Design Spotlight: Rycky Creations
Today’s Design Spotlight is on Rycky Creations, who shares a poignant story with us. If you would like to see your favorite and/or bestselling card spotlighted here, get in touch!
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In late 2006, a very special young friend named John underwent surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a very aggressive form of cancer at 23 years of age. In 2008, I began designing cards, along with another friend, and selling them on the internet under the name “Rycky Creations.”
Wanting to “do something” not only in John’s honor, but also because I had lost my dad to a brain tumor, I designed a card called “Hope.” The background of the card is done in gray, which is the color that represents brain cancer, and I made the decision to donate any commissions earned to cancer research.
In 2009, we expanded our “Hope” card line to include several other “colors” of cancer. By the end of 2010, we had sold 642 Hope cards with 100% of the commissions going to cancer research. If you have a moment, check out our “Hope for Cancer” blog.
I feel so blessed to belong to such a wonderful community of artists… thanks GCU for giving us a great outlet to share our creations!
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Dash of Inspiration – April 25, 2011
A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity by Doreen
Photomanipulation in Photoshop
I love fantasy and sci-fi and I’m always fascinated by the creation process of this type of art. For those of us who are photographers, we can’t photograph what doesn’t exist which is probably what draws me this style of creation. In today’s digital world full of powerful tools, photographers can create ‘something out of this world’ using our own photographs; just like the painter puts imagination to canvas. This week I wanted to challenge all of the photographers out there to create something surreal and fantastic using bits and pieces of your photographs. Today’s Photoshop Tutorial gives you some initial technique and hopefully some inspiration to dip your toes into a whole new world of exploration.
Along with the How to create a fantasy Photomanipulation in Photoshop tutorial brought to us by Webgraphics, I’m also including two Brushes links to help you with your new creations into the world beyond! The first is a set of 30 Hi-Res Fairy Wing Brushes, the other a set of 22 Light Swirl Brushes. These come to us from Obsidian Dawn and should work for Photoshop 7 & up, Elements 2 & up and Gimp, so all of you should be able to play in this sandbox!
How to Create a FantasyPhotomanipulation in Photoshop Tutorial
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Guest Blogger: Tom Rent – April 25, 2011
Today’s guest blog comes from Tom Rent at Comical Captions, one of the most knowledgeable and helpful guys around the community. Thanks for the tip, Tom! — Corrie
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Your Artist Profile Is More Important Than You Think
Yikes! Being lazy one day, rather than typing in my store URL to see if my new cards were up, I just did a Yahoo Search and noticed something interesting and disturbing!
Look how our search results come up! The title line is from GCU, and we can’t modify that, but the first lines of our Artist profile is what comes next. This is so critical in helping the shopper decide to click the link or not – yes, CRITICAL.
I then tried a Google Search and they present the same way but they instead use part of the second sentence! They must know people are gaming the system by depending to much on the first sentence.
Oh man! I think I need to come up with something more inviting and that covers 2 sentences, perhaps with a similar message. I do know it is good to use the store title again in that first sentence to help in ranking high in search, so having Comical Captions has to stay. Perhaps something like “Over 5000 of the funniest Greeting Cards around now at Comical Captions. My funny Greeting Cards are some of the most popular around.” … (and then I’ll get into the personal stuff). The first lines need to be very “catchy.” If they are reading them then the “Real Paper Greeting Cards” is what they are looking for, so the next 2 sentences of our Artist Profile is what they will bite on next so we have to word them just right!
Obviously what we come up with also has to look “OK” to someone reading the artist profile once in our store. We don’t want to drive them away. This could take some noodling!
Just thought I’d share that with the group. You might try to see how your Artist Profile reads in search. Please share what you find out!
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Happy Easter!
Have a joyous Easter, everyone!
