I’ve never been one for holiday cards myself–I’m admittedly much too lazy to put together a newsletter like my hilarious friend Kathy (maybe I could pay her to do one for me?)–and I figured that people would be bored to get a photo and nothing else.

After doing holiday cards like these last year, though, I’ve changed my mind:

S & H bought their first house a couple of years ago, so I drew them in front of it.  And of course, their adorable kitty Lola!  S said that her family loved the cards, which are more unique than your average Christmas card.

I’ll be doing Chrismukkah cards to send out to our friends and family this year, featuring our whole family: dog, cats, chickens, etc.  I’m excited!

I’m not sure how you guys feel about this, but I think traditional wedding gifts are really weird.  Who the heck wants paper?!  That’s totally not romantic at all.  Here’s a card to help you cheat a little on your first anniversary–after all, technically this card is made of paper.

I am a firm believer that a sweet greeting card given at a random time helps a relationship stay strong.  When we first met, Y noticed that I always save the best part of what I’m eating for last.

Cinnamon toast is the perfect example.  You know how the best part of cinnamon toast is the part where there was a little too much butter, so it’s extra gooey?  Well, I eat the crust first, then work my way in a circle until the only thing left is that delicious gooey bite. Y told me he loved me enough to give me the best part of the cinnamon toast.  I told him I’d rather share it.

Thus, this any-occasion card:

And because I think deer are pretty much the cutest things ever (especially fawns), here’s a sweet deer-themed anniversary card.  Simple and to the point.  :)

Ironically, Stinkerpants Designs has (clearly) gone a lot farther than the other business, but my business plan wasn’t written out until I’d been in business for well over a year (and if I’m being honest, it’s not exactly finished..per se).  As my friend Lisa says, it was “all up here” (and I’m pointing to my head right now, in case you couldn’t picture it). I don’t work very well that way, though.  I am a very organized person, and if I don’t have things written down, I feel very…discombobulated.

I have a traditional business plan written out (minus the financial section, I have to admit–I am STILL avoiding that section!), which I’ll talk about in a second.  But the most helpful part of my business plan (and the part I access most frequently) is the “Notes” section I have at the top, which functions as sort of an informal biz plan.  And because that’s a lot less daunting than a formal business plan, I thought I’d share it with you guys. Maybe you could use it as a jumping off point to starting your own business plans!

My Informal Business Plan

At the top of the same business plan document, I keep a “notes” section.  This is a quick-access summary that I constantly look at and update.  No one is ever going to look at this, so it’s informal.  Here’s what’s in that section:

• A mission statement of sorts.
  • Basically, I wrote: “Stinkerpants is:  ” and completed the sentence.  What is your business to you?  If hold your business as close to your heart as I do, your answer may sound like the answer to the question “Who are you?”
• What I want the business to look like.
  • One of my main reasons for wanting to own my own business is flexibility.  With chronic migraine headaches and a serious desire to focus on the fun in life rather than work, I need a job that will allow me to work at odd hours (and, in the future, work fewer hours).  As a result, the future of my business is very closely entwined with my life goals.  So I asked myself:  In an ideal world, what do I want my life to look like?  How does my business fit in?
  • Then I made an itemized list and worked backwards.  How do I get there?  For example, let’s pretend that your life goal is to sit by a pool and blog all day.
    1. I want to sit by a pool and blog all day.
    2. I will need someone to pay me to do this.  Advertisers maybe.
    3. I will need to have a big enough following to get advertisers to pay loads of money for space on my blog.
    4. In order to have a giant following, I should probably be famous.  I can get famous by hanging out with famous people, writing a book…
    5. You get the idea, right?  Go all the way back to where you are RIGHT NOW, so when you’re done, it will look like a step-by-step manual to get you to your ideal life.
• I then write out my main goals for the business right now.  If you’re on number 15 on your list above, what do you need to do to get to number 14?
  • Underneath my main goals, I write out any and all ideas I have on how to accomplish these goals.  This is anything from “figure out what I should be focusing my energy on” to “send out press kits.”  I answer questions like, “What do I need to do in order to accomplish ABC?” with an entire list of ideas and thoughts.  Everything is organized in ordered and unordered lists (can you tell I like bullet points?!).
• I also randomly include little notes to myself or talk out my fears: “I am scared that XYZ will happen and my business will fail as a result”or “I feel like people want to see less expensive items, but I don’t know if I have time to do them right now.  What’s a priority?”  To be honest, in some places this “Notes” section reads like a diary!  I also find notes that my past self has written to my current self: “Don’t worry about XYZ.  That is stupid, and this is why.  Don’t be stupid.”

