Monday, February 28, 2011

Southern Charm

Have you ever been to Savannah, Georgia?  In my opinion, it is one of the most elegant cities in this country.  I love it so much that my husband and I were married there.  :)  Even though I love our home in Illinois, sometimes I get a tiny bit nostalgic for that southern city.

I've been working on a series of save-the-date cards and wedding invitations inspired by southern architecture.  It's hard not to feel inspired when you think of such places as the Azalea Inn & Gardens:


This save-the-date design was inspired by the hanging signs you can see outside of most B&Bs, including the one in the above picture:


I also love the elegant street lamps you can see in many old southern cities.  They are especially gorgeous on summer evenings when the sun first goes down.  Pair a lamp post with some elegant iron scrolls and you've got a winner!


Finally, Birmingham is famous for its wrought iron fences, which are often impressively intricate.  I created a coordinating save-the-date and wedding invitation set inspired by those works of art:

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Big News!

I have spent a lot of time and effort on my Etsy shop and I'm very proud of how much it has grown since I listed my first item on August 1, 2010.  I used to spend at least an hour a day browsing the custom requests section and placing bids on things that people needed.  Now that section no longer exists, at least temporarily.  Even after sending a letter to the Etsy support staff, I am not satisfied with their explanation of when or even if Alchemy will be returning.  This change has resulted in a significant loss of business and so I've been considering alternative methods of growing my little business.

The first big change I've made is to open a store on another handmade crafts website.  Presenting my new studio on artfire.com!  It will take a while to get all of my listings set up, but I'm working steadily.  :)  I have no plans to close my Etsy shop, but a good business must always learn to adapt to changing circumstances.

Today I also added new color options to many of my existing wedding invitation designs, which I'm really excited about.  Here are two of my favorite designs in two new colors:



I'm looking forward to continuing to expand Daisy Design Shop into new markets and watching my little business grow!  :)


Monday, February 21, 2011

The Secret Second Life of Dictionaries

I love the look of text.

I am addicted to downloading and using new fonts (I currently have almost 500 on my computer!).  My husband makes fun of me because I can identify the names of fonts used on billboards and business signs.  I just love words.

One of my recent obsessions has been vintage letters and dictionaries.  I found a huge 1,000+ page dictionary at an antique store and of course it came home with me.  I've been using the pages to make thank-you tags for customers who order wedding invitation sets from my shop.  This morning I made a Treasury featuring items made from dictionary pages, called The Secret Second Life of Dictionaries.  Here are a couple of my favorite items that I found:


As part of this recent obsession, I was inspired to create a wedding invitation that looks like a vintage French love letter.  Although the entire text isn't all visible or legible, I wanted it to be authentic, so I did some searching and found an actual love letter written in French that I used as the background, along with antique paper image.  The result?


I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I am working on a matching save-the-date design now.  I'm also considering how to incorporate a vintage dictionary page into some sort of wedding design.  If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!


Sunday, February 20, 2011

Happy to be here!

I'm so excited that I've finally gotten around to starting this blog for Daisy Design Shop.  I'm hoping to post at least once a week with some images and ideas that inspire me to create the invitations and other products I post in my shop.  If you have any ideas for something I should write about, please let me know!  :)

Be sure to check out my shop HERE and leave a comment to let me know you visited!  I've been considering making some big changes, so stick around to find out what the future will bring!