That just happened.

Funk-in Funk

You know what? I miss blogging!! It gives me a chance to sort out my thoughts as I write them down. I don't know how terribly interesting this will be to anyone else, but that's OK - I blog for me, not the masses (OK, and by masses I mean the other three people who are reading this).

I need to take a break from work, or the way I am working right now. I think I'm in a funk. Allow me to explain (and by explain I mean gripe)...

I think I need to schedule a week or two that I don't have to open my work e-mail, hold any appointments, or work on any client projects. I still need to work during this time, but what I need to do is prioritize, catch up, breathe deeply and figure out how I want to set up year #2 of running this business full-time.

I think I spent the better part of the last year just running, flailing; doing everything everyone wanted me to do on their schedule, not mine; constantly afraid the bottom would drop out and I'd have to go crawling back to work for someone else and drive a crappy commute every day.

For the second year, I think I will go ahead and decide that I am here to stay. I will finally get to those things which have been lingering at the bottom of my to-do list for months and months — the things that will make my business better and make me better at it. I will refine my tactics and assess what has been working for me and what hasn't.

Look, I'll start practicing now:

• I'm sorry, I cannot meet at 4:30. (My son gets home at 4:10 and I like to be just about finished by that time so I don't have to get snippy with the kids since I will inevitably get interrupted.)

• I'm sorry, I cannot meet today. (I am running a family, a business and my own life — a little more notice is not only appreciated, it is necessary.)

• I'm sorry, I cannot participate in industry events as much as I'd like to. I love meeting new people and the friends I've made along the way, but I'd rather make a coffee or lunch date with you. I have a husband and two kids at home and evenings are either kids' practice times for whatever team or club they're doing at the moment or our down-time together. When we don't have our evening time together, our lives get thrown off big time. Besides, ten years from now it won't matter how many happy hours I attended, but my kids will still remember that we sat down at the table for dinner, held hands and prayed, shared a meal and the details of our days. Plus, I don't drink very often. I have a responsibility to my family and everyone else on the road to be "on" when I'm driving and my son hates alcohol and I try my best to be respectful of that — he has good reason.

And you know, I despise "getting ready." I don't want to put on makeup every day. I've done the dress-up every single day and the does-my-shoe-collection-count-as-an-IRA thing and I'm so totally over it. I have nothing to show for all the thousands of dollars I've spent on clothes and shoes over the years and the immense amount of time I've poured into getting myself ready only to be completely antsy and anxious because I'm wearing something uncomfortable and then wash off all that makeup a couple hours later. PS: I'm also not a big fan of traffic. The reason I'm always late to pretty much everything is because I dread getting ready until the last possible second before I finally [choose one: get in the shower; change clothes; put on my makeup; fix my hair]. It doesn't make any sense, but there it is. It's my thing. And sometimes I am early because I start feeling really grown-up and responsible and I make myself stick to my schedule. But I can't do that all the time — I childishly want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it — and most of the time I talk myself into believing I've earned the right to do so.

I've said it many times before, but I LOVE my house. I take pride in our home, what we grow in the garden, and the unconventional nature of our silly family. I love it all. I can already tell I'm going to be a hermit when I'm old. I don't feel the need to get out of the house much at all.

OK I'm done whining now, and I have to go anyway, as I have a 4:30 appointment. (Shocker.) And yes, my kid is home now and yes, I've already been interrupted twice in the last 5 minutes. C'est la vie!

Slammed

This downward spiral used to happen about once a month, but this is the first time it's happened so far in 2011. I get completely slammed with work but I try to maintain my normal work-life balance: quit at quitting time, not work on weekends, etc. . . . except during that evening and weekend family time, I am plagued with stress about how much I need to do or should be doing.

Time for bed comes and goes and everyone is asleep, yet I am still awake, trying to de-stress and zone out in front of the TV, because I haven't watched TV for days or even weeks. I think about sneaking to my computer to work, but when I sit down, my eyes begin to dart around and I realize I am too tired to do anything productive, let alone creative. Then I get through one more episode of Friends before I finally pack it in and go to sleep at 2 a.m. But my alarm still goes off at 6:45 to take my son to school, and I awaken immediately stressed about my growing to-do list. Once he's off to school, I start working right away, with just a double mug of coffee - no breakfast, no workout, not even changing out of my pajamas and slippers. This is a recipe for disaster.