In summary, I put any and all ideas in this section.  Goals for right now.  Goals for the future.  Goals that might be good to have in the future.  No matter what it is–ideas, goals, fears–get it out of your head and into a Word or Google document.  It feels fabulous.

My Formal Business Plan

My formal business plan is a constant work in progress, as any good business plan should be!  There are a lot of great resources for writing business plans, and I don’t want to spend a bunch of time writing yet another guide.  Instead, I’ll share links to the guides that I’ve found especially helpful:

• Design Sponge’s intro to a strategic business plan: This is a great introduction to business plans and will help you wrap your mind around what a business plan is.
• Sage Wedding Pros 13 Step business plan: this is a fabulous resource for creative businesses– not just for people running wedding-related businesses!
• The Modish Biz Tips Business Plan Challenge.  These are great posts–six of them.
• Nolo’s Business Plan Basics: this is a good resource for the most straightforward and traditional business plans.  This is also a good place to read about why you should have a business plan.

Prior to our wedding, Y and I had two vacuums: one was a 20 year old hand-me-down canister from his parents, and the other was a cheap upright vacuum from Target that I bought and loved.  I am the vacuumer (is that a word?  If not, it totally should be!) in our family, and I refused to use the canister because it was such a pain in the neck and it spit dust out the back.  I’d heard wonderful things about the Dyson, but I wasn’t about to give up my vacuum.  It was two years old and perfectly fine, thankyouverymuch.

Until it broke.

Well, technically, it caught on fire and I was terrified to plug it in again, so I’m not entirely sure it was broken.

In any event, I wanted a new vacuum.  We did some research and added Dyson’s “the Animal” to our wedding registry, hoping someone would get it for us in the next week (with four cats and a dog, I have to vacuum a lot).  Obviously, no one wanted to buy us a $400 vacuum 6 months before our wedding (or ever, as it turned out).  So we bought it ourselves, hoping some super rich member of our extended family would take pity on us and eventually get it for us.

This vacuum is so much better than I ever thought it would be.

It. is. amazing.

It seriously sucks up a TON of dust and cat hair.  The dust is actually what amazes me most, because most vacuums can clean up cat hair.  After I vacuum each week, there’s about an inch of dust at the bottom of the canister thing.  It’s both fabulous and disgusting.  Here I am with my vacuum on our first day together:

The vacuum is also really easy to empty: I just take it right outside, hold it over the garbage can, and push one button.

I love it.  It’s definitely one of my favorite things!

I also added a flower girl card:

And the latest (and I think final, unless you guys have suggestions!) is this cute little ringbearer card:

There’s also a card to give your new in-laws, thanking them for welcoming you into their family:

And a great “day of” card for your new husband or wife: the “On this Day” card.  There are three different versions–one featuring a bride giving her heart, one featuring a groom giving his heart, and one with a plain heart, just in case you don’t like the people.  :)

Everything is live in the shop now!

(image source)

1. My parents, who I’ve been visiting in Oregon, are awesome.  I’ve been here almost two weeks and I’m not even remotely sick of them!  I wish they lived next door to me!
2. Good deals can be found at boutique shops–I found a pair of $225 jeans for only $50!
3. I am one of the lucky few who has the side effects of “excitability” and “trouble sleeping” from Codeine.
4. A shot of alcohol really works to cure a cough.
5. Swine flu is extremely contagious, and pretty hideous!
6. If you happen to catch h1n1 while traveling, you are not to get on a plane until your fever has been normal for 24 hours, meaning your trip to Oregon can be suddenly rescheduled to last almost a week longer than you were expecting!

