stick down clean. Here is what I cam up with! 

Frustrated by the creased words above I set out to make a card that the words were smooth on. In order to accomplish this I chose a super short word- and simple lettering. And I really like how this one turned out- especially with a little pink mist in the corner! 

 These two cards were mostly experimental/ for fun. I'm not even sure what to do with them! I guess I'll keep them on file until I need a card for one of these reasons! Since I was quickly falling in love with the shiny gold contact paper look I knew I needed to put it on a card- a real card that I would sell. I scrolled through the current custom orders in my head and then it hit me.... The nautical/sailing wedding. Weddings scream gold- and I love blues and golds together. So I set out to create a cute gold anchor wedding card. I sketched an anchor on the back of the contact paper and then cut it out. Once I saw how shiny and beautiful the anchor looked the rest of the card just sort of made itself. I felt like I knew exactly what to do- I made a cute blue rope out of embroidery thread- mounted it on white and blue paper- added in a woodgrain paper to hint at a wooden boat- topped it off with a cute sun charm that I magically found- and ta-da this card was made!

I also got the opportunity to use my gold sharpie I just purchased, by adding a cute phrase on the inside! 

I am really hoping my customer is happy with this card! I am digging the gold- and I can't wait to use it on more cards! 

Misting! An addicting new craft technique!

Hey all! So I'm writing today to share in my love of such a fun, amazing new crafting technique. (Well relatively new). I first fell in love with this technique while reading Dear Lizzy's post on Paper Party about different ways to use the mist! I would highly recommend checking it out her video is totally inspiring with amazingly great ideas!

So last night I was at Micheal's and ran into some of these mists (there was a sale- how was I supposed to say no?) They didn't have Mr. Huey's (a very popular misting brand) but they did carry Heidiswapp brand which sells similar mists. I bought 2- even though I wanted them all- and started playing with them as soon as I got home!

Here are 2 videos I made using Vine- to show my first experiments using Color Shine Mist.

The first is Color Shine Mint Green. 

And I used little chipboard hearts on white cardstock. 

The second I am using Color Shine Primrose.

I also am using her 6x6 Honeycomb Stencil! 

After playing around for awhile with all the fun things you can do with misting- I decided to make my very first set of cards to sell on Etsy! I used the Mint Green color and the Honeycomb Stencil to create these cards. I am so pleased with how they look- and I cannot wait to make more! Check out the listing on Etsy and give me a favorite if you like them! 

Have you ever used misting for scrapbooking, card making or any other crafty projects? If you have I'd love to hear about it!! 

Renewed Passion

Hey there! Sorry it's been a bit since my last post. Things have been getting crazy around here! I wanted to just share my excitement with all of you about my recent sales at Everyday Hello! After my shop opened back in March I had made a few sales which was soooo exciting- but since then business had really slowed down. I was not finding as much time to make new cards to post, and was feeling slightly discouraged that I wasn't getting any sales!

Well that all changed a few weekends ago when I made a few sales to some family. It reignited that passion to craft - and the confidence that people do like my cards and will buy them. The past week or so has been a little of a blur with all the orders I got for Mother's Day Cards. I had several custom card orders and a few of my regularly listed cards sell! It has been so exciting and super rewarding to be selling my work. I even have a few custom orders (4 cards!!) still waiting to be made for upcoming events. I feel so good now that I've finally earned a little profit from my products (aka made up the money I've invested plus some) and to celebrate I went and bought a few more fun supplies to make cards with and a new organization system for storing and sorting orders! (Wooohoo I love organization!).

I am feeling so encouraged and inspired to keep making cards and especially inspired to make more custom orders. Let me just talk to you for a moment about why I LOVE custom orders. Part of the reason why I enjoy making and selling cards is because I feel like I get to be apart of the meaningful exchange of support/love/etc between two people. It's my way of helping others express their feelings and showing their loved ones just how much they care. So as you can imagine I really love getting custom card orders because I get the opportunity to create something so personal, meaningful, specialized, and unique for one specific person. If you place a custom order you have the chance to choose some features you'd like on the card but I also have an open ended comments area to share any amount of insight or personal tidbits about the recipient. It is so fun for me to turn instructions like "Loves pink, enjoys gardening, and is super girly" into a beautiful unique piece of art (card) for that person! It's like turning their personality into a fun crafty card that reflects who that person is and what they like! Such a fun creative challenge for me to tackle and I LOVE every second of it!

Ok, enough of that rant! In other news I updated the official Everyday Hello Website! Check out the gallery of purchased cards to see what I've been working tirelessly on! Here is a preview of some of them!

Also I'd really like to encourage you to consider ordering a card for someone special. I'd love the chance to be apart of that. If you have any special requests or ideas- leave a comment here or fill out my contact form on my website/or etsy and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Have a happy inspired day! I promise I'll post more very soon!

