I’ve been blogging a while now. Sometimes I’m more faithful than others, depending on my work load – which shifts rapidly day by day. My previous blog had over 300,000 hits before I was forced to change to a new one. This new blog will go over 400,000 hits some time in the next 1-2 weeks. It simply amazes me. THANK YOU to those of you faithful readers that have been with me since the beginning or come alongside of me during the journey. It’s a joy and a blessing to share with you. One I never take for granted.
So, what am I up to? I’m finishing up a kitchen goods collection today, that will be out in January with a fabulous manufacturer. I will show you the designs when I am allowed to. I love their quality and look forward to seeing the final products when they are done. I hope that this will be the first of many collections with their company.
I am also working on a room sized rug, and paper party goods how’s that for variety?! That’s one thing I love about what I do. It’s hard to get bored when things can change so quickly.
I WAS hoping to start painting a new collection today that I had sketched out during my recent trip to Las Vegas for the Licensing Show. While the show was rather disappointing as a show for an artist to peruse, the extra day and a half that I had to fill with doing something was actually fabulous. It forced me to sit down and plan, something that we artists aren’t always that great at. I’ve already finished and licensed one of the collections I designed while there and am ready for the second. I guess being bored is a good thing sometimes?!
These sunflowers are from my newest collection at Zazzle “Sunflowers ‘n Swirls” and are perfect for late summer and into fall uses. It’s August already! Fall will be here before we know it. So make the rest of your summer really special.
I’m adding a second contest to my normal blog contest. For anyone that doesn’t know, if you leave a comment on any or all of my posts during the month that serves as an entry into the contest which is drawn randomly at the end of the month. If you enjoy my blog and refer it to 5 people, you will be entered into a drawing for a second prize. That prize is a $4.95 item of your choice from my Etsy store, or a discount equal to that if there’s something more expensive that you covet. Just send me a message saying that you have referred me to 5 people and each time you do 5 people it will count as an entry. Thanks so much for being a part of helping me to grow!
I found this vintage image of a Peacock and immediately thought how elegant and stately it would be on a wedding invitation. I designed the first with a Peacock blue accent color, but it has been set up on Zazzle to be easily customized by the bride to use any color that fits with her wedding. All that’s needed is the Hex# of the color (selected from your color picker in your graphics program or just ask me), plug that color into the background and in the appropriate text and presto, custom wedding invitation!
I created a matching envelope as well and then ran out of time yesterday. The entire suite of products should be available by the end of the week. The customizable color envelope hasn’t been created yet, but I would be happy to create it for anyone needing a specific color combination.
One of the things I adore about Zazzle is that you don’t have to have any minimum quantity to do a custom invitation, try that in a brick and mortar store! The more quantity you order the less expensive the cost per invitation and they ship for a flat fee. Remember that any invitation can be customized for any event. If you have a birthday party, you don’t just have to look at the Birthday invitations for your party theme. Also great for 50th anniversary parties or Family reunions.
Remember that there are just a few days left in the month to get your comments in for the drawing. You can comment on any and every post and each comment counts as an entry into the Blog Contest drawing. The winner gets their pick of a $4.95 kit at my ETSY store. Good luck!
Useful for wine tasting parties or wedding invitations, this is one of my all time favorite pieces of artwork that I’ve done. I love the texture, the richness of the color palette (perfect for summer or fall weddings!) and most of all I love vineyards and all things grapes. I live in the mountains of Central California and our valleys are full of beautifully tended vineyards. I love watching them grow throughout the year.
There is a full ensemble of products for this wedding line and if I’m missing anything that you would like, I’ll be happy to create it for you. Table place setting cards, Table Cards, Wedding Dinner Menus, Wedding Programs and more.
If you are looking for an inexpensive Bridal Shower or Save the Date option, postcards are great. This Bridal Shower postcard design can be purchased for as low as $.90 each in bulk (250 or above).
Also useful are two sided, Favor Gift Tags which can be tied on to your favors with a lovely matching ribbon and provide a tremendous visual impact for your table decor with very little cost involved. 100 cards run only $21.80!
