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Rainbow Connection: Inspiration Africa

May 21, 2019
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Africa has so much color. Get inspired by some pics that caught my eye on Pinterest this week:

 

 

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Nuts and Bolts: Extra Blank Lines in Inside Verse.

May 17, 2019
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Nuts & Bolts – Extra Blank Lines in Inside Verse

 

If you’ve ever been asked by the review team to “remove the blank spaces from your inside verse”, you were likely confused.  You’re thinking, what the heck?  I don’t see anything.  Well, they are blank lines that is why you don’t see them but they are there!

 

Here is what it’s all about:
Sometimes if you have copied and pasted a verse from a different source (i.e: your notepad, word processing document, a prior card of yours, etc.) it has extra blank lines, or as us old school typists call them, carriage returns. Or you may have added blank lines before or after your verse in an effort to manually align your verse. This is discouraged as it can negatively affect the shoppers ability to add anything else to the inside text.

 

The review team’s request for edits will read:
Please DELETE your inside verse and all additional blank lines, and re-enter WITHOUT any additional spaces before or after your text. Use the alignment tools to adjust where your verse sits within the space rather than adding blank lines to align the verse to the top, bottom or center of the area.  Adding extra spaces create a lot of unnecessary space showing beneath the inside verse that will negatively affect the shoppers ability to add anything else to the inside text.  

 

This is the Inside Verse preview that the review team sees:

One way you can identify this for yourself is when in the text area if you click your cursor in the body of the text area and it sits on a blank line above or below the line(s) of text then that is an extra blank line that needs to be removed. This can easily done by using the backspace key, as many times as needed.

Example here noting cursor position several blank lines below the inside verse text:

and here one extra blank line above the inside verse text:

If all blank lines are removed the cursor will only be able to reside on or within the line(s) of inside verse text:

 

 

 

The difference is made in the details!

 

Mindy
GCU Community Manager

 

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Wanted New Cards: Reveal / Revealing.

May 16, 2019
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Wanted Cards – Reveal / Revealing 
When it’s time to spill the beans, let the cat out of the bag or … drum roll, please … the big reveal!
Please consider creating cards for this new category Occasions >> Reveal / Revealing 
>> General Reveal
>> Big Little Sorority Reveal
>> Secret Admirer Reveal
>> Secret Pal Reveal
>> Secret Sister Reveal
>> Other Reveal
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Freebie Wednesday: Marline Font

May 15, 2019
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Freebie Wednesday:

 

Marline Font is a beautiful handwritten font with a unique charm. Fall in love with its bold swashes, and turn any design project into a stand out. It’s free at Creative Fabrica for another 5 days so you better make sure you don’t miss out!

 

 

This product comes with a complete commercial license.

 

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from → Fonts, FREEBIES

Rainbow Connection: Honey Gold

May 14, 2019
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Honey Gold is this week’s color to get inspired by:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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from → Rainbow Connection (Colors)

Nuts and Bolts: Best of 2018 Feature Page

May 10, 2019
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Nuts & Bolts – Best of 2018 Feature Page
 
In January, GCU proudly announced the Best of 2018 Founders’ Choice Award winners!  See all the winners here on their very own landing page which is linked from the site and will soon be shared via social media.

 

 

This was GCU’s third annual “Best of” awards as part of the monthly Design Challenge series.  Be sure to check each month’s challenge as it may be a perfect opportunity for you to submit a design that’s been on your mind, or something totally new getting you outside of your comfort zone or overcoming artist’s block.


Design Challenges are run each month and announced on both the GCU community blog and GCU Design Challenge forum board.  There is plenty of time to enter May’s challenge, see details here.

Tip: for a design challenge, and any new card for that matter, take a look at what is currently offered in the category and do a little brainstorming to offer something DIFFERENT not just more of the same. This will help your card stand out from the crowd and offer shoppers more choices, and ultimately sales!

 

 

The difference is made in the details!

 

Mindy
GCU Community Manager

 

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Freebie Wednesday: Magical Unicorn Watercolor Set.

May 9, 2019
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Freebie Wednesday:

 

The Hungry Jpeg has a lovely set of free watercolors available for another 5 days! Don’t miss out!

 

 

This product comes with a complete commercial license.

 

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Wanted New Cards: Re-entering the Workforce.

May 9, 2019
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Wanted Cards – Re-entering the Workforce

 

There are many reasons why someone may return to a career and the workforce after an extended absence.  The first that comes to mind is after maternity or paternity leave.  But there are many other reasons why someone returns to work and not just to the same job – returning to the workforce and picking back up a career or starting a new career.

 

After an extended leave, there are many challenges like a resume gap, outdated skills, and self confidence. Some encouragement and wishes of good luck will be appreciated!

