Happy Holidays

The Christmas day has finally arrived.  The rushing, the buying, the wrapping is done!  What a relief.  We enjoyed this special day amongst family and really had fun with the kids.  The girls were so excited to see that Santa had come.  They danced around singing about Santa and the reindeer before they even opened their stockings!!  The day was full of laughing, singing, sharing and spending time together!  What a wonderful day!  Why don't we do this more often, without all the pre-Christmas day spending and running around.  Really, such a simple thing to just spend time with each other and be grateful for who we have around us and for the things we do have.

I hope you all enjoyed your day in your own special way!  Happy Holidays everyone!  Joyeux Noel!

Inspiration for design

Where does the inspiration for my cards come from? Well the answer is simple - everywhere! Through regular daily adventures with my kids to request from friends and family to a TV commercial.  Inspiration surrounds us, and it is different for everyone.  One might see something with a creative eye and be able to create something new from it.  


I find the hardest things to create at times, comes from simple things.  For example, I am working on a line of cards with the theme of teapots, teacups, tea in the garden...get the idea!  Now as simple as that sounds, getting just the right fit for the card line has proven to be a challenge!  

Stay tuned, I hope to have the line "created" in a few weeks and will be sure to share it.

Jasmere...the best marketing tool

Jasmere is fantastic for finding that special unique item online! Have you heard of them yet?  For those of you that haven't, then take a moment and check them out. www.jasmere.com
From a post on crunchbase:

"Jasmere is an online marketplace that connects specialty web retailers with upscale consumers.  

Jasmere uses a “deal-of-the-day” format, similar to Groupon. Jasmere differentiates by featuring upscale web boutiques that deliver nationwide, rather than local bricks and mortar stores favored by other sites. Jasmere also turns typical ‘supply and demand’ economics on its ear, in that more demand for jasmere products actuallylowers the price everyone pays. Thanks to specially negotiated deals with their featured merchants, jasmere lowers the price over the course of the day, as more people buy. No credit cards are charged until the feature ends, and everyone pays the same low price."

How great is this!!  I was contacted by them in October and I am excited to be partnering with them in January 2011!  From a business perspective, you can reach a lot of people through their members and it is a great way to get your name out there.  No cost to be featured, just the cost of the "deal" that you partner in with Jasmere on!! So exciting for us, we are looking forward to our day!

Join jasmere and find some great stuff and of course watch for the Serendipity day!!

Kids say the funniest things...

This post is off the normal path for me, but very normal for my usual daily routines.  It's about my little girl who is 3.5. years old (4 yrs if you ask her).  She is sweet, quiet and a little bit of a mischief maker and most days we have lot of fun.  But the other day, she was not having a good day.  Everything resulted in a meltdown.  My other little monkey, 2yrs old, kept telling her sister to "stop crying, too noisy".  In this particular meltdown of the day she had been crying on and off for about 30 mins. I kept trying to console her, but she would get annoyed and cry louder, so I would leave the room.  Finally she sat with me and calmed down, she suddenly stated clear as anything, without crying "Mommy, did you hear that?" I replied "No, what is it".  With a huge smile on her face she says "Mommy, my bed is calling me!"  Since we weren't at home, I offered to take her home to go to sleep.  She smiled and said "No mommy, I am okay now, my bed will wait for me to get home...can I have some pizza now."  And that was it, no more crying, no more meltdowns, the evening pizza was enjoyed by all and yes when we got home, she happily danced down the hall and climbed into her bed! 

Starter Sentiments

We are excited to launch a new program with our cards. It is called "starter sentiments"! Since all our cards are blank inside and not everyone loves a blank card, we are putting into each card 3-5 suggested messages for the inside of the card. We hope that those who prefer an inside greeting will have their pick of a few to write in themselves and those that prefer blank cards, it is business as usual.  The starter sentiments are attached to the inside of each cello bag and are not attached to the card itself.  We think this is a great way to jump start anyone's creative side to write a nice message to the recipient of the card.