My First Sale (and other news)

Just a few days ago I opened up shop on Etsy with my cards. As I opened up all my sites to the public I felt really excited! I was feeling like finally, everyone gets to see my hard work! So as I posted a lot of links up to all my social media I was filled with anticipation. However, in the back of my mind I kept telling myself that popularity won't happen overnight- that this will be a long, hard process of trying to achieve any amount of success. So as you can imagine I was shocked to see that I made my first sale on the second day! Admittedly the purchase was made by someone I know (one of my past college professors who I haven't seen in a few years)! I was so excited to be making my first sale on the second day- and got the card packaged and in the mail this morning!

This however brought a dark cloud over my excitement: In order to mail the card I sent an envelope and the card in a cardboard photo-mailer for extra protection. I picked up the mailer at the post office for $1.50 the other day- but when we sent the card out this morning it cost about $3.50 to ship it! I was floored at the expense. We didn't go directly to the post office so maybe the place we shipped it through ripped us off- but still I am shocked at the price. The envelope was not very heavy- so for it to cost so much seems outrageous. Now looking at the cost of the envelope and the shipping- that's $4.50, plus Etsy and Paypal Fees- my profit on this first sale is pretty dismal. If I want to have any success with these cards I need to solve this shipping conundrum! I figure that I may be able to find photo mailers for slightly cheaper at an office supply store, but if the shipping is going to cost $3.50 every time I might have to increase my shipping charges. I knew I would hit a few bumps with starting this business and like I said, I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet! I do need to solve this profit problem if I want to continue to sell cards.

On the sunny side of things- I have 2 custom orders (technically I haven't started offering these on my site yet). Two people that I know contacted me about making specific cards for them- and since I was already planning on doing this for people I was very pleased to jump on the opportunity. This being said- If you have a specific occasion or need a more personalized card please contact me! I will be very happy to work with you to meet any desires you have.

To contact me visit my contact page on Everyday Hello's website!

Also don't forget to like my facebook page, and my Etsy Page via Facebook! I'd appreciate it so much.

Everyday Hello's Grand Opening!

Today is the day! I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to Everyday Hello! I finally have all my ducks in a row and am ready to open shop. Here is some info about ways to interact with Everyday Hello online! Please explore the sites and let me know what you think! <3

Everyday Hello: Main Website
This website offers: 
My Story- The whole story on how and why I started this business.
Cards- Beautiful pictures and information on my one of a kind handmade cards.
Purchase- Links to My Etsy Shop, and Etsy Listings for each card.
Blog- A blogger feed from this blog- and a link to get to this page.
Connect- Links to all my social media and a form to contact me!

Everyday Hello: Etsy Shop
This website offers:
Ways to view and purchase my cards!
You'll be able to purchase cards via paypal with a credit/debit card or your paypal account!

Everyday Hello: Mobile Site 
This site offers: 
A way to view a simplified version of my main site on your smartphone!
This will be the version that shows up when you access my main website from your phone. Don't worry there is an option to opt to use the web version instead!

Everyday Hello: On Facebook
Like the Page and Get updates about special deals, new products, and other news about Everyday Hello!


Have a fabulous day! I hope to hear from all of you soon!

Hello, Hard Work

When I got the idea to start this business it was very similar to my other ideas. First the thought pops into my mind, all shiny and new and exciting. Then I spend the next good bit day dreaming about this new idea and thinking of how great it could be. After the "honeymoon period" some reality usually kicks in and I decide realistically to keep the idea, shelf it, or ditch it. In this instance- I decided to keep it. I thought for sure I could open up an online shop, whip together some lovely cards, and make a few dollars. I figured there would be some hard work involved- but I did underestimate it a bit.

Over the past few weeks this little idea has really grown into an almost ready to open business. And I want you to know- it has taken a lot of hard work to get here (and it's not even open yet). There are tons or logistics and tiny details to tend to. For example learning about sales tax, pricing, and shipping costs- learning about how I can use social media to advertise- learning about how to take photos to sell- the list goes on... I have spent countless hours reading articles and studying up on how to start a small online business. Past the research stage was the actual doing stage. I needed to create an etsy shop, blog and website for my business. I built the website off of wix.com using a template but re-imagining almost all of it. I also spent a lot of time thinking and coming up with a brand for myself. I wanted to be very thorough in starting this business which is why the thinking and planning stage took a long time. Aside from creating my online presence I also needed to create the products (still in this phase- I'd like to make at least 4 more cards before opening shop).

I guess what I'm getting at is the fact that pursuing this crazy idea has been a lot of work- but also extremely fun and rewarding. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to learning- I LOVE learning new things- and I love a good challenge. So even though I might be slightly crazy for doing this, and even though it's been more work than I expected, I am already loving it and feeling personally rewarded.

I honestly cannot wait to launch my website and my shop! I feel like a little kid with a new toy- and I can't wait to show all my best friends! I'm trying to be patient... but it's hard work!