Dash of Inspiration: Freebies Week
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen Freebies Week
This week on Freebie Week I found some really useful vintage postcard textures and copy machine textures, so let you imagination go wild creating with those. There are a couple of links to text frames and a very cool Stitching PSD with Smart Layers for ease of sizing up. And, of course I would never have a freebie week without offering some fun font finds! – Happy Creating!
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13 Free High Resolution Grungy Photocopy Textures by Spoon Graphics – TOU here
24 Free Authentic 1930s Vintage Postcard Textures by Spoon Graphics – TOU here
Vintage Frame and Label Vector by Ribbon3 at Vecteezy (read the TOU)
Handmade Halo Frames Brush set by Lily Fox at deviantART
Stitches – PSD Layered File with Smart Objects for Resizing – by Jan Kopřiva
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Fun Fonts from the ‘Fontaholic’ side of me which you may not have:
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There is still plenty of time to create and enter our Dash of Inspiration March Design Challenge!
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Nuts and Bolts: When To Make Holiday Cards
When To Make Holiday Cards
One thing I notice in the New Cards section – which, like most artists, I check out now and then – is that when a holiday approaches, there’s a sudden flurry of cards uploaded for that holiday. I’ve also seen in the Forum when artists make a post about how long it’s taking to get a holiday card reviewed, and how much they want it approved to be in time for a holiday that’s just around the corner.
Also, like many artists, I’ve experienced longer delays in approvals during the Thanksgiving/Christmas season due to the sheer number of new cards being uploaded for those important card-giving holidays.
It’s been stated time and time again that if you want your holiday cards – and all cards – in time to sell, you need to get them done 3-6 months in advance. Why? Because that’s how long it can take for search engines to index your new content. Last minute cards rarely sell since they haven’t been around long enough.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I, too, make holiday cards at the last minute. I mean, are you really in the mood to make Christmas cards in July? But there’s something I’ve learned over the course of my years as an artist at Greeting Card Universe, and it’s this … even six months is probably not enough lead-in time for most cards.
If we make Christmas card designs this year, we’re not expecting sales this year. Oh, we may sell one or two to browsing customers, but it’s the second year when we tend to make more sales. The third year is even better. After that, a card’s performance is usually pretty consistent. We’re designing cards for the long haul, looking years into the future, not just 3-6 months.
How can you help overcome this gap between designing a card and selling that design? Specific marketing can gain more attention in a more timely fashion. But if you’re content to sit back and do nothing once the initial upload has been made, it can be a couple of years before you begin to see sales of a new card design.
The name of the greeting card game really is PATIENCE.
So observe the 3-6 month lead-in time for new greeting cards if you want. Make your Christmas designs in July if you can (if only to avoid the December rush). But don’t worry if you can’t get cards approved “in time.” You’re well in time for next year’s sales.
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Tips and Tricks: Holiday Finder
Savvy artists know that the major card-giving holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day are huge categories, so it’s hard to draw attention to your designs if you’re not committed to marketing yourself. However, just about every month has other “lesser” holidays where you can make sales and the competition is less.
How to find interesting holidays isn’t too difficult. One of our favorite sites is brownielocks.com which maintains a very comprehensive, month-by-month calendar guide of observances including themed days, weeks and months as well as national and international days, both officially recognized and informal.
And there’s GCU itself. For example, check out Collections – National & International Days Cards. You’ll find lots of sub-categories, many of which don’t have a huge amount of cards. No need to worry about getting lost among the crowd! And you never know when a shopper will just have to buy your Donut Day or Family Caregivers Month card.
And here’s a real pro tip: if you design a card for, say, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, do a little investigating among GCUs other categories. Can you adapt the card for a different but related category, such as Sympathy? Or a memorial card? With imagination, the possibilities are endless!
Don’t forget this is a great opportunity to take advantage of GCU’s collection of Stock Cards if you don’t want to create your own design.
Have fun!
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Font Frenzy: Italianno
An elegant and lovely script font, Italianno is free from Font Squirrel. As you can see from the example below, the letters connect with clean precision. If you already own a font that has extra ligatures, you could use those to spice up Italianno a bit using a little creative know-how in your graphics editor. Have fun!
