Thank you for all the support- it feels so good to be able to support these non-profits and the important work that they do. This amount brings the total 2023 donation amount to $1,853.03- WHAT?! I am looking forward to what 2024 brings, especially with another Philly Flower Show on the horizon- could we break 2K in donations?! I'm setting the intention now- LET'S GOOOO!
Since exit343design introduced stickers in 2018, we have committed to donating 5% of ALL sales (retail & wholesale!) to Philly PAWS and other local animal welfare organizations. Want to support the cause and grab a sticker? Check them out here!
Thank you for all the support- it is a true joy to be able to support these non-profits and the important work that they do. I'm excited for the 2nd half of 2023!
Since exit343design introduced stickers in 2018, we have committed to donating 5% of ALL sales (retail & wholesale!) to Philly PAWS and other local animal welfare organizations. Want to support the cause and grab a sticker? Check them out here!
It's that time of year again- donation time! ICYMI, exit343design has committed to donating 5% of ALL sticker sales to PAWS Philly! Full disclosure- I always donate to PAWS, but often I reallocate a bit of the fundraising pot to other animal-related organizations. Case in point:
In early December 2022, I stumbled upon this absolutely heartbreaking story about a local wildlife rescue and rehab facility burning TO THE GROUND. Red Creek Wildlife Center lost everything in their primary building including all of their patients. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was bawling when I watched this tribute video on their Facebook page. After learning more about wildlife rehabs in 2022 (mostly that they are not PA-state subsidized and run entirely on volunteers and donations) I had to donate to their rebuilding efforts:
Then, while vending at a show in December 2022, I was telling a customer about sticker donations. They said if we ever felt inclined, perhaps we'd want to donate to the cat rescue organization they work with- Green Street Rescue! Well, customer whose name I never got- exit343design did just that! PS- if you're in the Philly area, check out their awesome Le Cat Cafe to caffeinate and spend time with adoptable kitties!
And last, but certainly not least, the promised donation to our pals over at Philly PAWS:
That brings the 2nd half of the year donation total to: $890.23! Meaning in all of 2022, your sticker obsession (both retail AND wholesale) added up to $1,362 in total donations! WOW! The second half of 2022 alone beat the total donation amount for the entirety of 2021. Fantastic! Let's keep this sticker train rolling right into 2023 . . .
Since exit343design introduced stickers in 2018, we have committed to donating 5% of ALL sales (retail & wholesale!) to Philly PAWS and other local animal welfare organizations. Want to support the cause and grab a sticker? Check them out here!
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Hello friends and sticker fiends! Stephanie from exit343design here, dropping in to let you know about the latest donations made because of all you sticker collectors out there. THANK YOU for another successful six months- your purchases contributed to two sizable donations to two local animal-related non-profits!
First of all: PAWS Philly is running a special "PAW it Forward" event, so I allocated 3/4 of the donation pool to this event. I also donated in memory of my father, who passed away suddenly in May. Thank you to all my lovely customers for allowing me to do this donation in his name:
The rest of the money ($113.59) went to a non-profit that also deals with animals, but of the reptilian variety- the Terrapin Nesting Project. I learned about this organization in 2020, whilst spending many of my days bike riding past their nesting spot in Barnegat Light, NJ. Cut to- I stop one day and meet Kathy the founder, she tells me all about terrapins and her mission. Last year, I donated to their Foster a Female fund personally and helped watch nests around hatching season. This year, I hope to do some more nest watching but wanted to do a bit more- so here we are! If you think terrapins are "just" turtles, I encourage you to learn more about these important creatures who inhabit coastal baywaters. But also- how cute are their little faces?!
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However, I do NOT agree with the following:
1. Since its inception, the Star Seller program is murky in how it promotes sellers for being a part of it. My biggest issue with it is that it forces unhealthy work/life balance by basically telling sellers to be mini Amazon warehouses so their listings down get pushed down the search algorithm. I generally have a big problem when Etsy inserts itself into how folks run their individual businesses . . .
2. See above: Forcing sellers into the Offsite ads program which throws off profit margins for sellers of all levels. I simply cannot list certain items on Etsy because on the off chance it gets picked up on an offsite ad (a program which is mandatory for a seller at my level) and gets purchased, it basically doubles the existing seller fees. When that happens, the profit margin makes no sense and I lose money.
I actually *like* having Etsy run offsite ads for me- less learning I need to do! However, I would like to have the option to participate and the options to select which products can be a part of the program so that my numbers always make sense.
3. As has been for years, the resale and non-handmade market is rampant. I used to report blatant items (the amount of current Ikea items I would see listed as "vintage" for sale was shameful) but it's overwhelming. I'm sure these resellers make Etsy's shareholders a lot of money and if they get the boot, fees will increase. I think I'm okay with that reality though- Etsy is supposed to be synonymous with handmade & independently designed items- it should be curated as such for shoppers. If you want murky reseller BS, shop on Amazon or Walmart.
