Personalised Wedding Stationery Made To Order - Gaynor & John

Well, we thought we had got away with it virtually scott free, but last nights snow really did come down. 

We decided to walk to work and after a bit of snow shovelling 

and a liberal sprinkling of salt.... it was business as usual.

This week has been particularly busy and there's been 4 Wedding Orders go out... probably my all time high for any week, since I started... and in fact this month is set to be the busiest ever!

Sometimes, someone comes through the door and has a clear idea of what they want... and yesterday, such a thing happened, quite by accident. 

Do you remember these.... The one on the left was one that a Bride had ordered off the internet. The Bride 'thought' she was buying from a UK company. The problem was, when they came they were all in polish or some odd language! They were reasonably priced yes, but actually came from China and it would cost a fortune to actually send them back!

You can read all about Kayleigh's experience on an earlier blog post titled Brides on a Budget - BEWARE!

The Wedding was pretty close, so I offered to try and sort something out for her. This is what I came up with.....

Kayleigh's Wedding Invitations came ina wrap around cover and we decided to keep these... and come up with a design that you could see poking out of the top corner.

Gaynor immediately spotted these and said "I want mine in wraps too!"  Now I hadn't made the original ones and the size was not standard to our UK paper sizes.... but with a big of jiggery pokery, I somehow managed to come up with something that fit....

The daytime cards were to be a bit more fancy and were to be enclosed in the wrap... my concern was that with all the extra card and the ribbon, they wouldn't fit in an envelope and until I had actually made them up, I couldn't be sure whether they would or not. Sometimes, Brides ask you to make something that' seems on the surface and easy enough task, but coming to make it can turn out impossible. 

Fortunately they do fit!

The Evening Invitations are printed and foiled on thicker card.
Card that would be just too heavy for folded cards. It was dark outside, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get the lighting right for good photos of these, but they are different, gave me a challenge and turned out pretty well I think.

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All posts and photos (c) Sue Simpson

The Truth About The Wedding Business - Part 1

If I had listened to my business adviser, when I first started all those years ago, I would be where I am now.... only I would have got there quicker!

As many of you know, I've been a Calligrapher and Lettering Artist since 1988. My work has been wide and varied. Some jobs you want to do, others were quite frankly a pain in the bum. Each had it's own merits and challenges.

Professional, qualified, Calligraphers are getting pretty thin on the ground. We are becoming a specialised industry. While there are still plenty of Calligraphy Groups around, they are more 'interest' groups rather than anyone wanting to take on work and use their skills.

I live in North Yorkshire. The county is wide and spread out. Fewer people even know what a Calligrapher does these days, never mind needing their services and the ones that do are pretty reluctant to pay a decent hourly rate for the work involved.

"Surely, you just pick up a fancy pan,

 filled with ink and write, don't you?"

I wish it was that simple. The 'in' joke amongst Calligraphers is that you can become a brain surgeon in less time! And actually, it's not too far from the truth!

I remember, when John, my business adviser with Action For Blind People suggested I specialise in Wedding Stationery, I laughed! At the time I was lucky enough if I did 1 or 2 wedding orders a year. The thought of ditching all the other work, in it various guises, made my stomach churn. I just about made enough to keep the doors open at the studio. To ditch the small amount of work that was coming through seems nothing close to madness!

I resisted.... well, I actually, didn't resist fully, I made more of an effort as far as I was concerned, made up some Wedding Invitation portfolios and got them into shops.... the business didn't come my way and I continued to take on small jobs, which took a great deal of time and effort, but had very little reward.

I did this for a further 3 years. I did it till I could take no more. I felt the life was sucked out of me and this also coincided with the break-up of what I thought at the time was a 'perfect' relationship (Please excuse me here,while I laugh my stripy socks off!).

For the following year I took stock of not only my life, my relationship (and the no good for me characters, I seemed to attract!) but my business and my feeling towards that too. I'm a big believer in "If you always do, what you've always done, you'll always get, what you've always gotten!". Things had to change... I had to change! My attitude and my fears regarding my work had to change.... and change it did!

This wasn't over night... it was a long journey and there's lots to tell.... so I'll write more about this in another post...