![FireShot Screen Capture #161 - 'Free Font Italianno by TypeSETit I Font Squirrel' - www_fontsquirrel_com_fonts_italianno_filter[tags][0]=elegant&sort=recent](https://gcucommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/fireshot-screen-capture-161-free-font-italianno-by-typesetit-i-font-squirrel-www_fontsquirrel_com_fonts_italianno_filtertags0elegantsortrecent.jpg)
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Dash of Inspiration: March Design Challenge
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen March Design Challenge
Congratulations to our Winners and to all who participated in our March Design Challenge! Some really great entries were made this time around. Keep it up, folks!
1st Place WINNER is:
Congratulations to our February Winners and participants! What fun it was to see how inspiration and imagination took each of you in a different direction; and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing that many of you who participated really pushed outside of your ‘comfort’ zone – and had fun too! Now let’s get ready for this month’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge!
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MARCH Design Challenge – Theme: MOM
Requirements: Using gray-scale (full range from true white to true black and everything in between) PLUS one additional color for impact (variations in Tint and Shade only) – Express what Mom means to you. Original verse is key to this challenge. What we’d like to see for this challenge is for the artist to bring to life the vision that comes to their own mind when they think of Mom. ………………………………………………………………
Entry Deadline: March 30th, 2015
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How to Enter:
- Post the PID (card number) and the URL (public storefront link, please DO NOT post a link to your Manage Cards area) as a post in the challenge blog. We’ll forward your entry to the jury.
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Category: ANY category for Family Relation >> Mother/Mom ……………………………………………………………….
Rules:
- Submission must meet GCU’s Submission Guidelines and be Approved through the usual Review Cycle – Fast Track your submission with this in the Notes to Reviewer: February Design Challenge Submission here is the link to the blog post: (include THIS blog post URL)
- Only ONE card per artist per challenge.
- Submissions must be NEW, no existing designs.
- Your entry must meet the Challenge Requirements and Theme or it will not be included in the challenge.
- Stock Card Creations entries will not be accepted.
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Judging: Entries will be judged by the GCU Challenge Jury with results posting on the Community Blog the week of April 3rd. The jury will judge the entries on the following criteria:
- How well the card meets the Challenge Requirements and Theme.
- How well the card speaks to the Category the artist chooses for the card submission.
- Creativity, Execution and Marketability.
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Winners: 1st Place:
- The winning designer’s card and store will be featured on the GCU Public Blog – the blog which customers view and follow.
- As well as featured on the GCU Public Facebook Page – nearly 13,000 followers, now THAT’S exposure!
- The winning card will be Design of the Day following the announcement of the winners (within 48-hours).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards can not be DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- The winning card will be added to the Greeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board – currently over 800 followers.
- The winning card, should the artist choose, may be referenced in a new series by the winning artist and he/she may Fast Track all cards in the new series (being sure to give the Challenge URL and winning card PID in your Notes to Reviewer for each card in this series).
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
2nd Place:
- Your submission will be Design of the Day the following week of announcing the Challenge winners (within 7-days).
EXCEPTION: Horizontal (landscape) cards can not be DOD due to GCU Home Page space restrictions. In these cases, GCU will choose a different vertically oriented card from your store to feature as DOD. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for this limitation.
- Your card will be added to theGreeting Card Universe Design Challenge Winners Pinterest Board.
- Winning card will be included in a marketing email to over 100,000 customers!
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Tips:
Check out these tips, tricks, freebies, and tutorials from our own GCU Community Blog which would all be helpful in this month’s Challenge.
- How to Write Greeting Card Verse
- Writing Verse
- What’s in a Verse
- Tinting and Toning
- Color and Contrast
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This month’s Dash of Inspiration Design Challenge is meant for you to draw on your own memories to create a vision and verse with originality, that expresses what Mom means to you. In my example for this month’s challenge, I expressed how I remember my own Mom, who died twenty-five years ago. Yet to this day when I think of her, this little woman of 4′-11” was a bright light in a dark room, that put a smile on every face as soon she entered. So dig deep this month and create a wonderfully marketable card for Mom! Let the creativity flow and good luck! ………………………………………………………………………
Using yellow (and tints/shades of yellow) and a gray-scale pallet, this is how I see my own Mother – she was my sunshine, even on the cloudiest of days. ©Doreen Erhardt
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Participants for this challenge in addition to the above 1st and 2nd place were:
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Wanted: New Cards – Welcome Home, From Boarding School
Every Friday from now on, we’ll be showcasing a GCU category that has few or no cards. We’d like you to create at least one card for this category using the Stock Cards function (Bigstock) or your own graphic designs.