Pet Sympathy Cards

We are excited to launch our Pet Sympathy Card line!  Inspiration for this line comes from a veterinarian friend, who sends pet sympathy cards quite regularly.  We are eager to expand this line to include pet birthday cards and thank-you cards.  Check out the full line on our website and send us your thoughts/ideas about it.

Creative fun!

Lately I have been anything but productive with stationery. Perhaps it is due to the end of school craziness that is surrounding me or the fact that the weather here is anything but summer like. Rain, rain and more rain.  My garden is loving it, the kids love the mud, but really so me some sunshine please!
Well I started to create a bit more these last few days and here are a few of the latest design ideas.  One bold, one not so bold.  Not yet ready for you all to buy, but soon they will be!  

Etsy marketing

Building a business online can have its challenges and things don't always work the way I planned. Coming up with ideas is never a problem, but finding the time to implement them or bring them to fruition often take a lot more work than initially planned. I recently discovered this site that is a fantastic resource for learning about how to connect your business and creativity to the world out there! http://meylah.com/blog/247/How-to-Write-Product-Descriptions-That-Seal-the-Deal.

Take a moment and check it out. It is so great when people are willing to share their experiences and tips/tricks for us all to benefit.

Spring Cleaning and more

Why is it every spring I am the best at creating make work projects? It started at the end of the February, my husband and I started to finally reorganize all the stationery products to get a start on the spring inventory and cleaning. Through this venture, we decided that our basement is so big, we really don't need to consume the whole space with stationery products. As my FT job (not the stationery job) was coming to an end, we came up with the brilliant idea to build a suite and that is what we did.

However in this brilliant move, we ended up agreeing with a tenant that the suite would be done by April 1st. So the work began. Late nights, lots of work parties and lots of $ and we met the deadline, sort of...April 1 at 3am the suite was finished!

The tenant was excited to move in and my husband and I could sit back and relax with a deep sigh of relief and exhaustion. So really my spring cleaning hasn't even begun yet, but c'est la vie.

As for the stationery, it is all now reorganized and I love it, and of course takes up a much smaller space.

New Spring Designs for 2010

With spring finally upon us here on the west coast, I have started some new designs for 2010. Here is a preview of the soon to be released designs. More to come very soon.

Reconnecting with Friends

I recently reconnected with some friends of mine that we were all once very close friends, but with all of our busy lives and living in different cities, having kids, working etc. we have lost touch over the years. It was like old times when we connected again over dinner, thanks to some email trails that one of us started. It was great to learn about all the latest things we had each been up to and shared our pictures together. As we parted ways, everyone was sure to exchange emails/phone and I prompted us all to exchange mailing addresses too.

When I got home, I wrote each of them a little thank-you note on one of my handmade cards. I expressed how much I enjoyed our visit and how great it is to have friends like them and my high hopes to reconnect more often in the future. It didn't take me long to do and I felt good doing it.

To my pleasant surprise, I also received a thank-you note from one of them. I have enjoyed having the card on my desk to look at this past week. It reminds me of how busy life can become for all of us, and how easy it is to forget to say thanks or that "I am thinking about you". That little thank-you note brightened my day, I am planning to send some more of these thank-you notes or just because notes to hopefully make someone elses day that much nicer.

Introducing Serendipity

I enjoy giving and receiving handmade cards as I believe they are in themselves a treasure to keep and can mean so much. In this day and age where computers and emails rule the world it is a special thing to receive that hand written note from a friend or loved one. We offer many hand embellished greeting cards and shipping is free! Send a card to brighten someone's and let them know you are thinking of them.

Our cards are made on high quality card stock and many are hand embellished for that extra touch.

Based in Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia, it is the perfect place to be creative, raise a family and enjoy the simple things in life. With three adorable little girls and a wonderful husband life is full of surprises and never boring.

Serendipity Designworks is the result of a lot of hard work, fun and creativity. I hope you enjoy our cards as much as we do and they help spread the Serendipity to those that are close to you.