Sunday, February 5, 2012

Custom Bookmark Project

Hello!  Well, Valentine's Day is less than 2 weeks away, and traffic is really picking up in my Etsy shop!  I have sold a couple of cards already, and yesterday received a custom order for a bookmark and gift envelope.  I was/am so excited!!  I love custom work, maybe more than anything else.  It is fun to make my own creations, but I love helping someone else bring their visions to life.  I got a convo from a nice guy who asked if I could customize a blue butterfly delphiuim bookmark and make a gift envelope for it.  His sweetie loves blue, so he wanted to start with my basic design and replace the yellow ribbon with a blue one.  No problem here...one of my biggest weaknesses is ribbon!  You should see my stash- I buy way too much because it is an affordable luxury, so I have way more than I should!  We also talked about some ways to customize both the bookmark design and the envelope that I would create.  I am really happy with what I came up with, and the customer seems happy as well, from the photos I sent him.

Here's the bookmark.  Basic design, except I replaced the middle layer with the blue/purple mottled paper, which works really well with these colors.

The customer requested an envelope to match, and asked for a seal with a shape I did not have.  I suggested some alternatives, including other shapes such as circles, squares, or hearts, and threw out the suggestion of creating a seal with a pressed flower.  I have not done it before, but had some ideas on how it could be done.  He liked the idea, so I went with it, and I love it!!  I will definitely be doing this again!

Above is the envelope and a close-up of the seal.  It was pretty simple really:  I glued the pressed flower to a piece of card stock and then covered it with a piece of clear packing tape.  Yes, just regular packing tape- it worked beautifully!  Then I punched the circle out using a 1" circle punch.  The patterned paper was punched with a 1.5 inch scalloped circle punch, and the circle with the flower was adhered to it, to make the seal.  I adhered it to the top flap of the envelope with the ATG, and did something different with the bottom half this time.  Usually I use the temporary adhesive, but it is kind of flakey and doesn't stick real well sometimes.  So this time I used a peel-and-stick adhesive.  That way, the customer can seal up the envelope before giving it to his sweetie.  I think it will work out great, and am really happy with the outcome!

Meredith and I are still working on the lollipop flowers for her class Valentines, and am about halfway through now.  We have another weekend to work on them, so I am not panicking quite yet. ;)  I think we should be able to finish with no problem.   She has been a real trooper with getting the tissue paper cut out and forming the flowers!  They are going to be really cute in the end!

That's all for now!  Coming up in the next couple of weeks, I hope to finish the flowers, plus make a birthday card for my sister, who is turning the big 5-0 at the end of the month.  See you later!

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