In the end, Etsy is a valuable tool for makers around the globe. I appreciate it as part of my business and hope to continue to have a relationship with it. However, I do hope it realizes that the folks who make it money (US, the MAKERS) are pretty upset with its turn to become beholden to its shareholders.
To learn the other reasons why Etsy sellers are on strike, check out this article from The Skimm or check out the Etsy Strike website.
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Last night, I attended a virtual Zoom meeting for my local Tuesday’s Together chapter. Today I woke up thinking about community and how much of a role it has played in my life and business. (The above photo is from our last in-person meetup in March 2020!)
First of all, I’ll say I am very fortunate to have a supportive family, partner, and circle of friends. I would be nothing without them. But for me, as an artist and solopreneur, I wanted more. I wanted to meet local people who I could connect with about art, about small business, about this stage of life.
I attended a liberal arts college to study art upon graduating high school. By my second year, I had gravitated to the large, open-concept printmaking room in Westby Hall and basically never left. This is where I met a rotating cast of artistic characters, many of whom I am still connected to over a decade later. These were my people and they made making art fun. (See below photo for a throwback photo of some of my favorite Westby Warriors)
As many folks know, the feeling of graduating into the real world as an adult can be abrupt, tumultuous, and quite frankly- scary! I chose to attend graduate school which bought me a little more time, but it didn’t stave off the feeling of isolation; it was a total 180 from the bustling art environment I had been accustomed to.
Blah blah blah and fast-forward to 2016 when I quit my full-time job to go solo in my business. All along, I had found community through my personal relationships at work and at home, but now I felt like I was living on artrepreneur island. It took some time, but I soon realized I had to be proactive and look beyond what I knew.
Meeting new people and making friends as an adult is hard. But here’s the thing: it’s hard and awkward for everyone! Push through the discomfort and just show up. And KEEP showing up. Not everyone you meet will be your cup of tea or an insta-bestie. However, with time, KNOW that you will find at least one person in the group who IS your kind of person. And that’s a great hit rate! Maybe you continue to show up and find the group isn’t the right fit? That’s okay too- now you’ve clarified what you want out of a professional community and likely expanded your network to boot.
As valuable as I’ve found in-person connections to be, I certainly don’t want to discount online communities either. In 2013 I attended Paper Camp, a course to learn about wholesaling in my industry. Because of attending the event, I was able to join the corresponding Facebook group and have since signed on as a member of Proof to Product Labs, the supplementary continuing-education group. The membership to this group has been pivotal in the growth of my business! (See below for my 2013 Paper Camp class!)
My journey seeking community has been full of starts and stops. Coffee dates, meeting for beers, a book club, a failed group of my own, being stood up, feeling less-than, feeling over-qualified, driving for over an hour, driving 5 minutes down the road- oh, then a global pandemic fully stopping the momentum. But as the pandemic has shown, living in a silo is no good for anyone. Invest in yourself by seeking out "your" people, whether via a professional group or a peer group- it will pay you back in dividends!
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. . . and an outdoor Google nest cam is coming to them as well! As you can see, many of the items have been delivered already and the Zoo sent over a nice thank you:
Very cool! I have to get over there to say hello to my favorite Bald Eagle squad . . . At any rate, I didn't want to bail on my original goal of donating to PAWS so I set a budget for the Elmwood Park Zoo and donated the remainder to Philly PAWS as planned:
Thank you so much to everyone who made these tremendous donations possible! While we did not surpass 2020's donation total, it was still an impressive $870.45 to non-profits in the year 2021. One of my goals for 2022 is to hold another fundraising event outside of the sticker sales, so stay tuned!
Since exit343design introduced stickers in 2018, we have committed to donating 5% of ALL sales (retail & wholesale!) to this local animal welfare organization. Want to support the cause and grab a sticker? Check them out here!
]]>Wow, does it feel good to be typing up a show preview again! I am very excited to vend with The Craftery again, but in a new-to-me location- downtown Perkasie! If you're a Bucks County resident, this show is for you to get some holiday shopping done and support small business. Here are some makers I'm excited to check out on Saturday, November 20th in downtown Perkasie, Pennsylvania:
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It all started the week before the world shut down. The last in-person group event I attended was my local chapter of The Rising Tide Society. We met at the The Narrows Restaurant in Bucks County, PA. The theme was “Elevating Your Brand” to be led by Kristen Good of Kristen Good Collective, her company that specializes in small-business branding. (Look how much fun we had! The photo above was from that night and taken by Juliana Wall)
In advance of this meeting, I had offered up exit343design to be an example used for the group. Kristen had sent over a worksheet for me to do some deep-thinking about exit343design. This included things like writing down my business vision, my ideal client(s), my values, and my visuals. I returned the worksheet back to her along with my URL and awaited for our meet-up in March.
