RSS Feed
NewsletterArt Every Day Month 18
It’s really been a fabulous month in terms of experimenting and furthering my hopes, dreams and goals of being an artist full-time. I’ve experimented with new mediums and also met so many fantastic folks online who actually care about my work. I mean, it’s really flattering when someone takes a few minutes out of their busy day to leave some words of wisdom or encouragement. I appreciate ALL feedback, so thank you for visiting my blog. I so appreciate your time and understanding, in following me through my creative journey. You are investing time in me and that means a lot!
So, besides Art Every Day Month experimentations, I have also been trying to work on my design illustrations. One of my many goals is to open up an Etsy shop to sell my wares – art prints – stationery – creations of all types. Since I have so many interests, it’s definitely hard to define exactly what I do, but I know it all starts with sketching out designs. Having moved to Italy and being foreign to how things work here, I haven’t figured out how to get items produced professionally, shipping and other logistics yet. I realized that a logical first step could be to provide printable designs for sale and eventually move to already created products that must be shipped. Printables make me excited also because they can be delivered almost immediately and give you instant results. You can print what you want to use and as many as you need. Also from my business point of view, it’s a low upfront cost alternative for someone just starting out a business. A bit like print on demand, which is vastly becoming an acceptable way of offering up products for sale.
I have offered some freebie printables previously on this blog and through this experience, some research and my own use of the many wonderful free printables out there, I’ve come to a few conclusions.
- I tend to print out designs that don’t use up too much ink, because I prefer to print on textured or colored paper as an alternative.
- I love sets of printables, so that I can match up everything such as wrapping a gift, labeling and writing up my card or note.
- I like the simplicity of just cutting paper in half or quarters and don’t like wasting any part of the paper printed.
- I totally understand the need for designers label or credit via logo and text, but hope it’s tastefully implemented and not using up too much ink.
- I also like printables that are customizable – you can type in some text in Adobe PDF before printing.
I haven’t yet figured out number 5, but I worked on a sample snowman stationery set with the other items in mind and would like to offer it as a FREE download. Tahdah!
Snowman Stationery Flat Notecards
Snowman Stationery Folded Cards
Snowman Stationery Labels/Tags
I present you with the various printable PDFs for this stationery set – each element labelled above, just right-click and save the PDF to your computer. I am hoping you can help me by testing it out and seeing what I can improve on, what you like or dislike. For example, I provide a lot of variation on each sheet, lined and blanked versions. Perhaps it is better to provide full sheets of one style only, in case a person prefers one over the other, rather than both on the same page that must be printed together? What about all pages in one file, do you often select print even though you didn’t mean to print out the whole file? Or are separate files too unwieldy? What about the fact that I include “designed by tortagialla.com” on everything as a small text rather than my very yellow and ink-soaking logo?
All my designs besides the envelope are designed to be cut in half or quarters exactly, no waste of paper. It’s important of course to remember to print as high quality as possible on your preferred paper and at full 100% size, as these are designed for Lettered Sized paper. Although for myself I design on A4 sized paper and would offer those variations for all printables – I love my US and Int’l peeps equally! I’ve wondered also about the quality of files as these are saved as high quality PDFs specifically for printing at home – pretty big downloads. Or would smaller sized downloads with less quality be acceptable?
I would love your feedback and thoughts, whatever they might be – let me have it! Thank you in advance and I hope you can enjoy this stationery set as well. I drew the little snowman a while back, but added his hat and scarf in Xmas style just for this occasion. It’s a happy wintery graphic and yes, he does look like he just ate something yummy, doesn’t he? Hopefully not the little kid who wanted to steal his nose or eyes…hehe. Grazie e ciao ciao!