Yesterday I released a new “Golden Age of Elegance” and today I am previewing the vintage Silver version. This can be used as Thank You notes, wedding correspondence, shower invitations and more. Both the Silver and Gold versions can be used for Twenty Fifth (25th) Wedding Anniversaries and Fiftieth (50th) Wedding Anniversaries. Imagine a classic war bride black & white in the photo frame – stunning! I will design them as finished products for anniversaries but if anyone needs them now, just go to my wedding section>cream, neutral, brown and you’ll see the entire collection. Change the text to reflect your occasion, substitute your picture for my daughter and son-in-law’s (aren’t they adorable?!) and you’re ready to go.
Stickers or Seals can add that finishing touch to the outer envelope. There are easy ways you can add that special touch to your invitations. Try adding a thin, matching ribbon tied in a beautiful knot. Make sure you move the text above and below where you want the ribbon to tie. If you add ribbon make sure you take them to the post office to be hand processed. We can also work together to design an invitation that utilizes the stickers and ribbon under the picture on the actual invitation. I will try to digitally mock that option up and update this post later.
These Menu Cards or Wedding Program Cards are in a wonderfully different elongated rectangle format. They are also available in wedding invitations.
There is no real metal in these invitations all of the aged,
I have a sale going in two places. My Aimee Asher Digital Clip Art store is running a special for the month of July. Buy $20 of items and get 25% off your purchase. I rarely do sales and this is the best pricing I ever offer, so if you’ve been looking for new art for your crafting for the Christmas season, now’s the time to stock up.
My Etsy store is running the equivalent, Buy 3 get the 4th FREE. There are items at each location that are different and some cross-over so check them out. Etsy has mostly has jewelry making collages and scrapbooking tags, journaling tags and the like. AAE has complete digital clip art kits, paper kits etc.
It’s been a little bit since I released a brand new art, digital clip art kit. Today I released “Puppy Love 1″ at www.aimeeasher.com. It is priced at $5.98 for 26 pieces and if you are a crafter, you are allowed to use it to create products to sell at craft shows. See the Angel Policy terms for the limits on usage. Here is the link: LINK TO PUPPY LOVE KIT or simply click on the image to go to the store.
In the kit is 4 card fronts of various sizes, the puppy dog icons in borders and separated, 7 papers, 4 borders and a circular border that would be perfect to use on a paint can for a new puppy gift or packaging for a “Puppy Love” gift basket/can.
Now, my question to you… What products would you like to see made out of this kit for my Zazzle store? Do you have some ideas for me to work on? Here are my thoughts. They’re perfect for purses and tote bags, magnets, greeting cards, note cards, T-shirts and maybe even some really fun shoes! I used to own a Dalmatian and would have gotten a kick out of having a pair of shoes or shirt with a Dalmatian puppy on it. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!
I spent two days in Las Vegas at the licensing show this past week. It was really a treat to connect with all five members of my licensing agency’s team. They were working really hard during the show, so I mostly tried to stay out of their way and let them do what they do best.
The show was a great time to connect with some dear artist friends like Phyllis Dobbs, fellow MHS Licensing artist Tina Higgins, one of my prior agents, Janie Seltzer, and the fun experience of meeting some new artist friends as well. The art licensing part of the show is so small that a single day would have been enough to take it in. If you’re an artist and thinking about going to the show next year, keep that in mind.
The main parts of the show are absolutely overwhelming. Disney’s 30 foot tall screens and massive booth, Paramount Studios and every other major film or TV studio, Nascar, NBA, even Lamborghini was there. It can make you feel pretty small sometimes when you see how big the rest of the licensing world is. My camera didn’t work or I would have brought some pictures home to show you.
I spent the entire second day sitting at a table and sketching pages and pages of designs to work on when I got home. The inspiration came in response to a meeting with a long-time acquaintance in the gift ware marketplace. We’ll be doing some work together and the assignments he gave me started the wheels turning. I love that part of this job.
One of the collections I was mapping out is a new cupcake art set. You can see some of the art I’ve finished since I got home in this post. I haven’t come up with a catchy name for it, so feel free to make suggestions in the comments!
Tomorrow I’m going to feature a friend of mine that just found me on Zazzle. I have adored her artwork for years and was blessed to become her friend quite a while ago but we’ve recently gotten reconnected. Her work is so original and amazing I know you’ll love it, so stay tuned!