I had known I needed a general visual refresh, something I’ve done a handful of times before. But having a third-party branding expert walk me through the basics of what was and wasn’t working was a real eye-opener! I came away from that night with a new to-do list. Then, when the idea of quarantine became real almost overnight, I suddenly had a little more time to dedicate to said list. Here are the main concepts I identified and worked through:
This is knowledge I had begun to absorb during a day job that dealt with licensing. We used licensing info sheets that contained details such as the primary logo marks, submarks, the specific fonts to use, as well as the associated PMS colors. After that time with Kristen Good and a course on copywriting through PTP Labs, I also learned that it can include the words and phrases as well. That’s a lot to think about! Branding isn’t just the visuals that folks encounter, it’s the feeling they get when interacting with your company. This suddenly went from a one-week job to a many-months exploration.
After having some third-party perspective, it became painfully obvious: what I wanted my branding to say versus what it was actually conveying were two VERY different things. Exit343design is about making colorful products with fun messages or playful imagery! The logo on the other hand? I made it using one of my favorite fonts and some neutral colors. At the time, it was a refined upgrade from previous iterations but it was no longer serving me or my customers.
My website was a step up from my artist portfolio site of yore, but it still wasn’t a true retail-ready website and I had outgrown its capabilities.
Because I sell at live events, I have a variety of signage that I use in my booth. Nothing really matched- some things were drawn by hand, some were printed. I often used a teal color but it was whatever teal I selected the day I designed. Tablecloths were mismatched colors. Everything had grown organically and haphazardly and I needed to step back and be intentional.
Just as with my products, I try to infuse my sense of humor and playfulness into the copy on my website. This was evident in my “about me” page and buried deep on a secondary homepage on my website . . . and precisely no where else. This was a huge takeaway from that mini-session with Kristen Good- I needed to add more of my voice everywhere!
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I should say that I’m no branding expert so everything is always a work in progress. And for a lot of professional folks, they would not recommend doing your own branding yourself. But, I like a challenge and love to learn so I just went for it! And now, it’s time for the fun part: seeing the exit343design transformation . . .
Roger that! I developed a whole brand sheet, refined my colors, and developed iconography to use throughout the brand. I took inspiration for the format from this brand guide I found on Pinterest. This sheet is now the guidelines for all that I do going forward:
This is when I had to do the deep thinking about my logo. You can see the finished product above. I ended up using one of my favorite fonts as the base, but moved the letters around to add movement and playfulness. Once the positioning was set, I went in and hand-traced the letters as an extra touch to make the font less stiff. See what a difference that makes?
If you know me, you know I love patterns. I try to sneak them in to nearly every custom project I do (just scroll this page and you'll see what I mean). I set out to design a pattern I could use for future packaging and sprinkled throughout the website. This was what I started with- a smattering of fun icons that represent me and my brand:
And here is the final result, in exit343design brand colors:
I spent a whole day working on new booth signage and splurged on new tablecloths for the booth. Here's a photo of it from last weekend:
Branding visuals is one thing, branding the copywriting is whole other beast. This is still a work in progress, but I have been updating my copy EVERYWHERE. I started with my website email templates- the emails that get triggered when someone places an order, when an order ships, etc. Of course the copy on my main page got a refresh, but so did ALL of my product listings- or they will be, it's taking a while! I looked at my marketing as well- one of my favs is this postcard that goes in with every art print:
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Framebridge, a company I knew to do mail-in custom framing, had recently opened a showroom and framing center outside of Philadelphia. They wanted me to come in and give the process a shot on the house! How could I turn that down? And so, on a summer day in July, I found myself at the Suburban Square Framebridge store in Ardmore, Pennsylvania.
As someone who has literally never paid to have anything framed in my life before, I arrived as somewhat of a skeptic. Art school taught me how to matte things on my own and my coupon-queen mother taught me to never pay for things you can do yourself. When I arrived, not only was I greeted by 3 cheerfully masked employees, I was impressed to see the variety of things they had framed as examples! Things I would never even know where to start to frame. The Framebridge shop in Ardmore is a framing hub but doubles as a gallery and showroom of all the framing possibilities.
We got right to work designing my frame. I brought in my new “Squeaky Toy of the Sky” art print; I wanted to hang it at my family’s shore-house, the place where I discovered my love for the American Oystercatcher. Right off the bat, I loved how simple and transparent the pricing structure is:
All you have to know is how big the artwork is. That’s it. It doesn’t matter what size matte you choose, nothing else- just the size of the artwork. Are there upgrade options? Of course! But they are also forthcoming about those special touches as well. In fact, they’re so open about the pricing, they have it adhered to the walls as part of the décor.