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Weekend Recap – April 23, 2011
Well, it was a short week but an exciting one! In just a couple of days, we’ve already helped out some artists with various issues, scattered some inspiration around, and had a great time jammin’ with our community peeps. So in case you missed the fun, here’s a recap of what’s gone on:
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FROM THE COMMENTS
LINKING TRICK:
Corrie (hey, that’s me!) taught a neat trick for linking to a page of related cards at GCU. First, do a site-wide search on GCU for your keywords INCLUDING your artist or store name, such as “corrie kuipers scooter cow.” This should bring up all the cards of YOUR design. Then copy and paste the URL wherever you want. Voila! If somebody clicks on the link, they’ll get that same page of cards, too.
SQUIDOO-BE-DOO-BE-DOO:
Sher gave us the valuable advice that the maximum width of a photograph or other picture you want to put into a Squidoo lens is 25o pixels.
Moonie at Moonlake Designs started a new Squidoo lens about We Love Cake.
Elizabeth has a Mother’s Day for Special Mothers lens.
Bright has a Squidoo lens about Art Appreciation for Kids.
When you make a new Squidoo lens, in addition to using the Amazon, Zazzle, etc. modules to make a little moolah, why not include your GCU cards as well? You can have up to 9 outbound links to GCU per lens, which is plenty to promote greeting cards without seeming spammy. Not sure how? Check out our latest Squidoo tutorial (link below).
NEED FOR FEED:
Want to add the GCU Community blog to your RSS news feeder so you can stay on top of all the latest? Here’s the link you need: https://gcucommunity.com/feed/
DON”T MISS:
This week’s GCU Community Newsletter.
A tutorial on linking GCU greeting cards in your Squidoo lens.
This week’s A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity by Doreen at Salon of Art.
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COMMUNITY SHOUT OUT
Thanks to the artists who responded to our request for guest bloggers. If you want to volunteer to write about a subject close to your heart on any topic you think will interest and inform the community, get in touch. We’re also seeking artists who’d like to have a favorite/bestselling card spotlighted here. If you want to get some free exposure, contact us about being in the Designer Spotlight.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to send in your links to your blog, Squidoo lensmaster profile, Twitter or Facebook so we can add you to our roll calls.
Got a question about GCU you want to Ask Mindy? Send it in to us and we’ll pass it on!
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COMING UP
What’s with the star on the right side of the page, you ask? In a few days, we have an exciting announcement to make about a new community-wide project we’ve been working on. We’ll give you a hint: if you haven’t started a blog to promote yourself and your designs, you’re going to miss out on the fun.
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A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES
Shhhhh… (peering around)… come closer. I have a secret to whisper in your ear. Are you sure you’re alone? Okay, my spies at GCU headquarters have let me in on a super hush-hush project that’s very close to completion. From what I’ve heard, this new project is just for the artist community, and it’s going to totally rock! I’m already a little verklempt thinking about it. Stay tuned, ladies and gents… I’ll have more breaking news for you as it comes in.
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CONTACT US: You can get in touch anytime at gcucommunity(at)bigdates.com
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Community Shout Out – April 22, 2011
Hi everybody! In case you haven’t heard, GCU is seeking cards for upcoming promotions as these categories are EMPTY. Be the first to design and upload a card – and you get to Fast Track, too, so that’s almost instant gratification!
The categories are:
Holidays >> Mother’s Day >> Co-worker / Colleague >> Work Wife
Holidays >> Father’s Day >> Co-worker / Colleague >> Work Husband
What’s a Work Wife? What’s a Work Husband? According to the definition, a “Work Spouse” – work husband or work wife – is a co-worker or colleague of the opposite sex with whom you share an especially close (Platonic) relationship.
So get designing, people! This is YOUR chance to get YOUR card(s) into a category that isn’t already bursting, so it’s a golden opportunity. Go for it! And when you’ve submitted the card (don’t forget to Fast Track) you can post the PID# on this Forum thread.
Corrie
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Dash of Inspiration – April 22, 2011
Learn . Create . Inspire
by Doreen
A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity
Each week I’ll be offering links to tutorials, free downloads and wonderful art & photography that should inspire you to ‘think outside the box’. Every artist should experiment with new tools, new mediums or just new subject matter. The difference between good and great in any field is whether you do an average job or whether you push yourself to do a great job…Every time! Being a great artist is no different. It’s about constant growth, becoming a master at your techniques, and being inspired by something so outside the bounds of your artistic ‘comfort zone’ that you simply MUST create something new!