I have some “housekeeping” items I thought I would throw all into one big post.
DIGITAL CRAFTING FANS: I offer digital clip art kits on my blog store and have for several years. In the next week or so, with Lynnie’s help (from www.aimeeasher.com) I am going to replace my blog store with a link to my store inside of Aimee Asher.
As those of you that have experienced it in the last couple of months know, my automated delivery system has been screwy and has failed to provide usable links more often than not. The Aimee Asher system is great and well worth my sending the business their way instead of here. The prices are identical as are the kits and terms of use. If you want to purchase any digital clip art kits, I would suggest that you use this link and go directly to AAE from now on. LINK TO AUDREY JEANNE’S STORE AT AIMEE ASHER
Perhaps with fewer issues to deal with and without needing to upload and install a kit in two places I’ll be able to get some fresh new kits up 
That is my goal anyway!
ZAZZLE STORES: I have two Zazzle stores now. One features “Everything Business” and is stocked with business cards, stationery, thank you notes, postage, address labels and more.
LINK TO “EVERYTHING BUSINESS by Audrey Jeanne”
LINK TO AUDREY JEANNE’S EXPRESSIONS ZAZZLE STORE
The other contains a wide variety of products from wedding invitations, baby announcements, baby onesies and tee shirts, scrapbook notebooks, recipe notebooks and pages and more. You’ll also notice a new panel to the left with 3 of my Zazzle products shown in it. Those three products change frequently so be sure to take a peek each time you stop by. This format provides larger images that can be seen more clearly. I had to give up the flash panel, but small moving objects aren’t really good for seeing anyway!
TWITTER: If you would like to follow me on Twitter, LINK TO TWITTER PAGE
FACEBOOK: If you would like to follow my on my fan page at FaceBook, LINK TO FACEBOOK FAN PAGE I don’t play any games on FaceBook, so please don’t message me about that, but anything else I’d love to hear!
I update both Twitter and FaceBook daily and sometimes a couple of times a day and it’s very easy to connect with me there. I love to hear feedback on designs I’m working on and often show the first peeks at Facebook as I’m working those collections out.
Okay, now off to bed after a long and wonderful day with my family!
On Create and Craft TV in the United Kingdom. It is the show’s Pick of the Day and I believe there will also be 5 shows spread about through tomorrow but don’t know the times of them.
I am so looking forward to receiving my sets so that I can work on my Daughter’s wedding scrapbook. This artwork was very much created with her wedding in mind. It has lots of butterflies, dragonflies and paisley florals that aren’t shown much in these images. It’s a MASSIVE kit!
My friend Amanda Curtin will be demonstrating the products today and I can’t wait to see her delightful creations. Here’s the web page for purchasing the set: LINK TO CREATE AND CRAFT PRODUCT
LINK TO BABY SHOWER INVITATION IN STORE
Those memories are still with me like they were yesterday and they are inspiring a brand new art collection “Retro Sock Monkey” which will have a lot of fun surprises to it. Here is the very first pieces of the art put together into a Baby Shower Invitation and a Baby Birth Announcement.
When I was a little girl, one of my family members made me a classic Sock Monkey that I loved virtually to death! If I went somewhere so did that monkey. I’m sure my Mom loved that she could throw him in the laundry and he came out as good as new. I was such a tomboy and drug him through the mud, and even played with him in the sand box with my Tonka toys. I had a dump truck and a crane that he rode in quite frequently.
On the reverse side of the birth announcement is a photo opening to put your baby’s picture in as well as customizing the information on the front.
LINK TO BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT IN STORE
I have so many ideas that it’s making this collection one of the most fun I’ve done in many years. I’m not sure that I’ll get it together in time for The Surtex Show, but it will be available soon to review at my agent’s website www.MHSlicensing.com
I had the funniest thing happen today! When you create postage for sale on Zazzle, it has to be approved by the US Post Office and meet their standards. Well… I got a little notice this morning that they were pulling my product. What product would that be? “Death by Chocolate Party” postage, LOL! It set me off in gales of laughter thinking of the tee shirts I could do “Chocolate torture — where can I go to volunteer?” and about a dozen other quips.