Posted on November 18, 2009 at 6:51 pm | art every day month, designs, free goodies
Hello fellow explorers and creative minds! My name is Linda, aka tortagialla - a nickname my adorable husband dubbed me meaning "yellow cake" in Italian. I'm your not-so-typical Californian girl who took the plunge and moved to the Tuscan hills of Italy. Now I'm living my dream designing, illustrating and crafting full-time. You can contact me via email linda [!at] tortagialla [!dot] com
What a fun little set. Lovely work and free too. How could I resist, lol. Looking forward to seeing more from you.
Lois
Thanks Lois! Let me know if you have any feedback on using them as well!
I love this stationary set. Wow, it’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing it.
Hi Carol! Thanks for checking it out…let me know if you have any feedback on it!
wow stunning set, i look forward to seeing what you do next huggs jo x
Thanks Jo! Will definitely have more to share…let me know if you have any thoughts or comments on the printables!
Very cute. Thank you for sharing.
Very glad to share! Let me know what you think!
Hi Linda,
Cute set! I’d stick with full size at 300 dpi, I think the pdf files are smaller than a jpg and fines that size won’t bog down modern computers. You might want to zip them up so people will have the whole set together and if you are selling and emailing files it makes it easier. Good luck!
Cool – thank you so much for your feedback Lindsay! I really appreciate it!
Hi Linda, I shared your posting on my Facebook page and profile. I think it’s cool what you’re doing. Maybe you’ll get some new visitors!
Thanks so much for spreading the news, Peggy! I really appreciate your help…let me know what you think of the printout if you use it at some point. Ciao ciao!
These are adorable Linda! Fantastic idea – glad you have shared them with us.
Thanks Shannon! I hope it can be of use to folks and I’ll keep working on making them better!
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I think it is wonderful that you are making something creative each and every day – well done!
Thanks for your encouragement and kind words, Alicia!
Very cute little set. I just got a colour printer. I look forward to trying it out!
Thanks Rachel! Let me know if you have any issues – I’m curious how others use printables!
awesome Linda!!! really nice job putting together the whole set, and love your snowman!
Thanks Liz!
Thanks For Sharing. Will make a cute gift. Hope my printer does a good job.
Thanks for sharing your talent.
Thanks Linea! Glad to share and hope you can use it. Let me know how it all goes for you, I welcome all feedback!
Oh my linda, such an adorable set! Your design is sooo lovely and your sooo generous to share this with us! Have a lovely merry happy day and love to you!
Hi jacqueline – you are sooo sweet! Thanks for stopping by and checking it out and let me know what you think of the printable!
such a sweet set! i agree that sticking with the larger size would be best. great work, linda!! love the way you’re brainstorming on growing your business!
Thanks for the feedback Leah. I guess highest quality is the best, given that we all have pretty large harddisks nowadays. Thanks for the encouragement as well, hope to share more soon.
Love the snowmen! I’m trying to figure out all the logistics of opening an etsy store too – how to get prints made, how do I do postage. there is so much to think about!
Thanks Bobbi! I’m totally going through the same thing! Maybe we can connect and share tips…woohoo!
thank you for sharing there are very cute.. I love snowmen
Hi Annel – you are very welcome…thanks for stopping by! Let me know how it goes!
I was just thinking once again that I wished i would have made my own christmas cards this year; now feeling really behind the ball.
There’s always time! Custom cards are always so nice!
This is such a great idea. I love it.
I am going to share it to my facebook also.
Would you mind if borrowed the idea for my Gallery? We are looking for ways of encouraging calling cards for our upcoming Victorian Days and this would be great way of doing it.
Hi Rennata! So glad you like the idea and feel free to use the PDFs for your needs. I say personal use meaning not making profit off of my designs…but I think it’s fine as calling cards and notes anywhere! Let me know if you need any help!
It´s great! Hope you sell it a lot!
Thanks so much for your well wishes!
These are just wonderful!!
Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback!
too cute Linda!! thanks so much for sharing this great set!! This will make perfect little gifts for my co-workers and my kid’s teacher gifts. Thanks again!!
Hi Karen – You are very welcome! Thanks for stopping by!