I have things I need to 'get off my chest' and most of all, I hope my story, in time will give hope, inspiration and motivation to others. 

Personalised Birthday Card For My Mum!

It's been the busiest week ever!

And it's my mum's birthday tomorrow...

So the card was done in a hurry,

with not a spot of hand lettering in sight....

Plain and simple.

14.5 cm x 14.5 cm

Hand Made by Sue Simpson
at the studio of
Inspired by Script

Personalised Invitations and Wishing Tree Tags

Paul came to see me after we had first met some moths earlier. He'd been married for year and clearly didn't want or need Wedding Stationery.

What he did discuss was whether I could make some Birthday Invitations.... but with a twist.

Paul explained that it was not only his 50 th Birthday, but after 3 long years, it was also the end of his 9 year old sons treatment for Leukaemia. Therefore they were having a joint celebration!

Here's what we came up with....

Paul came back a little later and wanted to have a wishing tree instead of a guest book, then guests could wrote their wishes for both Paul and Thomas and would be a lasting reminder of their special day.

This is what I came up with......

I foiled the cards in 3 different colours....

Green, Purple and Blue.....

I then came up with a little poem...

OK so I'm no poet Laureate! :-)

The poem read:

Choose a card, Green, Purple or Blue,

Write on a wish, you want to come true,

Tie on string, attach to the tree,

Whisper those words and you let them go free!

It was nice to see the Wishing Tree and tags being used for something other than Weddings. In March, it will be used for a Baby's Christening :-)

We at Inspired by Script want to congratulate Paul on his
50 th Birthday and sending lots of love and special wishes for Thomas's continued health.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION for Brides in particular!

As a fully qualified and professional Calligrapher and Lettering Artist, my work over the years has been wide ans varied.

While sorting some papers at the studio before the Christmas break I happened to find my original business plan. In the plan, I set out all the ways I wanted to take my business, what work I was looking for and how I would go about it.... that was some years ago now.

As anyone knows who works in the creative field, the clients and market,  drive you, not the other way round.

My business is called 'Inspired by Script' in the early days I did everything including poster, poems, commercial work, bookbinding, greeting cards, framed and mounted pieces for both private and public clients. I did work for many big names too!

Then just  over a year ago, I got asked to design and make some Wedding Invitations. I had done a couple of orders before, but the small amount of work I did do, did not warrant me focusing on Weddings alone.

In order that clients weren't confused by all the other work I did, I set up a separate 'North Yorkshire Weddings' website and North Yorkshire Weddings blog, to help direct the Brides to 'Wedding Only' stuff.... still keeping the 'Inspired by Script' stuff separate and cross posting any wedding work onto my main Inspired by Script, blog. My Inspired by Script website, simply has a tag which takes clients to my Wedding Website.

It's been difficult at times, explaining to Brides that I have a dedicated website called North Yorkshire Weddings, but my business is in fact called Inspired by Script. At times I'm sure it's been confusing to them and for me.... Well I felt I was living some kind of 'Double life'.

Work can get a bit over dramatic too.... one day you can be making a Wedding Album and the next you are painting a large wall canvas, then the next you can be writing out place cards... all very different aspects of what I do.

Finally, most of the work I do is either Wedding or Baby related or has something to do with celebrations in some way, like Birthdays or Anniversaries. Because the Wedding and Baby stuff has taken off so well, I know have to pick and choose what work I do. I am more focussed and less scatter gun and everything is far easier to control.  I have to turn down work that although I would like to do, I just have not got the time to do it, like long poems and small ones too! Small commissions have had to go too.... these were never cost effective anyway and I used them as pot boilers and a way of filling time. Some work is just too many hours for very little return.

This next year will see big changes. It will all happen gradually. I will, bit by bit integrate the 2 websites and blogs and go back to my original branding... the one I spent so many years building up. This will take so much pressure off as maintaining one website and blog has to be easier than two, hasn't it?

The amalgamation and transition will not happen over night... but it WILL happen.

Ohhhh.... I am SO excited about this year!

So.... Inspired by Script....

happy re-birth year!

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