This bad routine continues for days until I finally whittle down my to-do list enough to chill out or make myself sick. I occasionally have to actually stop working to get ready and look presentable for previously-booked meetings, so that's a blessing and a curse. My work to-do list is never really done, because even if I send out all of my proofs, by the time I'm done, I'm already getting changes back on some and by the time I finish those, I have changes back on the others, and when those are done, some jobs are ready to send to the printers and order envelopes for, and then when I get those, the others are ready to go, then I'll have a barrage of shipping to do or meetups to schedule to drop off invitations. I currently have close to 20 orders in different stages of this process, not to mention e-mail inquiries or phone calls to return to prospective brides and clients, as well as invitation consultation meetings. This is the job, this is my business, and I LOVE it. What I do not love is when I get overzealous, thinking I can do it all AND have a family, eat healthily at home, work out, and the glue that holds it all together: get plenty of sleep!

My priorities have been out of whack this week and I can see now in hindsight that in the past couple of weeks have been leading up to this stress-fest.

My number one priorities are my family, health and spirituality. Of course my business is a priority, but not a more important one than my family, health and faith. If those three pillars in my life are not straight, I'm not doing my best at my business or anything else. 

February's meal goal of using what we have basically threw me into a tailspin. I accept now that the best we've ever been about eating healthfully and at home was when we had that solid meal plan during January.  I have gotten creative in the kitchen a few times this month, but we've eaten out more than I'd like because it got too late and I didn't know what to make or have anything thawed, etc. Not good. I know now how good it can be and that in order to maintain that goal, I need to be accountable to a schedule and a plan... so I will start a new plan tomorrow for the next month.

When we're not eating well, we don't have the right kind of energy to be active and our sleep schedule gets all crazy too. Hubs and I have been staying up too late for a couple weeks now and we're both exhausted. So when we're not eating right, have no energy, we're not being active enough (and it feels like a beating when we work out) and we aren't getting enough sleep, we aren't performing at our best in our work or our family time either. So I'm putting a stop to this. I don't feel good right now. I feel guilty and tired and icky. Is it any surprise that during this time, I also stopped reading and blogging, two things I love doing in my down time? All of the things that enrich my life essentially stopped because I let my priorities get out of line. What have I been doing? I have had some really fun social times with friends in the last couple weeks, which is fantastic — it's my alone time/family time when I've been messing up. I'm going to get back to my routine this week and back to my healthy, happy family.

I feel like I should also mention the chaos in the world right now. I feel like global issues are escalating at an exponential pace and it is wigging me out, not to mention that the gas prices here are getting out of control again and people are starting to freak a little bit. I am hoping and praying we don't have another economic meltdown in this country, but it is unsettling to say the least. I can feel the tension rising in friends, family and even strangers. I think as a nation, we are a positive people, but that can sometimes lead to living in denial. Did we learn from our economic missteps or did we just go back to driving Suburbans and charging up variable-rate credit cards? Just sayin... make sure your ducks are in a row and your current lifestyle is sustainable. Be prepared. I'm going to take a breather this weekend and get my life back on-track, learn from my mistakes and make sure my priorities are in line. Sweet dreams!

For Your Sweetie

Heart-shaped box of chocolates, half of which are filled with something gross: $5-20

Flowers that will wilt by the weekend: $10-100

Valentine's card for your sweetheart: $3-5

Getting the perfect Valentine's gift for your honey WHILE saving money: Priceless! 

Art by Ellie and Sugar Bee Sweets have teamed up to offer a Valentine's package for just $6, available at The Shoppes at Brownstone Village in Arlington through Monday, Feb. 14. They're affordable enough to get one for everyone in your family and weather is going to be phenomenal this weekend, so get out there and pick up a few!

What you get: five amazing red velvet cake balls (or one of Sugar Bee's other fantastic flavors), each handcrafted and enrobed in white chocolate then drizzled with more chocolate... and a Valentine's card designed by Art by Ellie! Your schnookems will love the adorable owl or heart garden design almost as much as they'll love your handwritten love note on the reverse side (don't worry, they come with their own little red envelopes so the sappiness stays between you two). 

Also available: Our wildly popular full-size, foldover owl notecards with envelopes, in limited supply, for $2 each — the perfect card for any Valentine's gift.

Support local businesses this Valentine's Day and get a sweet deal! You can also keep up with our sweet companies day in and day out by "liking" Sugar Bee Sweets and Art by Ellie on facebook. Let us know if you need a larger custom package for V-day or any other occasion.

Art by Ellie on facebook

Sugar Bee Sweets on facebook

The Shoppes at Brownstone Village (Sugar Bee Sweets is inside "Brownstone Too") is located at 2408 West Abram Street, Arlington, TX 76013 (SE corner of Abrams & Bowen, across from Kroger).
Mon-Sat 10-6 & Sun 1-5.