Yes, that’s right folks: I came to Oregon to visit my parents nearly two weeks ago, and I am STILL HERE.  Why?  Because I caught swine flu.  I’m not sure whether it was the airplane from San Francisco or the germ-infested clothes hangers at the Lucky Brand outlet, but those little h1n1 buggers got me.

For the past week, I’ve been feverish, stuffed up, coughing, exhausted and pretty much incapable of taking care of myself.  Luckily I wasn’t in Mexico (where I joyfully caught E.Coli), but at home where my mommy could take care of me.  I feel very lucky for that–a trip ruined by swine flu could easily cost you thousands of dollars in plane tickets and extra hotel nights while you try to recover (not to mention the fact that you probably couldn’t pay somebody to risk infection by bringing you sustenance).  But I digress.

Now that I’ve survived it, I’m actually glad I got h1n1.  After all, I no longer have to worry about getting it! Yay! How’s that for a silver lining?

I am the first person that I actually know who has had h1n1, so I thought the chances might be good that I’m the first person that a lot of you guys “know” who has had it.  So here are a few facts:

• I am young, eat well and exercise pretty regularly.  This thing knocked me on my ass.
• I think I had a pretty mild case.  My fever never got higher than 102.5.
• It started in the mid afternoon on Sunday.  I felt tired and had a tickle in my chest.  By Monday morning, I had a fever, chills, a raging headache, terrible body aches and a cough.
• My fever started to go away on Wednesday night.  I was proud that it was hovering around 100° for the next 24 hours, but terrified that it would “come back with a vengeance,” because apparently swine flu comes in waves.
• My cough got a lot worse (and it’s still bad) but my fever never returned.  I have now had a normal temperature for 24 hours and am planning to fly home tomorrow afternoon.
• My doctor said that there have been no outbreaks of seasonal flu yet this year, so if you’ve had the flu, it was probably had swine flu.
• My parents, who are both over 60, felt a little under the weather, but never got sick.  This might be because they’re over 60.
• This sucks, but it didn’t kill me.

Now that I’ve had it, I have to say:

You may think the world is overreacting to swine flu, but at the end of the day YOU DO NOT WANT H1N1, so wash your freaking hands and stay informed.

Also, if you have any risk factors, ESPECIALLY if you are pregnant, do NOT think twice about getting the vaccine.  You need it.

Now, not to freak you out or anything, but a few months ago my dad (who is a retired OB/GYN) recommended that people who are planning to get pregnant wait until the flu season is over.  He said that there’s no way of knowing how bad this will get (nor what the effects of the medications/treatments could be on a fetus), but there’s one thing we do know: pregnant women are at high risk. Y and I discussed it and agreed that delaying any plans for a few months is definitely worth it.  After all, what’s a few months?  I still stand by that decision and urge you to at least think about it.  The CDC has not made this recommendation, but please keep in mind that making a decision like that would be both a public health AND a political decision, which could cause mass panic.  I think it’s best to play it safe in any way that you can until it’s clear what this outbreak is going to look like.

If you’re already pregnant or have any other risk factors, take care of yourself.  This article from the CDC is very helpful.

This thing is WAY more contagious than I thought it was.  A few weeks ago, my wise friend Rosie said, “I think we’re all going to get it–it’s just a matter of how bad.”  I now think she’s right.  That being said, I hope you all stay healthy!

Wow, I can see Russia from up here on my soap box (as my friend Aimée would say)!!  Climbing down now.

If anyone has any questions about what this was like, please feel free to ask me!

Diva has got to be one of the cutest dogs I’ve ever seen, and she’s the first pit bull I’ve ever had the privilege of drawing.   Check her out:

R & B are people after my own heart: Diva is loved unconditionally, and I could tell while drawing her that she’s as sweet as can be.  Plus, her smile made ME smile, which is always nice.

R & B will be having a wine country wedding, and wanted something fun for their Save the Dates.  How cute is this pose, with B crushing grapes and holding R in the air?