Anyhow, back to the frame- they have a color for every taste! Some of them require upgrades as well, but they have a great variety of “base” frames that are sure to match any home. Every frame is custom built for the artwork, so we made those size decisions as well. As we planned out the frame, my consultant was taking notes on their iPad to send a confirmation with a digital mockup so there is no confusion about what the final product will look like.
Aside from the transparent pricing, my favorite aspect of Framebridge was a big hang-up I had about using an Internet framing company- shipping. Yes, you can ship your artwork to them and they will send it back (beautifully and carefully packaged, I might add) via a shipper like UPS. However, if you bring your piece into their store and elect to pick up in store as well, Framebridge has their own private courier service to ensure that everything is handled with care. I love this! Sending away artwork or memorabilia requires a level of trust and I would argue Framebridge does not take that for granted.
Two weeks later, my Oystercatcher print came back and looks even better than I could have imagined! Bonus: it’s wired on the back so it’s a cinch to hang. Of course, I forgot to take a photo of it in its new home, but here I am with the final product in store:
Thank you to Framebridge for making me an honorary “influencer” for a day! They did not pay me to write this blog post nor influence the contents of it in any way. However, in the spirit of full-disclosure, they did cover the cost of the framing. Now that I’ve gotten art professionally framed, I may never go back to my DIY way . . .
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1. exit343design has discontinued the "booze bag" line of products.
Booze bags have always been a labor of love. If there's anything I adore, it's an easy and thoughtful gift! IMHO, these hand-printed gift bags are the perfect way to jazz up all sorts of bottles - wine, booze, beer, olive oil, whatever. With 48 different designs, there is no shortage of choices to select from!
Full transparency: the number one issue from the start has been the price. The blank bags cost about the same as a full-size shopper tote bag with the same production time. However, gift packaging is an industry packed with low-price bags, wrap, tags, etc- it is difficult to compete!
The time has come to sunset this product line for now. All booze bags have been marked down on final sale and are as supplies last. You can shop the remaining stock here- each listing has been updated to reflect exactly how many are remaining.
2. exit343design is transitioning select greeting cards designs to be digitally printed.
Oof, this decision was a doozy to make! The act of printing is one of my favorite parts of making. Often, when printing a first edition of greeting cards, I'm figuring out the ink and paper colors in studio for a more hands-on approach. I love this part of the process!
The part that I don't love? Being a production printer so that I'm reprinting designs over and over again until it starts eating into the time I would otherwise dedicate to other aspects of exit343design.
This time suck, combined with rising supply prices (looking at you, print paper prices up 30%), and a positive customer reaction to more colorful greeting cards, has led me to this point. I am still figuring out how this change will look, but in general it means this:
For as tough and personal as this decision feels, I know it will be the best for my sanity and for my customers needs. It will keep the price even and free up time for me to design new (more colorful!) work.
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2020, what a year. Even though it currently feels like we are living in 2020-two-point-oh, I still want to take time to recognize one great aspect from last year: all of the donations made possible by YOU, exit343design’s rad customers!
PAWS Philly: ICYMI, ever since I introduced vinyl stickers into my line in 2018, I committed to donating 5% of all their sales to a local animal welfare organization. I do this when I file my sales tax, so it can occur quarterly or twice a year. Today, I donated for the final quarter of 2020 a total of $158.03, bringing 2020’s TOTAL donation to PAWS to $288.06! We blew the $200 goal right out of the water- thank you so much!
Want to contribute to 2021’s donation amount? Shop vinyl stickers right here!
2. SHARE Food Program: Early in COVID times, I wanted to find a local food bank that was helping to feed children while they were out of school. Through some Googling, SHARE Food Program stood out to me because they help folks in both Philadelphia and Montgomery counties! Back in April, I ran a promo where I donated the profits from greeting card sales to the organization. I decided to fundraise for them again in the back half of 2020 by donating 25% of the sales made on my website over Black Friday weekend and WOW did you guys show up to help! Because of your purchases, I just sent in a donation of $534.48!!! That brings the total 2020 donation to SHARE up to $1071.98. WHAT! AMAZING!
Before I continue, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the “in memory” portion of these donations. When I have filed donations previously, I have left that field blank. However, this time, it felt necessary to add a name as a small gesture of remembrance; in December of 2020, my husband’s family lost a great man to COVID-19. Michael was just a nice guy who loved to laugh and chat about his quirky interests. Family was so important to him and we saw him at every extended family function, including our wedding. In his early 60’s and in good health, he is one of thousands of people whose lives ended far too soon. While a phrase on a donation form does nothing to fill the void left by his absence, it is nice to know that his name will be recognized in this small way.
