e.m.papers

As usual - my eyes are bigger than my stomach. I need to stay focused on my goals for product development, but there is so much going on with Etsy right now, that I can't ignore it. For starters the Etsy Germany Street team is shaping up nicely, there has been a lot of interest and people are stepping up to play different roles. I'm hoping to meet some of the members face to face this Wednesday for the Etsy Munich meet-up and even more for the Etsy Germany opening party in Berlin. On top of that next week Etsy will be having a 'Euro Week' highlighting European sellers and all things Euro, so I'm guessing our team will need to step our blog posting game.

Above is a pic of some sketches for Easter products I'm working on...

I got my business cards from Moo cards yesterday. They turned out better than expected. I had been putting this off for awhile, but now with all the Etsy events coming up it was time to get it done.

It was a bright spot in the midst of my current content-migration hell. We are in the last stretch of getting the new Joomla based store live, so I can FINALLY get off  my lame-o and overpriced Yahoo! (it should be Yahoo!$@#?*&) store platform, and it is KILLING me. I am not good with finishing. I like getting things started, and being all pumped with big ideas, but when it comes to the tedium and minutiae of getting things over the finish line, crossing every little 't' and dotting every little 'i',  I just want to take a big nap. There are so many little details that pop up in the process: like fixing the ugly off-the-shelf-icons in the checkout process, mapping all the old URLs to the new ones for the 301 redirect file so I don't lose any of my just-barely-there Google rankings, writing new product copy that is more keyword dense but doesn't sound like it's generated by a machine, ugh-BORING!  When is the part when I get to design fun stuff again?

I have to give my husband props though. He is a real champ, he comes home from his day job, and then after dinner, starts his second shift making all the CSS changes and working with the ISP to make sure the domain gets transferred, not to mention kindly putting up with his grumpy, impatient wife!

I had sort of a frustrating day today. I felt inspired this morning to start designing some Valentine cards. Although the printable valentine cards I have on offer right now are selling at a comfortable clip - especially this very simple typography driven valentine card (which I thought was totally dumb when I designed it!) - the line definitely needs to be updated. Unfortunately I found my inspiration turn to frustration when nothing seemed to gel right away. As you can see I'm stuck on the robin-egg blue and red theme. These colors have turned me on for awhile now, and I've been meaning to use them together for sometime, but beyond that, I got nothin'.  I'll keep plugging away until something clicks. I like to finish the day with a sense of productivity and accomplishment, but I guess that can't always happen and that too is part of the process.

On a side note, one thing that was good today was that I totally abandoned my Getting Things Done - style calendar plan. I use a productivity method that I swear by (based on GTD), but it can sometimes be oppresive. One of the things I'm experimenting with during this leave from my day job, is striking while the inspiration iron is hot and not being a slave to my pre-planned, objective-aligned daily schedule.

My best friend's uncle - who I really like - sent me an email this morning asking me about e.m.papers (how it's going, how I got it started, etc.) I wrote him a very long email and in the process answered a question which I have been half-consciously, very quietly asking myself over the last few months: "Why Am I doing This?" Here, I found out, is the answer:

I started out thinking it would be easy; I would throw a site up and ‘ta-da! - watch the money roll in!’ This has obviously not happened, but I subsequently found that I LOVE it – which ultimately is the only reason to do anything. I love the internet, I love the incredible social media tools that are now available to everyday people,  I love online marketing, I love seeing my efforts result in sales, I love the ‘indie’ thing and I  have found that I am, in my heart, an entrepreneur. While I would have no objections to this making a me a shitload of money one day, I am also just really happy to have a means to escape corporate America (or at least try) which I increasingly detest (paycheck is nice though) or at the very least make a little money on the side, and finally and most importantly, to be creative on my own terms.

I already feel like I'm late getting ready for Christmas and the winter holidays. I just printed out all of my printable christmas cards and still have to print out the printable holiday cards. Then I've got to make them, photograph them, upload them to Flickr and promote them. Never mind sending out all my own christmas cards! I'm tired already.

Generally, you can use any kind of paper to print printables, but it does depend on the type of card and how 'fancy' you want your printable card, inviation or paper good to turn out.  Below are some guidelines. I use 5 types of paper for printing printables:




Regular ol' printer paper - All product plugging aside, the 'fold only' line of e.m.papers printables were pretty much designed to use with regular weight printer paper.

Plain stationery Paper - If you want your 'fold only' printable to look a bit more spiffy you can also use plain stationery paper, the kind you can buy by the (small) box and would print out a resume on. You  can get usually get this type of paper at a stationery or office supply store. I'm a 'quick and dirty' kind of gal, so I always keep a box of this type of paper around around. The ability to print out a nice card, fold it, sign it and stick it in an envelope 4 minutes before we leave for a birthday party is a convenience I'm starting to become heavily reliant on.

Custom stationery paper - Fancy 'pay by the sheet paper'. The kind of paper, is similar in weight to regular printer paper but found in stationery, craft and art supply stores. Usually in unique colors or treatments such as slight transparency (e.g.vellum). You can do a lot of cool stuff with this paper, however it's not cheap. My rule of thumb is to purchase a sheet or two, experiment to see how it works and then purchase more if I like the results. Below is an example of a really nice ivory colored, richly textured custom paper I purchased to make an wedding anniversary card for my (soon to be) in-laws. I was really pleased with the results (this is now the basis design for one of our 'Monogram' printable wedding invitation set):

Card stock - This works best for paper good that you want to have a little stiffness and weight (cut and fold greeting cards, birthday cards, postcards bookmarks, recipe cards, etc.) There are a multitude of card stocks available anywhere between 60-127 lb. weights. The thickness increases with the pound size. How well each one works depends on your printer. In spite of the fact that I'm running a printable business, I actually use a really old HP Deskjet 960c that I work to death. It handles 110lb card stock without a problem. This weight works really well for greeting cards and is about the thickness of a report cover or business card. Depending on the brand/type, card stock does seem to suck up a lot of ink, I'm still experimenting with finding the best brand.

Photopaper - This can be a great choice especially when printing cards with large fields of color. Colors appear more vibrant and smooth. The same rule regarding paper weight (higher the pound number, the thicker the paper) applies. Below are two examples of our 'SF Valentine' card, one on photo paper, the second on regular card stock.