This is one of my all-time favorite Save the Dates.  I love drawing dogs!

Custom drawn Save the Dates are a fun way to excite people about a wedding.  The vineyards are a common theme for my clients (partly because I’m located in the bay area, right near the California wine country areas of Napa and Sonoma), but it’s easy to spice things up and make the vineyard setting totally “you.”  I think B, R and Diva did a good job of that.  :)

I am recovering from the worst case of writer’s block EVER.  This morning I’m going to share a tip with you guys that I have found super helpful over the past few years–it’s also saved me a bunch of money.

I, like a lot of women, have an addiction to fancy jeans.  I really, really love them.  However, I am also short.  And after blowing a bunch of money on a pair of jeans, I really don’t want to pay an extra $20 to have them hemmed because I’m vertically challenged (is that fair?!  I think not!).  Now, many people might say, “if you buy your Citizens at Nordstrom, they’ll hem them for free!”  And yes, that is true–however, they will not preserve the fancy cuff or hem at the bottom of the jeans, which is part of what makes them so fabulous!  Instead, you pay $200 for jeans, only to have a crappy looking hem at the bottom.  In order to have them preserve the original hem, you have to pay $20 for a fancy hem (otherwise known as Original Hem, Fancy Hem or European Hem).  And despite what buying expensive jeans may indicate about my spending habits, I assure you: I am otherwise quite cheap.

Enter the DIY Fancy Hem.

A few years ago  I did a google search, trying to figure out how to do this myself.  I have since lost the incredibly helpful article, but not before I learned how to do it.  So here, my friends, is a tutorial:

Step One: Figure Out How Long You Want ‘Em

Decide how much length you would like to take off. I do this by putting the pants on and looking in the mirror to see how far they are to the floor, then pinning them over and over until they hit in the right place (it might be easier to get help, haha).  I have one pair of jeans for flats and one pair for heels.

Once you’ve decided how much you want to take off, divide that number by 2.

Step Two: Prepare for Hemming

Cuff the bottom of the jeans.  For example, if you want to take two inches off, fold the jeans up and measure 1 inch.  Only measure the light-colored part, not the actual hem.  Once you’ve folded them up, pin around the cuff, making sure to measure all the way around.  (Side note: I actually like to iron the fold, just so things are nice and clean, but that’s just me. )

While you’re pinning, make sure to line up your seams:

Step Three: Sewing your Hem

Make sure you put the needle RIGHT UP AGAINST the original hem–that way, things will fold in all the right spots (this might not make sense yet, but trust me–this matters).  Sew all the way around the cuff, making sure that you don’t sew your foot hole shut.

Step Four: Check ‘Em, Iron ‘Em Flat and you’re done!

Now flip the sewn part inside your jeans to reveal the old hem, and try them on.  Are they the right length?  Awesome.  If not, you messed up your measuring and need to start over.

If they’re the right length, awesome!  You can either cut off the excess (leave about a half inch in case it frays), or you can do what I do and leave it inside the jeans.  I’m a commitment phobe like that.  :)

Once you’ve got the right length, iron the seam into place so it lays flat, and you’re done!  Now you can save yourself $20 every time you buy a new pair of jeans.  Unless, of course, you are blessed to be taller than I am!

I’ve been asked a few times recently if I offer gift certificates.  The answer (up until yesterday), was “no, but I should!”  Apparently, people *really* wanted them after I started talking about the Family Portraits, which have a set price.

Yesterday I created some gift certificates and uploaded them to the shop.  Other than the family portraits, most of my products have variable costs, so I wasn’t sure what increments to offer.  Right now, I have $25, $50, $250 (the cost of a custom drawing), $300 (a family portrait), and $500 (a round-about cost for design fee, printing and envelopes for most simple projects).  The gift certificates are also good for use in the shop.

Each gift certificate is a fun “mad lib” style note with all the information your loved one will need to redeem it. It is printed on thick, high-quality paper and comes in a fun colored envelope for a sweet presentation!