3. Campaign Zero: Remember George Floyd? If you don’t recognize that name, it’s time to crawl out from the rock you’ve been living under. In June, I held a raffle fundraiser to raise money for Campaign Zero. The organization is focused on police reform that promotes equality. I never tallied how many raffle tickets I sold (whoops) but I CAN tell you that the donation totaled $620- incredible!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news: just because its now 2021, we can’t pretend that 2020 didn’t happen. While there are many issues that are in continued need to be addressed, today’s blog post has a singular focus: the United States Postal Service.
As a small business owner for over a decade, the USPS has been my “frenemy” for just as long. I get excited for new stamp releases, have had great working relationships with local postal employees, and genuinely believe that the USPS provides an important and equitable service to every citizen in the United States.
On the other hand, I have never seen an organization/business care so little about the customer service it provides. Yes, it is impressive that such a network of mail delivery exists for an affordable price. But citizens and businesses pay money for the USPS to make these deliveries- and if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain? Oh well, the USPS bears no responsibility and owes you no compensation for not completing the job you paid them to do.
In years prior, I’ve had orders go missing or be damaged, but never at the volume that I saw during holiday 2020. Exit343design had 100+ orders simply stuck with zero recourse. Stuck. All I want to do as a business owner is provide great products and service for my customers. How can I do that if the shipper I pay to do the job they promised rescinds the promise after my package is already in their system?
With the combination of Louis DeJoy, the pandemic, the election, and the holiday season, the cracks within the Postal System were exposed for all to see. I am here to say that these cracks will not be repaired if we, the people of the United States of America, don’t petition our elected officials to do something. If the USPS continues to exist as is, these cracks will continue to grow and there will be repercussions.
[ scroll to the end of this post for a simple letter to send to YOUR state government! ]
We need mail for voting and things like shipping medications, filing taxes, etc
Small business relies on the USPS to stay competitive against behemoths like Amazon, etc.
The USPS is the one way we can connect with every person in the country. Unless Congress is willing to fund free Internet for everyone as a replacement, the USPS needs to continue.
The USPS is an accessible and stable job option for those at all education levels.
For decades, the USPS operated as a subsidized government service. At least 25% of its operating expenses came from government appropriation. The structure of the USPS was built to provide its service to the entire country, not be a money-making machine.
In 1970, Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act, allowing for Postal unions to get full collective bargaining rights. However, with those rights, Congress decided that the “US Postal Department” would no longer be part of the Executive branch of the US; rather, it would be expected to perform all the same duties (delivery to EVERY address, 6 days a week), but as the Postal Service with expectations that it would run like a business. But oh, if you want to raise rates on anything, add a new service, or close a post office, you would need permission from Congress first. Huh?
For years, this appeared to work. Then, along came the Internet in the early aughts. Postmaster John Potter saw the value in packages over letters and petitioned to let the USPS set their own package prices. In 2006, he got his wish in a new set of postal reforms- with two important caveats. One, the first class mail rate (the product with the best margins for the USPS) couldn’t increase past the rate of inflation. Second, (and this is a big one): the USPS had to pre-pay for the cost of its retirement health benefits for a full decade. So the USPS is expected to act like a business, but it can’t grow its most profitable product line AND it has to pre-pay a decade’s worth of debt?! That sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy . . . except the Postal Service legally cannot do such a thing.
The hosts of NPR’s Planet Money put it best: a solution can only come from the one place that started the problem in the first place: CONGRESS. It’s worth noting that two of the politicians responsible for this mess are still in office: Representative Danny K David of Illinois and Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
Sources: This episode of NPR’s Planet Money, this article from Barron’s, and some light Wikipedia-ing.
I’ve drafted a simple message to copy, paste, and send to the elected official in your state. I hope that you take the time to share and let your voice be heard by those chosen to represent YOU.
Use this tool to contact your State Representative and this tool to contact your State Senators.
Dear [Representative/Senator] ____________:
One of the many important issues that the COVID-19 crisis has exposed is the need for reform for the United States Postal Service. While 2006’s Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act and 1970’s Postal Reorganization Act may have seemed appropriate at their respective times, these two pieces of legislation have only hindered the ability of the USPS as we know it to uphold the level of service it was built to provide.
Everyday citizens, your constituents, suffer when the USPS is expected to operate as a business but is run as a government entity. It’s a messy situation to which there seem to be no winners.