Today, in honor of Earth Day, I bring you this wonderful exhibit of 40 Terrific Works of Art Made From Common Trash. This is wonderful collection is brought to us by Noupe.com. Look for A Dash of Inspiration…A Cup of Creativity each Monday for something that will spark your creativity!
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Squidoo-sday – April 22, 2011
BASIC – How to Link Your GCU Cards in a Squidoo Lens
GCU artist Moonie asked: “How do you actually get all the little picture links, etc., (for) posting cards (on Squidoo)?”
Answer: That’s easy, and I’ll show you how. There are two ways you can go about it.
First, you’ll need to add a TEXT module to your Squidoo lens. Why? Because a TEXT module is where that ol’ HTML magic happens. This is what it looks like:
Next, pick out the card you want at GCU. See that row of symbols under the card? Click the dollar sign, you’ll get a pop up box with two HTML codes to choose from.
Copy the Image Link.
Go back to the TEXT module of your lens. Paste the HTML into the box. Click SAVE.
Voila! There’s your card with a clickable link to its Card Details page at GCU.
That size of image will fit five across (so that’s five “portrait” style cards, only four “landscape” style cards will fit) the width of the lens. To put a little space between images, add/ /at the end of each clump of image link HTML code – no spaces, please! It’ll look like this:
And the end product looks like this:
However, suppose you want a larger image as part of your text. First, re-size your chosen card with your graphic editor program to make it a reasonable size. While Squidoo prefers squares, as long as you don’t make your image too huge, it shouldn’t get distorted. You may have to play around with it a bit to find out what size works best for you.
Next, head over to GCU and click that dollar sign again. This time, you’ll want to copy the Text Link code.
Now back to the Squidoo TEXT module. You’ll see this:
Browse and upload your picture, and use the Text Link you got from GCU to link it to a URL. UPLOAD the photo. Click SAVE. And you’ll get a lovely big photo on one side (your text will be on the other), and the photo will be linked to the Card Details page on GCU.
And there you have it.
If you have questions regarding Squidoo, send them to us, ‘cause we want to help! And if any of our super duper Squid lensmasters have tips, too, we want ’em!
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Community Shout Out
Guess what? Our own gracious and lovely lady Mindy (one of GCU’s Big Kahunas, in case you didn’t know) has agreed to answer your questions in our upcoming Ask Mindy feature. How cool is that! So send in your questions (either by leaving a comment on this post or sending them by email, and we’ll submit them to Mindy, who will choose her favorites to answer.
What have you always wanted to know about GCU? What burning question keeps you up at night? What head-scratchers do you yearn to pose? Now’s your chance! Get pondering and send us your questions ASAP.
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We are seeking Guest Bloggers for the following topics: greeting card design tips, photography tips, GCU tips or how-to, Squidoo tips or how-to, blogging tips, social networking tips, marketing/promotion tips. In short, anything you think will benefit the GCU community is up for grabs. Submissions can be as long or short as you wish, and we’ll happily include graphics or embed video, and coordinate the publication date with you. Send an email letting us know what you’re interested in sharing as a guest blogger. Thanks!
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Got a favorite card at GCU or a bestseller? Well, here’s a fantastic opportunity to toot your own horn AND get exposure at the same time! We’re seeking submissions for an upcoming feature, Design Spotlight. Your card (linked to GCU, of course) will be prominently displayed, along with your story of how the card was created, what inspired you, why you chose to make that design… whatever you want to tell us about it. Send us an email to join in!
All email should be sent to: gcucommunity(at)bigdates.com
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GCU Community Newsletter – April 20, 2011
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Issue #1
WELCOME
Welcome to the inaugural edition of the GCU Community newsletter (and to doubly celebrate, today’s also the founding of our shiny new blog – yay us!).
