Voting Has Begun!

So remember when I was all stressed out getting the holiday card ready in time? Well in the half an hour I had left I made ANOTHER one after that. The little girl in the other photo was just too frickin' cute to pass up.
I had a bell quote floating around my head and I went with "The bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe" from the Polar Express but after it was posted I remembered the one I REALLY wanted to use "All that the children could hear was the ringing of bells" from Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales (which his read of is just about my favorite thing to listen to around Christmas despite the fact it's about 20 minutes long).

But voting is open so please please please go vote for the one above or the one below:

You can click on the images to get to their pages on Minted.com!

HOLY CRAP!

Ahhhh so I knew minted was doing a ginormous xmas card design and I kept MEANING to enter but with the whole losing of the job (did I mention this before- meh- it's depressing- we don't need to dwell) I've been busy trying to both get the new The Future Mrs. Darcy site up as well as find some new freelance clients. This weekend I decided I should really enter and I knew the deadline was Monday so I'll work on it all day Monday and voila! So imagine me strolling upstairs to the office after the dog's been fed and whatnot, thinking about some breakfast and tea for myself, and casually replying to some facebook comments, then FINALLY head over to the Minted site only to realize the deadline is 9am pacific. Which- HOLY CRAP- sends me into a tail spin. PACIFIC?!? Think think think. When is pacific time?! Crap crap. So it's now 9am and by my calculations it needs to be in by either 12. Frantic frantic frantic type type type design design design. Fast forward an hour and a half and-- though I still have low grade adrenaline rush and my hands are both clammy AND shaking it's been uploaded!!
Back up to this past weekend where my last pairs of flip flops and more of our couch were half destroyed by the little pup and -- light bulb-- we have an idea. The only issue was I really expected the images to be of older kids. All the families were of a Mom, Dad and wee baby. Maybe it's just my family but all the Christmas cards we get are of various school age children and/or pets so I had to adjust and use our pup. Whew!

Anyway, as always, if it doesn't win, in 90 days I can sell it myself AND as a matter of fact, putting up all old minted non-winners onto etsy and hopefully the new site is one of my goals for this week! But hopefully it'll just win. :)

And NOW I think I'll get some of that food and tea I was thinking about 2 hours ago.

Minted Contest!

As promised here is the graduation party invite I've been working on for the latest Minted contest:
I think it's a little more Urban Outfitters than the rest so I'm excited......buuuuut since it IS going off in a little more of a different direction I'm thinking I'll wait to post it until the submission date gets closer. Or I'll say "screw it" and post it later on today so I can forget about it for awhile since I'm already throwing it out in the world now. It's about 50/50 shot.

Also in the news- I bought a new hat. This is not the most flattering photo but I was mid-thought whether I should choose the LEAST expensive wine or the SECOND least expensive wine to not seem so cheap (I bought both instead! Choosing is overrated.)

(image by Modern Toile photography [link to come!])

And new Earth Day inspired news is that we've joined Boston Organics. I'm not sure if places like this are everywhere yet but I'm sure they will be soon. We've signed up for the cheapest 1/2 fruit 1/2 veggies every other week plans so every other Friday a box of delicious goodies show up at our door. It's like a cross between being in a cooking show and being rich (I pretend a magical butler picks the food and leaves it for us)

(image from farmfresh.org)

We ate kale the other night. KALE, people! I had a kiwi for desert the previous night instead of a Reese's peanut butter cup egg leftover from Easter. I think the plan tonight is to roast up the zucchini and potatoes on the grill since it's getting nicer. Hm, come to think of it, if anyone knows if you CAN grill zucchini and/or potatoes with good results-let me know that as well.

Minted

Hey-there hi-there ho-there!

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Every Second Counts birthday card is now available at Minted.com. You can get to it by clicking here.

Here's a little reminder of what it looks like:

They're also having a new "Baby Shower" invite for

Modern moms-to-be and their friends search high and low for baby shower invitations that say "fun and modern", not "cutesy".

Yeah... I think I can do not "cutesy". :) I just submitted this one which I'm calling "For Apatow" (as in Judd Apatow, of Knocked Up, 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad and many other examples of awesomeness)
So as you can see it's roughly a billion times less cutesy than most baby shower invites but it's for people who are pregnant and - shocker - have a sense of humor and I think a lot of times we forget the two can overlap.

Lastly, and I hate to mention this, let me know if you see a boob instead of a belly in the design. I think it funny (don't ask my why) that babies can pop out their mom's belly buttons and I really liked how the "p" in "knocked up" just fit right in but it's a belly not a boob. :)

One Last

So I got my dates confused and the Minted contest lasted until SATURDAY, not Friday as I originally thought, so I made another one.

It's a little... drier but I think people dig that probably more than the outlandish stuff so who knows? Ha, now watch this one win!

Anyway, I thought a little vespa would be fun.

I think it's a pretty good lot all of them together. The contest was fun and hopefully will pay off in the end but I've learned that people make a TON of these, I think just to throw them all at the wall and see what sticks in some cases. Also I've learned to not post them until the last possible second. Later in the same day I posted the one with the red and green airmail stripes (the first of the previous post) someone else posted 2 new designs air mail stripes. Now, I'm not saying I invented the concept of air mail 50 or so years before my birth somehow but I make mine and then there's a knock off an hour later? I know it seems silly and trivial but that design is the one I'm most pleased with how it came out and to see someone pony off of it makes me feel mine is less worth while for some reason.

Anyway- end rant. I'll let you know when voting begins.

Minted Contest!

Hey everyone! I'm not sure if you've heard of Minted or it's great contests but I finally remembered to check back there and have been gung-ho about their new Thank You card contest. I thought I went a little crazy with 7 designs until I saw most of the other designers whose designs I like submitted more like 17, 18, or HOLY CRAPOLLA 33 designs. WOW completely wished I'd checked those stats out before the last day you're allowed to submit! I would have done my super Vespa idea.

Anyway now's the part where I beg you to go to Minted and vote for my designs. Yeah I won't even beat around the bush with that. Please vote for me. :)

Here's what you're looking for:






And if any of these win then you can buy them on Minted's site!!!! YAY!!! And if the don't win, I'll sell the ones I like best in 90 days when their hold is relinquished. Ooh and I won't tell you which ones I like best for vote vote vote for your favorites.

Happy Weekend!