The fact is that any solution to reform the USPS must come from the same place that created the problem in the first place: Congress. I implore you to consider United State Postal Service reform an important and bipartisan issue going forward. It is a public service for every citizen, while playing a critical role in contemporary small business, voting, paying taxes, and so much more.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
[ your name here ]
Earlier this year, when I realized that I would not be doing any live events with exit343design, it was time to look inward. How could I serve my customers in the best way possible through my website? I realized it was time to get serious about offering gift wrap options for customers of exit343design.
I quietly added the options to my site a few weeks ago, but wanted to make sure to get the word out before the holiday season officially commences! Scroll down for the low-down . . .
AVAILABLE GIFT WRAP OPTIONS:
Two colors: Orange (year-round and gender-neutral) or ice blue (year-round or non-denominational for holiday gifting)
Two sizes in each color: Small is great for greeting cards, stickers, etc. Large is perfect for a baby bodysuit, dog bandanna, or a small art print.
Four gift sticker options: add one of my cheeky gift stickers or simply opt for plain washi tape!
All of these options fit nicely within my standard shipping packaging. Whether you choose to upgrade to gift wrap or not, I always take the time to write out your gift message by hand to add a personal touch!
Hello! Just popping in today to say I made the 3rd donation of 2020 to Philly PAWS! 5% of ALL sticker sales get donated to this Philadelphia non-profit focused on making the city a kill-free place. Today’s donation was made through their Mutt Strut call- it is being matched on the back end, very exciting!
Thank you to my awesome customers for enabling exit343design to make a $67.65 donation to PAWS. This brings the 2020 total donation up to $130.03- a tremendous amount, just from little stickers! Can we get to $200 by the time the year is out??? Only time will tell!
Hellooo fall! This post is rounding up some of my favorite new designs for the 2020 fall season by exit343design. Featuring greeting cards, stickers, tote bags, and prints, there is sure to be something for just about anyone on your list! Click through each photo to purchase or simply head to the online shop below:
This post is celebrating cards that can be used specifically for a baby shower, as in “pre-baby arrival” cards. Some are serious, some are sentimental, some are snarky, but they’re all appropriate for your next baby shower! I love pairing these with functional items like organic baby bath soap or a box of diapers, the things that sometimes get missed at a shower. If you want to add a little fun for mom or dad, check out my baby themed booze bags, too!
How have I not yet featured Joy & Polly’s wedding paper on my blog?! This hulk of a wedding suite marks the first time I got to work with clients who didn’t start out as friends. But, after months of going through the whole process, I think I can say we are friends now! Joy and Polly are still huge champions of my work and I so appreciate their continued support. It only seemed fitting to post this on their wedding anniversary- have a great day, you two!
Joy and Polly came my way through the awesome Lovesick Philly wedding expo I used to vend at. You might remember that I met George & Mark this way, as well as Sharon & Jon! It was SUCH a unique and awesome event, I miss it! But I digress . . .
After some emails, we met up at St. Benjamin’s Brewing Co (RIP!) the April before their big day to share in some craft beer and brainstorming. They wanted to run with the theme of their music-slash-wedding-venue, but combine it with a few of their favorite things. The result: a custom pattern incorporating said favorite things, layered with a record sleeve invitation suite to scale.
I enlisted the expertise of the Mama’s Sauce Print Company to handle the printing of the physical “record” which acted as the main invitation. It is a two-color letterpress & diecut circle, modeled after an actual 7” record. I love the thick, luxurious paper that they used for these 45’s!
For the record sleeve, I purchased kraft brown 45 sleeves and printed the custom pattern on the front. On the back, I printed the “track listing” on French Paper’s Madero Beach, then affixed the square paper to the 45 sleeve. Joy & Polly did a tremendous job putting together a custom playlist and the verbiage for the “track listing” - aka, all the information about their big day!
The RSVP card was of course musically themed as well. We brought the custom pattern into drink coasters for the big day, as well the table numbers. One of my favorite details: tiny stickers with a custom drawing of their dog Tango. These stickers came with the mailed invitation suite. I borrowed this idea for my own wedding a year later :)
Alas, no music venue wedding is complete without a concert poster for the wedding:
The duo had spent some time in Nashville and had a fondness for the style of Hatch Show Print (can you see why we stayed in touch after the fact?) which I was thrilled about! While I do not know how to letterpress, I do love a good poster print and was able to emulate the letterpress style and texture with screenprinting. These posters hung throughout the venue on the wedding day!
To round it all out, we worked together on a custom thank you card that they sent to their wedding guests:
Oh, did I mention I put together a marquee image for them too? SO cool to see it at The Fillmore! I also worked with Polly to create a custom belt for her to wear at the wedding. When you work with an independent stationer like myself, these are the details we can help you with- sorry not sorry, Minted!