Behind the Scenes: Custom Wedding Invitations and Cakes

Art by Ellie & Sugar Bee Sweets participated in the "Paper + Frosting" photo shoot for the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Brides of North Texas magazine. The magazine gave Art by Ellie a palette of colors and a theme to design an invitation suite around and then Heidi of Sugar Bee Sweets had to design a cake to match the suite. You would think that is our dream – to do what we want, but it was so much more difficult than we imagined. We had no client, no bride, to tell us when we hit the nail on the head or if we were way off-base. I ended up designing about 10 different invitations in the end! But we were so happy with the end result; here's what we came up with:

The colors for this suite were fuschia, tangerine, yellow and ivory for a modern spring wedding. Included are (clockwise from top left): a tea-length invitation layered on a metallic ivory damask print stock, table numbers, RSVP response card, thank you note, and menu.

And here was the lovely matching cake by Sugar Bee Sweets:

And here was our second suite, which was supposed to have an antique/Victorian feel. Our colors were a cornflower blue, periwinkle (sort of a light blue-gray) and white. The contrast in these photos make the blues look brighter than they actually were and not much of the invitation suite is shown (just the front of one invitation holder, along with the response card and menu below. We love the lace wrap on the holder though and that idea inspired us to create those beautiful lace-wrapped invitations for Rose later on, so for that, we are thankful. Heidi loves doing all-white wedding cakes and had been itching to make a ruffle cake, so this was the perfect excuse. These turned out great.

Here are some behind-the-scenes photos I took the day of the shoot, to show you what the actual blue colors looked like:

  

And just for good measure, here are some rejected invitation ideas for the shoot... Maybe I can use them for someone else one day! 

  

    

(oh yes, I made the rosette out of metallic ivory linen cardstock and later decided that wasn't realistic because I didn't want someone to order 200 invitations like this from me - that's a lot of work!) :)

Wine, Lace and Happily Ever After

I have been dying to share the photos of these wedding invitations I did recently for a friend. Rose and I have grown up, and in some ways grown apart, but I texted her a few weeks ago when I was putting these lace wraps together, "You never could have told me a million years ago that I would be sitting on my couch on a Friday night, assembling your wedding invitations."

I used a wine-colored metallic cardstock for the holder and wide ivory lace for the wrap. The monogram square, invitation, reception invitation and program were custom-designed and printed by me, and then I assembled the invitations as well. For a final touch of shimmer, the invites were enclosed in an ivory metallic outer envelope.

Rose, since we spent a lot of our time together in our teen years and early twenties, I know you've been saving wedding ideas in the back of your mind for a long time. You have never been one to settle and you've always been particular, so I am confident that in Adrian, you've found your life-long partner and I know your beautiful family will be so happy together. Thank you Rose, for choosing Art by Ellie to participate in your special day.

 

If someone you know could benefit from creative invitations with special details (or other graphic design services), please visit www.artbyellie.com or e-mail ellie@artbyellie.com. You can also find Art by Ellie on facebook!

  

A Great Destination

Spending my afternoon editing our book manuscript for the publishers. Almost done!

 

Planning for a Great 2011

I have finally decided to make use of my Entourage calendar for scheduling. I've always considered myself to be a "planner person," needing to tote my little book around everywhere I go. In addition, I keep a running to-do list on the Notes app on my iPhone, which I'm constantly re-ordering and prioritizing (this used to have business stuff, personal stuff, family stuff, etc. — it was a mess and so stressful because I felt like I'd never get through it). Are you a paper planner or do you prefer the electronic calendar?

I still have my regular paper planner for family/vacation planning and bills, but in the Entourage calendar, I've scheduled recurring business things like weekly "organization" time for cleaning out my e-mail box, adding new jobs to my database and accounting tasks. I even set weekday alerts to pop up at 3 p.m. to remind me to get up for 15 minutes, have a healthy snack and avert my eyes from the computer screen. I already feel my load is lightened!

I'm hoping Hubs can sync it with my iCal for iPhone so I know when I can and can't schedule things, even when I'm not at my desk. And now my Notes app on my phone is available for personal to-do's like cleaning the bathroom (we'll just move that down a smidge on the priority list) and making store returns, etc. when I have free time.

I'm most excited about the weekly reminder that will pop up on Fridays at 3 p.m. to remind me to start winding down so I can start my weekend at 4. What's the point of owning your own business if you can't make your own rules, right?