The cards will go here in the appropriate sub-category:
Occasions >> Good Luck >> Job Hunt / Job Search >> Re-entering Workforce / Job Market after Long Absence

>> General
>> After Divorce
>> After Health Issues
>> After Stay at Home Dad / SAHD
>> After Stay at Home Mom / SAHM
>> After Retirement
>> Other

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from → Wanted: New Cards

Rainbow Connection: Summery Drinks

May 7, 2019
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Get inspired by the color schemes of summery drinks:

 

 

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Nuts and Bolts: Stock Card Creations – Unmatched Image Card Tips

May 3, 2019
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Nuts & Bolts – Stock Card Creations – Unmatched Image Card Tips

 

On the heels of the relaunch of Stock Card Creations, we bring you a guest post from GCU artist, Doreen Erhardt of Salon of Art and Exclusive Creations, loaded with tips on updating unmatched cards with a new stock image.

 

See the announcement Stock Card Creations Online.

 

Doreen shares …

 

I volunteered as ‘guinea pig’ for Mindy and Nasser to ‘test’ the changes to this tool and library of images before it went live, so I may have picked up a few things that might be helpful.

 

Back in January in anticipation of unknown changes to the stock cards I had created ways to copy/save both front and inside verse images of the approved cards to use as a reference. If you can still do this –
or are an artist who followed my example back in January – this is a helpful tool to make sure you get your previously approved card front text and verse recreated properly which will ensure your resubmit
with a new image will fly through.

 

The next thing I did was to enter all my cards into a spreadsheet format with a visual and PID. Here is where I recorded potential options to swap my images by recording the (new) stock image number. Usually I would collect up to three possible replacements (stock images). Having more than one option ensured that one of them would work the best to keep the ‘feel’ of the card and support the text placement.

 

When you find an image that is close to what you are looking for, look at it’s title and consider entering some of the title into the search field to narrow down more images which might be a more exact match
than the broader search was finding. What you might have called a cat in a hat, some photographers might call a kitty in a cap. So continue to refine your search. Don’t just ‘settle’ for the first image you
come across.

 

Determine the value of the card. Has it sold? If so, frequently? I deleted about 8 out of approx. 150 (unmatched) cards if a suitable replacement stock image could not be found.

 

REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW before resubmitting. Remember, although stock cards may now be returned for edits, if the issue is on the card front, you will have to start over and completely redesign the
whole card, just to add a comma. This is why you want to make sure you follow your previously approved card front text EXACTLY as it was on the approved version.

 

A new feature to this revised tool is that we can match background colors along with choosing text colors to match the image. To do this, once the image you have chosen is up in the creation tool, hit your
keyboard’s PrtScr (print screen) button and paste the image into a new file in Photoshop or other design software. Use the color picker to click on various areas of the image and simply copy the Hex#.
In order to get your text to line up properly when using more than one text box, create a text box with a line. Place this as an ‘invisible’ line, line up your different text boxes and then once it looks good in
preview mode, delete the text box with the line.

 

Here is a visual of the HEX code color sample:

 

Another thing to remember when working with text boxes is that once you type your text and choose the font/size you want – size the box to the minimum length and depth possible.
When you are sizing the box with text inside and see the ‘slide bar’ show on the right, it’s too small. Size enough that the slide bar doesn’t show and you’ll have a better chance of seeing the text placed where you wanted it when viewing in the preview screen.

 

Also keep in mind that unlike the Custom Front Text tool, text boxes on Stock Card Creations can overlap. This allows for more creativity when it comes to adding card front text. If you choose to experiment with this, play with the alignment of each text box to snuggle them in better. Some aligned left, some right, some center can often create a lovely line of text in two different fonts.

 

Example:
Go into this process with an open and willing mind. No design tool is easy to use. There are idiosyncrasies in all software and getting frustrated with them is a waste of time, not to mention, takes
the fun out of the process. Instead, pay attention to those oddities and learn your own workarounds.

 

Here are some comparatives of before (original stock image) and after (with a new stock image) cards:
 

 

Additional Tips:
1. Where to start?
Consider starting with your best selling stock cards or upcoming seasonal cards to get them back online quickly. (IE: Mother’s Day, Graduation, Father’s Day)

 

2. Can’t find a suitable substitute image?
If you cannot find a suitable replacement stock image consider one of these alternatives:

 

a)  Use Your Own Image – You cannot replace a stock card image with your own image. You will need to create and submit a new card (standard). In the Notes to Reviewer on your new submission, please add a note like “this card is a replacement for stock card pid#xxxxx as I could not find a suitable replacement stock image”. Finally please delete the original stock card.
See how artist Laughing Hippo Studio has made a new submission with his own image here:

b) Purchase the Stock Image – if a card has proven to be a hot seller for you, consider purchasing the commercial usage license for the stock image and make your own card (standard). You cannot replace a stock card image with your own image. You will need to create and submit a new card (standard). In the Notes to Reviewer on your new submission, please add a note like “this card is a replacement for stock card pid#xxxxx as I could not find a suitable replacement stock image so I have purchased the commercial usage license for this stock image from xyz provider”. Finally please delete the original stock card.

c) Remove the Card – if the card has no to low sales, consider deleting it and not replacing it.

The difference is made in the details!
Mindy
GCU Community Manager

 

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