We created this newsletter and blog to be super useful tools for Greeting Card Universe artists like you who want to learn more about GCU, find out how to promote your designs so they earn you more money, how to self-market your store to get traffic, get the inside scoop on stuff like SEO… in short, we’re here to help you write your own GCU success story.
How is this going to work?
Twice a month, in this newsletter publication we’ll bring you informative how-to’s on everything from getting your blog started to using sites like Squidoo, getting the most out of your social networks and social bookmarks, and lots of other stuff. You’ll participate in cool activities like blog carnivals and lens parties with your fellow artists. And there will be contests where you can win really neat stuff – yep, we mean PRIZES!
No kidding. We’re serious about our community ‘cause we know it’s a powerful force for good. We want every artist at GCU to grow their business. The best way to do that is to arm you with the tools you need, and organize activities that are beneficial for all.
Whether you’re an experienced self-marketer or a complete novice, a serious business person or a hobbyist, the newsletter will have something for you, we promise. Cross our hearts.
HIDDEN GEMS: Admin Pro Day - April 27 - by Tom Rent
Apart from hosting the newsletter, this blog will also give you daily (you read that right, every single day, rain or shine, except major holidays) updates that will keep you in the know about what the community members are up to. We’ll also bring you tips and tricks, point you towards resources, make announcements, and generally motivate the heck out of you.
Who am I and why am I running this blog? I’m Corrie Kuipers, a painter and illustrator in the Netherlands, founding member of the GCU artist community and one of GCU’s top sellers. I’ve been designing cards with my partner, Nene Adams, since 2007. Like many of you, when I started I had no idea how to promote my work. My continuing success comes as the result of much trial and error. Now I want to share the things I learned with you.
So don’t be afraid. It’s easier than you think. Just check the GCU Community blog every day. Read the newsletter. Play in our sandbox. Have fun and build your business at the same time. Artists helping artists is a fantastic idea… and you’re going to be an important part of it.
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Why should you start a blog, and more importantly, why should you keep it updated? To answer that question, we’re going to need to explain a little about how search engines work. Don’t run away yet… we’ll keep it brief.
Search engines use complex algorithms to catalog and rank on-line content like blogs. Simply put, the higher your site ranks, the closer to #1 you get when anybody does a search relevant to your keywords (we’ll learn more about that later). One of the criteria used for ranking by some search engines is backlinks – that is, links at other sites that point back to your site. The more backlinks, the better your rank.
We’ll talk about backlinks in more depth another time. The important thing to remember is that writing a blog and updating it regularly (I’d suggest once a week or at least twice a month) will give you backlinks to whichever site you want to promote… like, say, your GCU storefront. Or your collection of niche greeting cards at GCU. Or whatever greeting cards you want to attract more attention from potential customers.
You know the more your card sells at GCU, the higher it will appear in on-site search results, right? So it makes sense to promote yourself and your designs everywhere you can. The more you sell = the more you sell.
HIDDEN GEMS: Nurses Day - May 6 - by Sheryl Kasper
Does it actually work? You bet! I’ll use myself as an example. My partner and I noticed there weren’t many greeting cards made specifically to send to cancer patients. We saw this need and acted on it, uploading a collection of cancer cards at GCU. We also wrote a lens about it on Squidoo, promoted it on a cancer-related blog we wrote, flogged in on Facebook, linked to it in other blogs’ comments, used social bookmark sites… and three years later, we’re sending plenty of traffic to this card collection at GCU, we’re making sales every day, and it’s been such a success, we’ve made spin-offs like cards for cancer supporters, and cards to send to someone whose loved one has been diagnosed with cancer. (P.S., we sell those, too).
If we can do it, you can do it. You don’t have to be an expert or a professional journalist. Anyone can start a blog. What do you write about? Anything you love. What’s your passion? What inspires you? Start there, then begin to build your blog.
Remember, if you build it… they will come. In the next Time to Blog, we’ll discuss how to write blog posts that get attention.
For step-by-step information on why you should start a blog and how you can do it, check out How to Start a Blog.