Remember, when you’re submitting your new card, add a little note about the intended category in your Notes to Reviewers – cards submitted for underused categories are much more likely to be approved provided they follow the Submission Guidelines. Be inventive, be clever, be creative. Good luck!
Today’s category with 0 cards is:
Occasions – Welcome Home – From Boarding School
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Dash of Inspiration: February Design Challenge Winners
Dash of Inspiration: February Design Challenge
Congratulations to our Winners and to all who participated in Doreen’s February Design Challenge! Some really great entries were made this time around. Keep it up, folks!
1st Place WINNER
Barbara Schreiber
2nd Place
Christie Black
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Nuts and Bolts: Changing a Card
You’ve uploaded your card and you realize you’ve made a mistake OR you need to make a change on a card that’s been approved. How do you alter your work? Let’s start with the basics: how to change the card’s image details and inside verse.
When you are logged in to your GCU account, click on the links: Manage Store > Images & Cards > Manage Cards.
There is a search box on the left side of the page. You can search for your card by PID number, keyword, status, etc. Once your search is successful, you’ll see you can EDIT either the card’s image details (title, keywords, etc). Don’t forget the SAVE CHANGES button. You can also EDIT the card’s inside verse.
If you need to make changes in the card’s image details AND the inside verse, choose to EDIT the image details. You’ll have an opportunity to also make changes to the inside verse.
What can you change? You can edit the card’s title, keywords, Artist’s Notes, front (glossy or matte). You cannot edit the Notes to Reviewer field or the category.
To make a category change, send an e-mail to cardreview@greetingcarduniverse.com. In the subject line, put Category Change Request and the PID number of the card. In the body of the e-mail, restate the PID number and the requested category. Be patient. It will take time for the alteration to be made.
To give additional information to the review team on a card, send an e-mail to cardreview@greetingcarduniverse.com. In the subject line, put the card’s PID number and Important Info. In the body of the e-mail, state the information you want to give to the review team about the card.
If you are changing multiple cards, such as those in a series, in the Subject line put Category Change, Multiple Cards, and include the PID number of the first card in the series. In the body of your e-mail, list all the PID numbers and the categories requested.
To change the card front image, first upload the new image. Then go to Manage Cards as instructed above. Find the card you wish to change. When in EDIT mode for the card image details, look just below the image of the card to find a link: CHANGE IMAGE. This will bring up the new image you uploaded. SELECT this image. Don’t forget to SAVE CHANGES when you’re finished.
Be aware that the new card front must adhere to the Submission Guidelines and must be suited to the same category as the original (in other words, you can’t change the image of a Mother’s Day card to make it a Christmas card). The change may take up to 24 hours to show in your store.
We hope this information will be helpful to you as you continue to improve your cards’ marketability!
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Tips and Tricks: Chalk Lettering Effect
Spoon Graphics is offering a free tutorial on How to Create a Realistic Chalk Lettering Effect for your blackboard/chalkboard design projects. Example below. Have fun!
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Dash of Inspiration: Marketing Monday
A Dash of Inspiration, A Cup of Creativity by Doreen Marketing Monday
Understanding SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is difficult for most of us, as it’s an every-changing world. Fortunately for all of us GCU artists, we really don’t have to understand all that goes into making SEO successful for our cards. All we have to do is trust Greeting Card Universe who pays for experts in this field to advise and lead GCU in the right direction so that our cards are seen by search engines and receive the best ranking possible.
That means – YOU – the artist, if you want to actually sell your cards, MUST step up to the plate and take full advantage of the tips GCU has given us on how to best add that now necessary unique content, when we create our cards. This will ensure our ‘descriptive attributes’ serve us as well as possible, both on site and on external search engines.