To this day, this suite remains one of the most creatively fulfilling custom projects I’ve worked on. Are you interested in working with me for your custom wedding suite? I do have limited availability, but feel free to email me if you’re in the market to customize your wedding!
]]>Shop hand-printed housewarming cards & congratulations cards from exit343design right here.
]]>Here at exit343design, the environment and keeping it clean is important. I use water-based inks which are non-toxic, print in small batches to reduce fabric waste, and recycle every scrap of paper I can.
Earlier this year, I ordered a product from another maker and it came with the above enclosed postcard. I had never heard of Eco-enclose before and went to check them out!
If you’re on the lookout for environmentally friendlier packaging and shipping solutions, I encourage you check them out! This is not a sponsored post at all, just an endorsement to vote with your dollars! You can even order free samples of select items to give them for a spin before buying. One item that I am excited to try out is their paper tape.
All of this is to say that exit343design has made the switch to recyclable shipping materials (with the exception of some packing tape if needed). I am shipping orders in the recycled poly mailer that comes with a 2nd adhesive strip to use a second time before recycling. Cards and stickers are shipping in flat cardboard mailers that are made with post-consumer materials and are fully recyclable. Wholesale orders ship in recycled cardboard boxes.
The next challenge is to transition all packaging into recyclable materials. If you have any ideas for recyclable, retail-ready packaging, I’d love to hear them below!
]]>Recently, my husband and I were talking about the notion of work/life balance. He is going on 4+ months of working from home due to the global outbreak of COVID-19. While he actually enjoys it most of the time, it does not come without challenges: his former commute time has been swallowed up by work, his ears hurt most days after hours of phone-calls with Bluetooth earbuds, and turning “off” from work is more difficult than it ever was before.
I have been watching from the sidelines and trying to encourage a better balance for his health and happiness. I am no expert. But, as a solopreneur who has been working from home for a few years, I do have a basic grip on what healthy habits should look like.
I know that there are many professionals working from home these days and the end is nowhere in sight. In doing some additional research for this post, I found that much information from the early days in COVID-19 wasn’t totally geared towards a long-term shift from office life. If you are still struggling with working from home, you are not alone!
To me, work/life balance is about working more efficiently to allow for more life to happen. Read on for strategies to get that work done more efficiently and help control overwhelm to help achieve a better balance.
The spaces that you inhabit have more of a psychological effect than you realize. I’ll never forget this lesson I learned in a psych class wayyy back in high school: do not study in your bedroom. Your bedroom is for rest and relaxation; your brain has been conditioned to subconsciously know that. For better study results, use another room in the house.
The same applies with work: carve out a physical space in your home that can be set up for exclusively for work. Not everyone has a home office and that is okay- as long as the space is your designated work space. Set it up once and it is there for you when you need it. You want to train your subconscious so that when you’re in that physical space, you are getting work done. You are also signaling to other members of your household that when you’re in that space, you are doing work and are not to be bothered.
Bonus tip: Noise-cancelling headphones. Or honestly, cheap foam earplugs work, too. Distractions are plentiful at home. Numbing the noise really helps me.
This is a classic phrase in business when related to sales and profit margins. But what about time- do you know the numbers of how you spend your time? I listened to this podcast episode from The Product Boss last year and it totally blew my mind. This is the premise:
You quite literally only have so many hours in a week: 168 hours to be exact. What is your goal for utilizing that time? How are you actually utilizing that time? Do a deep dive into your “time numbers” and create what the hosts call a “time budget.” The idea borrows from what’s known as an envelope budget, a financial plan your parents likely used at one point.
How do you gather these numbers? Be honest with yourself! Or, enlist the help of a time tracker. Clockify has been recommended to me, but there are other things like Chrome extensions and apps that work with SAS’s like Slack and Asana. Even if you don’t do the math below, simply tracking your time for a week is sure to be eye-opening!
Start with the max 168 hours and work backward with what your current week looks like. Here’s an example I created:
That SHOULD mean I have 4.4 hours each day free. Be honest with yourself about where that time is going. If you wanted to go further, you could run the numbers of what you WISHED your week looked like. Then, compare both data sets and brainstorm ways to save time: ordering groceries ahead of time, finding a gym that is closer to home, batching work projects (I’ll talk about that later), etc. Small efficiencies add up!
This example is just taking a wide angle view of your week- what about examining your work day? Which leads me right into the next section . . .
It’s a fact: humans thrive with structure. One thing that working from home lacks is exactly that- structure. If you don’t create one for yourself, no one is going to do it for you. I love this quote from the book Essentialism that says, “If you don’t fill your time, someone else will.” So true, right?
What you may not realize is that “someone” could be also be yourself. Studies show that if you allow yourself all the time to complete a task, you will extend the task to fill that allotted time. How do you combat this issue and take back your time? Scheduling!