If you’ve never blogged before, we want you to start a new blog and create one post. Just one post about anything you like, but it must include at least three greeting cards linked to GCU (your own cards or another artist’s, you can use the Sell This Card tool from GCU, it’s easy!). In the spirit of fairness, we’ll also accept new Squidoo lenses entered in the contest. Here’s some advice – don’t just make a post saying “buy my greeting cards.” Be creative. Think of a topic close to your heart, then tie it into greeting cards at GCU. If you’re already running a blog, make a post and include three links to greeting cards at GCU. Then show us your fabulous work by posting a link in the comments of this post on or before May 8, 2011. Good luck!
Each artist who accepts the challenge above will be entered in a random drawing for a fantastic book Art Escapes: Daily Exercises and Inspirations for Discovering Greater Creativity and Artistic Confidence (Dory Kanter). “This title for both beginning and experienced artists gives readers ideas for building an art habit. It contains daily projects for drawing, watercolour, mixed media, collage and more. It aims to help readers increase their skill and creativity and find time to make a little bit of art every day.” Sounds good to me! To be eligible, you must complete the challenge as stated above and leave a link in the comments section of this post on or before May 8, 2011.
If there’s something you’d like to see offered as a prize in our next contest, leave a comment and let us know! OR send your suggestions to gcucommunity (at) bigdates.com.
If you need help starting a free blog, here are a few of the more popular places to go:
WordPress | Blogger | Posterous
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Search engines give great weight, not only to actual links, but also to anchor text. What’s that? When you make a link in a blog or a website, you don’t want your readers to see it like this (http://www.example.com). Instead, you want the visible, clickable link to be actual words, like this (Here’s an Example) linked to the URL. Many people use “click here” as anchor text, but that’s a mistake. Use something relevant instead. If you’re linking to a butterfly themed birthday card, for instance, try Blue Butterfly Birthday Card as anchor text. The more relevant and descriptive your anchor text, the better search engines will like you.
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High five moment: Sandra Rose Designs was recently interviewed in the Creative Artists Blog – Congratulations! And congratulations to Nancy who recently made her first sale!
Welcome: Say “hi” to GCU newcomer Gerda!
Squid-New: New Squidoo lens about Mother’s Day greeting cards from GCU artist Elizabeth! GCU artist Doreen has updated her Squidoo lens about Save the Date greeting cards! New Squidoo lens about Military Troop Support greeting cards by GCU artist William! If you have a new lens or you’ve updated a vintage lens that features GCU cards, we want to know about it!
Stay Tuned: In the coming weeks, we’ll be bringing you news about some super secret projects we’ve been working on. Trust us, it’s worth waiting for!
2011 Reminder Time: Since search engines can take up to 6 months to index new content, you should be working on this year’s cards ahead of time for the following holidays:
- August 1 – Ramadan
- September 5 – Labor Day
- September 11 – Grandparents Day
- September 11 – Patriot Day
- September 29 – Rosh Hashanah
HIDDEN GEMS: Mothers Day - May 8 - by Teri Francis
We Need You!: If you’ve got a blog, a website, a Squidoo lens, or a YouTube video promoting your cards at GCU, or a Facebook or a Twitter account that you use, we want to hear from you! To join the roll calls here, leave a comment or send an email to gcucommunity (at) bigdates.com. We update the roll calls daily, so you’ll never be absent for long. Do you have suggestions? Features you’d like to see added? Tips you want to share? Send them in!
Stars Wanted: If you’ve done something like a special achievement, an interview, started a new project, met a milestone, or other news you want to share with the community, toot your own horn and let us know! Leave a comment here or send an email to gcucommunity (at) bigdates.com and we’ll be sure to include it in our next newsletter.
Hidden Gems: In each newsletter we’ll choose two or three “hidden gems” to spotlight from GCU’s vast collection of greeting cards. These are cards that appear in on-site search results after page 5, so they’re a bit lost to the average shopper. Do you think a card is a hidden gem and want to nominate it for consideration? Send us the PID# or a link and we’ll take it from there.
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The next issue of the GCU Community Newsletter will be Monday, May 9, 2011
GCU Community 