For searches on the GCU site by customers, you need to have excellent keywords which accurately and fully represent your card, as well as; a strong Card Title – which is also a searchable field. For external searches, it’s all about the fresh, unique content that will make the difference between your card being IGNORED by Google or brought to the front of the search index. That unique content is our Card Description (Artist Notes).
Here is a great article on the blog – Nuts and Bolts Uniqueness Artist Notes SEO – which is a must read for those serious about selling their cards.
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Today I wanted to give some visual examples that will help you see this now necessary step in today’s online world for those artists who want to sell you cards. After all, if you’ve put the effort into creating a marketable greeting card, don’t you want to sell it?
Remember this? Card Submissions 101 – It still applies, although the uniqueness factor is a new tool since this document, but it’s still good to refresh your mind with the basics of Card Title, Keywords and Card Description (Artist Notes) should look like. This PDF is the perfect tool to keep open while you fill in the card submission form at GCU as a check list.
On the following examples, I’ve shared my Card Titles, Keywords and Description (Artist Notes) for a visual reference so you can see how to fill these fields when you create your submissions. Remember also, that old cards need this extra effort as well. Take the time every day to pull up a handful of your old cards and ensure that your Card Titles, Keywords and Artist Notes (Card Description) are the best they can be – you’ll start to see more sales when your cards actually are picked up by external search engines. Remember poor content = being ignored by Google.
And … though there should be no reason to remind you, remember that you are only hurting yourself by adding descriptive words, occasions, holidays and relations to any of these fields which do not directly apply to that specific card.
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My Card Title: Coach’s Birthday | Football Theme | Players on the Field | Custom
My Keywords: birthday,birthdays,coach,coach’s birthday,football coach,football themed,football,football players,team,football team,quarterback,mvp, tackle, lineman, score, game, sports, sporting,grass,crowd,scoreboard, custom, personalize
My Description: What better way to wish your football coach Happy Birthday, then to add his name as the MVP on the scoreboard of this personalized Birthday Card? He’s sure to call a time out for a great celebration when he see the crowd cheering for a great game day! Many thanks to Dianaz Designz, Karen’s Scraps, and Pixel Scrapper for the use of their elements to create this football themed greeting card.
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My Card Title: Pet Sympathy for the Loss of a Cat, Orange Tabby Painting
Note: Who is the card for? General categories means the card serves anyone for that occasion, so the WHO is the card for question does not apply, nor should the Card Title include text such as; ‘all occasion’, ‘anyone’, etc.- Instead focus on: What is the Occasion? Loss of a Cat – What is the Subject/Theme? Orange Tabby Pet Sympathy
My Keywords: cat,cats,feline,felines,pets,pet loss,pet sympathy,loss of a cat,tabby,orange tabby,condolences,loss of a pet,orange,blue,sleeping,painting,oil painting,digital oils,hibiscus,soft,sweet
My Description: This original digital oil painting by the artist is from a photograph by Bosela at Morguefile and features a beautiful orange tabby cat sleeping on a velvety blue sofa. The feline is surrounded by a hibiscus flower border in matching blues and orange hues making this pet sympathy card the perfect choice to add your message of condolence on the loss of a pet cat.
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My Card Title: Veterinary Graduate Congratulations | Custom Graduating Pets
My Keywords: veterinary,veterinarian,animal doctor,congratulations,new vet,veterinary graduate,graduation,graduate,graduating,dog,dogs,cat,cats,terrier,dalmatian,puppy,bulldog,tabby,kitten,blue,red,cute,pets,cats and dogs,custom,personalized
My Description: There’s a new vet in town, who just graduated from Veterinary School, and these cute cats and dogs dressed in graduation caps are ready to congratulate the graduate when you personalize the front of this card with the name of the new Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). The new Veterinarian is sure to smile when he or she sees these pets, and reads your message of congratulations!
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Later in the week we’ll announce the winners of February’s Challenge and then next Monday, March 2nd we’ll kick off our third challenge, so be sure to keep tuned in!
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So until next week … Learn … Create … Inspire
GCU Community 