Bright yellow is a color that has really grown on me lately. Our You're the Best card pairs well with LAYERxlayer's hand-printed Micro Dot Pouch (sold on Of a Kind). Shop the card here.
Happy first day of November! I'm finalizing all of my preparations for the Dallas Flea, my first holiday show of the season, and taking a lot of steps to get ready for the holiday rush. I can't believe it's already November! Here's a few of my favorites this week:
DESIGN // I stumbled upon the work of Elvis Swift this week. I love his beautiful and whimsical line work.
READ // After taking my first calligraphy class this week with Blue Eye Brown Eye, I enjoyed this interview with Bailey Amon of Antiquaria.
SMALL BUSINESS // Rena Tom on "What is the distance between hand and machine?"
LISTEN // Dawes' Hey Lover has been stuck in my head all week!
WATCH // The New York Subway Experiment made me smile!
I'm so excited about our first holiday market of the season, The Dallas Flea! The Dallas Flea will be taking place this Saturday, November 2, from 9:00am to 4:00pm at the Southside on Lamar. Happy Cactus Designs will have plenty of holiday cards and gift tags, along with our hand-painted porcelain trees, boxed notes, and other goodies that make great holiday gifts! If you are in the Dallas area, I hope to see you there!
I love our Thank You Pastel Flowers card alongside Lela Rose's floral print shift dress. The purple flowers really pop in both pieces. You can shop the thank you card here.
What a busy week! The final touches were put on our new custom lookbook of personalized designs and I'm busy prepping for upcoming holiday shows. Here's my favorite finds this week:
DESIGNS / Amazing video of Glen Weisgerber doing a hand-lettering demonstration. What an amazing talent!
EYE CANDY / Love Urbanic Paper's tutorial on making a fall plume wreath.
SMALL BUSINESS / Anthropologie is the lastest company to sever ties with Cody Foster, the company that was repeatedly ripping off independent artists for years. Read this in-depth article about what has transpired here.
READ / Great article by Maxwell Tielman on Design Sponge, "The Pinnable Life: What Do Your Pins Say About You?"
WATCH / Greatly anticipating Wes Anderson's new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel!
LISTEN / I've hopped on the Lorde bandwagon. Can't stop listening to Pure Heroine.
Posting photographs on your business' Facebook page is a great way to attract customers and share products. The tricky part is knowing what size photos work best on the site. I've pulled together a quick list of all of the various photo sizes for posting and sharing images on Facebook. Here's a cheat sheet to help you out!
COVER PHOTO: Displayed at 815 pixels by 315 pixels. You can upload a photo double that size (1702 pixels by 630 pixels) for better quality and Facebook will resize it. Facebook lets you have up to 20% of the photo have text in it. Read more about the do's and don'ts of cover photos here.
PROFILE PHOTO: Displayed at 180 pixels by 180 pixels. If you upload a rectangular image, it will be cropped on the sides so it fits to the square shape. It's important to remember that your profile image will be seen around Facebook - on pages you like or common on and in your fans' newsfeeds, so make it eye-catching!
PHOTO ALBUMS: Displayed at 960 pixels by 720 pixels up to the maximum upload size of 2048 pixels by 2048 pixels. When you upload photos to an album, check the "high quality" photos box so you are posting the highest resolution photos to your page.
TIMELINE PHOTOS: Displayed at 403 pixels by 403 pixels. Keep in mind that if you have rectangular images, it will only display the center of the image, so keep the most important content of the photo in the center.
APP ICONS: Displayed at 111 pixels by 74 pixels. I recently designed custom icons for the Twitter, Newsletter, and Shopping apps on my Facebook page which makes my page more cohesive and pleasing to the eye. Here's an easy tutorial for creating your own icons.
Read more small business posts about using Facebook here.
The U.S. Postal Service has unveiled their new stamps for the 2013 holiday season and they are pretty great! They also have a great website featuring the stories behind the new stamps. Did you know the first holiday stamp was released in 1962? Here are my favorites from the new releases:
This week "Pairs Well With..." post features my current favorite thank you card - the Thank You Triangles card that uses a pattern of navy and black hand-drawn triangles. It pairs so well with this print from Barnett Newman, one of the foremost Color Field painters. Shop the thank you card here.
House Industries Monohara Ceramic Collection from Hasami
What a wild and fun weeks it's been. Here are a few of my favorite finds this week:
DESIGN / The smallest print company. Teeny weeny letterpress!
READ / Sarah Schwartz, editor of Stationery Trends and the new blog The Paper Chronicles, shares a note I recently sent to her. She welcomes you to write to her, too!
EYE CANDY / House Industries Monohara Ceramic Collection from Hasami is to die for. Fabulous branding and equally eye-catching designs.
SMALL BUSINESS / Good tips on Pinterest marketing.
LISTEN / Loving The Head and the Heart's new album Let's Be Still.
I've always enjoyed running for exercise and fun, and now that the weather has finally cooled down here in Austin my runs are getting longer. I'm trying to push myself to keep a consistent pace and run a little farther each time. When I think I can't go any farther or any faster, I repeat to myself: just keep going. Here's a hand-lettered version of my new little mantra.
Excited to share that one of our brand new Christmas cards is featured in the latest issue of Stationery Trends magazine.
