Two Years And Counting

I've had my Etsy shop, Wonderland Papers, for two years now.

It all started when I was given the opportunity to create the invitation suite for my brother and his soon to be wife. Along with designing their invitation I created a wedding map for them:

And then Wonderland Papers was born.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. And that was the case for me when I first started my shop. We had just moved to St. Louis and the job market was (and still is) less then accommodating.


And then I got my first "real" client


I really enjoy being able to create art "old school" style, with a paper and pencil, and then being able to use the modern technology and design skills that I have to spice things up and make it functional.

I have had a variety of clients with stories to tell in a variety of locations. I've had clients in Canada, Ireland, Washington D.C. (the most popular location so far) Texas, California and New York. I love helping my clients to tell their story. Or to tell the story of someone that they love and are giving to them as a gift.

Like the memory map that I made for my parents for their 31 anniversary:



Or when I have couples that have interesting history and cultural backgrounds:




Or clients that live in a really cool city:


Or a great destination wedding :


Or a wedding in a gorgeous location:


My business is still growing and I put a lot of time and effort to make it mine. I had a long history of starting things and not finishing them before I started my Etsy shop. Ice skating lessons, dance lessons, baton twirling lessons and numerous ideas that I started but never really saw through. Coming up with an idea is the EASY part. Sustaining that idea and learning how to let it grow is the hard part. It's also the constant part that you have to re evaluate over and over again. The reward to the hard work comes when I hear about how I was able to create what my client was visualizing, when I surpass their expectations and when a couple has a part of their wedding planning complete with one of my designs.

I'm always trying to do more, be more with my design business and I look forward to the next anniversary and every new idea and spark that comes along the way.

Thanks for coming along for the ride with me :)

"Everybody draws, I just never stopped when the teachers told me to." - Tim Burton

Show Us Your (Home) Office

I love when blogs post pictures of the contents of their purse. I know, I know, it seems probably kinda strange but I think that you get an idea about a woman by the stuff that she carries around in her purse. It's a peek at her personality. My purse tends to always have tons and tons of receipts in it. Not sure what that says about my personality besides that I don't clean my purse out often enough.

Along with getting a peek at what you carry around with you all the time I love seeing pics of work spaces, home offices, places where people get creative and get work done.

I'm a little nomadic when it comes to my work space. I work sitting on the couch, I work sitting at the dinner table (the picture above) and then I have a true formal desk.


I guess I also like having distractions on my desk to entertain me


I like seeing what inspires other people to get creative and where they make the creative magic happen.

Do you have a space to get creative? Do you find checking out other people's home offices and creative work spaces creative too?

Making Sun Tea

It is so hot outside. WOW.

I'm spending a lot of time trying to find ways to stay cool which means avoiding going outside as much as possible lately. Fall can't come soon enough for so many reasons right now.

I decided to try and make use of this CRAZY heat and make up a batch of sun tea. Gotta put that blistering hot ol' sun to work you know.

A couple weeks ago when my sister came to visit we all took a trip out to the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island. This tea plantation is the only working tea plantation in the United States. It was really cool to check it out and sample some of their yummy tea.






I learned a few things on our tour about tea.

1. Ice tea was invented at the Worlds Fair in St. Louis. (The guide put me on the spot with this question and I didn't know the answer).

2. Tea is the second most popular beverage in the US, second to water.

3. Most tea (can't remember the percentage) consumed in the US is iced, that number (yup, sorry couldn't remember what number that was) jumps up to 95% when you get to the South where we make it sweet tea and you find it in every home around these parts. House wine of the South :)

It was a neat little tour and in a neat and isolated area that made for a nice trip.

Fast forward to present day now and my desire to fix up some sun tea. Sun tea is basically water in a glass container with tea bags that you place in the sun and the sun and heat does the work for you. Cause you know sticking a cup of water into a microwave is just so darn hard ;)

I used some of the tea plantation's Plantation Peach tea.



Tea doesn't get much more Southern then that.




And out in the sun it sits. I did have a small plate over the top to keep any crazy bugs from dive bombing into my tea. Plate was removed to make for a prettier picture and no bugs were harmed in the making of this sun tea. Just add some ice and enjoy!

Have you ever made sun tea before? Got any tips or secrets that you swear by?

Getting my Rhythm Down

(Charleston Harbor on the 4th of July)

One of the big changes (and there were so many recently) in our move was that I now work at home as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. Trying to create a schedule to stick to so I don't waste the day watching hours and hours of bad reality television has been hard. Not a feel bad for me kind of hard, just hard for me to get myself into a routine when no external force is actually making me stick to that routine except for my own will power. I've found that I work better when under pressure and I can get my head down and bulldoze through my work then when I foresee myself having lots and lots of time and then I tend to get more distracted by things that seem to need my attention that moment. Like cleaning up the kitchen. Trying to wrangle the dog hair tumbleweeds that are trying to take over our wood floors. Taking care of issues that come up that fall into my hands since the husband is at work and doesn't have that kind of flexibility now.

One of the biggest surprises about working freelance is how fast the day goes by. At my last job I would count the hours till I got home. Those hours have grown wings and turbo jets now because the day seems to fly by now and I seem to always be looking at a stack of "to do" lists that never got my attention that day.

Anyone have any tips or things that works for them when it comes to time management or from keeping the day from totally getting away from you?

Hey Ya'll!

Now coming to you from The Palmetto State!

The Big Move from the Midwest to the Deep South went really well and I couldn't be happier. I love being back in the South. I don't think I knew how much I really loved it and living by the coast until it was out of my life.



It really is a different way of life here and I'm so happy at how effortlessly it all just seems to fit.

I'm excited to get back to blogging and having a regular schedule again. Much more to come!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Hope you had a fantastic Memorial Day! Lots of love to all the military people (and families!) out there. I come from a family with a number of military members so I have nothing but the highest respect for all the branches of the military. Thank you for all your sacrifices.

When I got to work today and was getting through the morning blurries I was going through my Google Reader, just getting up to date on what was going on in the blog world. One blog that I make sure to always check is A Beautiful Mess. The mastermind behind A Beautiful Mess is crafting goddess Elsie. She is a super creative soul that I have a TON of respect for. Not only is she super artistic and creative but she's also a great creative business person. I took the Indie Biz class last year mainly because she was going to be one of the teachers. And who doesn't want to learn from the best?

Anyways, so back to me getting out of the morning fog. As I scrolled through my Google Reader I saw that they had picked names for a great giveaway that she was doing on her blog.

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And wouldn't you know it but I was one of the winners!

I was very excited about it since the giveaway was for access to one of her e-courses. E-courses are great because they are full of information on a topic but no deadline like many online class courses do. And being able to work at my own speed through the information is great especially right now when my life is all in boxes.

I can't wait to dive right in to the Dream Job e- course. The timing couldn't be much better since I'm hoping to get much more involved with building my Etsy Shop (Wonderland Papers) once we are done moving and I can devote myself to it whole heatedly. There will definitely be a review of the Dream Job e-course in the near future.

Thanks again Elsie!

Packing < Unpacking

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Math really isn't my strong suit but one thing is very clear right now.

Packing < Unpacking