The postage shown here won a “Today’s Best Award” on Zazzle.com . It’s really fun to have matching postage for wedding, baby shower and other events. My daughter is really upset with me that I didn’t know about this before her wedding. It would have been so fun to design her own unique wedding invitations. Oh well… Grandma can always do BABY invitations, LOL!
Postcards are a very inexpensive way to do custom party invites and I am in the process of creating Cupcake Wrappers and Candy bar wrappers to go with them so having an “instant party” will be inexpensive and easy!
By the way, I’m also working on a blue/brown and lavendar/brown combination on these invitations as well. They’ll be a bit before they hit the store.
LINK TO TROPICAL ORCHID WEDDING INVITATIONS
This design is available in lilac (shown), aqua, blue, tan and green. It is a two-sided style with a customizable monogram. The sizes offered are 5.25″ square, 4″ x 9.5″, and 5″ x 7″. There is a watermark on these images that is not present in the finished product.
These invitations can be printed and on their way to you in just about 24 hours with a 100% money back guarantee. So if you have a last minute need for invitations, this is a great source to meet them.
There are more Tropical Wedding Invitations in the works, check back frequently to see them as they are posted.
If you are mixing colors in your wedding and would like to mix fronts and backs, some customization is available, just message me here or on the store site.
New from Design Objectives, digital scrapbooking collection "Jade Treasures"
On May 4th, 2010, the European Create & Craft TV show will be featuring a brand new collection of art for paper crafting called, “Jade Treasures.” It will be their “Pick of the Day” set. You can view the show May 4th, 2010 on this link: http://www.createandcraft.tv/
I will be trying to find out information as to whether this product can ship to the US and how much if it can. I’ve been told there shouldn’t be any reason that it can’t ship here, but do not know what the costs might be.
This is a HUGE paper crafting product set. There are wonderful papers in two different sizes, frames, icons, tags and literally anything you can think of that will make card making and scrap booking fun and easy. I have yet to see exactly what is in the kit, but will let you know as soon as I do! There will eventually be a 2 disk digital scrapbooking set released as well.
Design Objectives is the largest manufacturer of scrapbooking and card making products in the United Kingdom. The new products are not yet up on their website: www.designobjectives.com but will be soon.
I used this artwork to scrapbook my daughter’s wedding in September. You can also see a range of Wedding Invitation products created from this art collection for those of you in the US. LINK TO WEDDING INVITATION and LINK to AQUA/BLUE WEDDING INVITATION SELECTIONS (the “Fleur di Lys Damask” items shown on these pages are not from the “Jade Treasures” collection).
The partnership with Design Objectives is a growing one. They are a FABULOUSLY creative company with amazing resources and ideas. They are great fun to work with. We have a Christmas collection of products releasing soon and look for more as they are developed. I’ll keep you posted.
If there are any stores that carry their products on line and will carry my line, please let me know and I’ll be happy to make referrals to you!
This art work is brand new and the collection is called “Fleur di Lys Damask.” I am developing a complete Wedding Invitation Line out of this collection. This invitation design is a 5.5″ square that is two-sided.
A full range of coordinating products are offered including: Save the Date Announcements, Wedding Postage, Save the Date Magnets, Stickers, Seals, a Wedding Planner Binder, Stationery and note cards.
$12.00 for 10 Invitations including a white envelope.
LINK TO FLEUR DI LYS DAMASK WEDDING COLLECTION
The beauty of the Zazzle Product set up is that you can add, change and/or delete any of the text and customize it for your own occasion.
The full collection will be available for viewing at The Surtex Show.
ZAZZLE store Wedding Invitations
I have been a busy bee on this beautiful spring day! I have created three more wedding collections in my Zazzle store.
Now that I have somewhat figured out how to do this, it’s much quicker to do and I’m having a great time at it.
By the way, each design is offered in several sizes and layouts, RSVP cards, Thank You notes, Wedding Invitation Seals, Matching postage (custom designed US Postage stamps) and other coordinating products.
Today will be my last day for a while to create new designs as tomorrow I will turn my attention to the display images for the MHS Licensing booth for the Surtex show. All of the designs that I am creating will also be available for licensing by any stationery manufacturer. Should they be licensed I will simply pull them from my store.