Improving Your Plain Business Cards

A month ago when I was going to a Blogger meet-up I thought about how lacking my business cards were. About a year ago I got 250 free business cards ordered through Vista Print. After I got them I realized that they were plain and I wanted to change some of the layout. When I was getting ready for the blogger meet up I came across this article about tips for blogger business cards. It gave me some ideas about how I got make do with what I had.

The first think I wanted to do was add interest to the from by rounding the corners. I've seen cards that have one corner rounded which also adds an element of interest. Corner rounders can be found at a craft store. The one pictured here is Creative Memories. 

 Here is the before and after of what they look like with the corners rounded. 

To add interest to the back I added a QR code and a picture of me so they remember who they met.

I first decided on the three images I wanted on the back and saved them as individual pictures. I think they were about 50 pixels in height. Make sure you make them smaller in photo editing software first so they don't get distorted in Word. 

  

I looked at various places to get these printed but it would end up being cheapest if I put my printer on the best printing setting and printed them myself. (This is the wayward part where my printer settings were off and then my printer wouldn't print blah blah I had to use my neighbor's printer on the fourth try) These are the labels I used . They have free templates so it makes it super easy (if you printer is cooperating)

Here is the finished result!

What do you think?

 What are some ways that a business card would stick out to you!?

Spring Blogger Buzz

Last weekend I got to go to an awesome blogger meetup dinner hosted by Ashley. Lauren spoke to us. I felt like I was in the presence of blogging royalty :) 

We got an awesome goodie bag with stuff from these companies:

and I was very excited to win a giveaway to Silpada I was thinking of getting this necklace (if it's not coming up search for Wish Necklace). What do you think?

It was super fun and I can't wait to go to another one!

The day I met Kristen Duke

Have you heard of Kristen Duke? She's an amazing photographer and the author of the Say NO to Auto ebook/book. I'd seen her book featured on various blogs and started following her on Facebook. I would visit her site and wish for the opportunity to go to her workshop, or meet her! Then my opportunity came! Kristen does photography sessions all over and she was asking for some helpers for some upcoming shoots. I quickly volunteered and was able to help out with a family photoshoot! It was really fun to help out. My job was to keep the kids engaged and smiling and carry the gear =) I think I did pretty well, though I hope Kristen didn't get sick of me saying "Pickle doughnuts!"

 

Kristen and Me, after the shoot. Tired! Scarf tutorial

Then earlier this year, I got to attend Kristen's Say NO to Auto Workshop which was awesome! It was the piece I'd been looking for. I'd had a DSLR for over a year and tried numerous times to understand the various different controls for manual settings without any luck. I didn't understand how they all worked together. Kristen's workshop helped it to call come together. I realized the three controls worked together and trying to understand them separately doesn't work! By the end of the workshop I was taking photos with manual settings and I haven't looked back since!

Progression during class

Kristen also has a really fun blog. She's writing about how she met her husband and their love story and it's inspired me to write down my own. She's has a fun feature called Capture the Joy in Front of the Lens which is about taking photos with your loved ones. She's also got some really fun DIY projects, like the barn door tv cover, pictured above!

If you didn't notice, I'm a Kristen fan, but she didn't ask me to write this and I hope she doesn't mind I wrote it in fact! I'm just thrilled with what I've learned and continued to learn!

Trying out my new skills

Hawaii!

I set this shot up and Anne's husband snapped it (from my birthday party!)

Anne's beautiful daughter

So check her out already!