Time-blocking is one scheduling method that has helped me tremendously. This year, I purchased a Passion Planner with blanks for every 30 minutes in the day. I plan out my days in 30 minute chunks and it allows me to visually see how much time I have available to fill each day. You don’t need a fancy planner to get started! Build your own in Google calendar on the “day” view or use a printable template from Etsy. Doing this has made me more cognizant of how long tasks take, and in turn, has made my to-do lists more manageable. It’s forced me to be realistic about what I can actually accomplish in a day.
Batching tasks is a popular idea in entrepreneurship circles. This means doing all of a certain kind of task at once. For example, rather than calling customers and vendors randomly throughout the week, spend one morning each week making all the calls back-to-back. It will allow you to get in to a rhythm and likely save you time. Other people accomplish this with “themed” days- Tuesdays are for content creation, Wednesdays are for marketing, Fridays are for financials, that kind of thing. Think about the repetitive tasks in your workweek- is there a way to group them together and knock it all out at once?
Pay attention to your bodily rhythms and habits- then use them to your advantage. Some people refer to it as your “zone of genius”- when you are able to relax and get into the “zone” of the work you’re trying to do. For me, I’ve noticed that I’m better at reading and writing in the morning. I spend that time working IN my business. After lunch, I work ON my business, doing more repetitive tasks that don’t need the same level of brain power. I find that I’m most creative in the evenings, so I save any brainstorming until that time. What times of the day do you crush it and when do you struggle? Schedule your work accordingly to maximize efficiency.
If you are concerned about not having enough time for yourself or your loved ones, SCHEDULE IT. Make it intentional, so when you go back to work, you know that you spent your time off doing what you love and feel no guilt. If it’s in your schedule, you have to do it, right? Down time is important for your brain and your body to recharge.
The close sibling of structure, establishing boundaries is more about communicating to the outside world what your structure is.
Turn off email notifications on your phone and your computer. There are plenty of studies showing how they cause stress, anxiety, and cloud focus. YOU ARE NOT DOING YOUR BEST WORK WHEN NOTIFICATIONS OF ANY KIND ARE INTERRUPTING. I’m not saying ignore your email entirely- just be intentional about when you are checking it. A good rule of thumb is to check 3x a day- once early on, once mid-day, and once shortly before the end of the work day. That is it. Close out of email and don’t touch it until your scheduled time to do so. It will ALL be there for you waiting, I promise.
To piggyback on this, I find scheduling outgoing emails to be helpful as well. Gmail allows you to do this now, too! Say your email “zone of genius” is after work hours, like 8pm. Okay, no problem- use that scheduled time to bang out those emails. But rather than hitting “send” right away, schedule your email to send itself the following day, within work hours. Why? This sends the message that you are not available for others to contact outside of work hours. But, you’re still getting efficient work done on your own terms.
Communicate about your communication. Huh? If you’re having a hard time turning off your notifications, this might be a harder pill to swallow. But allow me to offer an example: a colleague in my industry has an auto-responder for her work email: “Thank you for your message! I respond to my email on Tuesdays and Thursdays, between the hours of 9am-11am EST. I look forward to serving you and thank you for your patience.” What? Email two days a week? That sounds like a dream! This is her batching work AND communicating to customers that her time is precious, but they will receive it in due time.
Only 2 days of email likely won’t work in an office setting, but what about an auto-responder for when you’re in the middle of a big project and can’t have interruptions? Or an auto-responder to establish daily “office hours” for your team? You’re never saying “no,” you’re just saying “not right now.” People hate to hear the word no, but they will almost always happily accept an alternative if offered.
First and foremost, know that small, incremental changes are more sustainable in the long-term than huge, sweeping ones. If you’re reading this post and try to implement ALL the things at one time, don’t be surprised if you fail. Charles Duhigg, in his book “The Power of Habit” equates this idea to dieting; which is more realistic, saying that you want to lose 50 lbs or that you will start taking the stairs in lieu of elevators? Start small, but start somewhere!
Also, know that work/life balance is exactly that: a balance. It is not realistic to expect that every day is a 50/50 split of each. In fact, if you go back to the “knowing your numbers” section and do the math, you’ll see that it is physically impossible! You have to give yourself grace. Some days you are going to crush at work, but life takes a backseat. Other days, your life has to take priority and THAT IS OKAY. Again, to me, work/life balance is about creating structures to work more efficiently in order for more life to happen. We only get this one life, so let’s live it as much as possible!
Recommended reading:
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
How to Get Away by Jon Staff and Pete Davis
168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam
Recommended listening:
“How to Actually Enjoy Working From Home” by How To!
“Dealing with Overwhelm: Creating a Time Budget” by The Product Boss
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