Sugar & Cloth

I’m officially headed to Alt today, (whoop!) and as a friendly reminder, this DIY’er always welcomes a wish of luck and a prayer or two. While I’m plane hopping and fighting off butterflies, I’ve left you with the unveil of what I’ve deemed my new Blood, Sweat, & Tears business card packaging. My husband would be very happy to vouch for this new title as well…

The card was designed by me and letterpressed by the ever-amazing folks behind Eat Sleep Ride Print. We used clear business cards envelopes to enclose the card, a swirl of twine (my go-to item as you know), a package of glitter (my number two go-to item), and a little wooden clothespin to emphasize pulling yourself together. Okay, that last part isn’t true, I just thought they were cute so I threw them in there. Don’t judge me.

A quick fun fact for you: Did you know that you can rub chalk  over a rubber stamp to stamp your logo? True story!

You may or may not know that I started this blog a year ago with little to zero idea of how the whole blogging world worked. Everything that I’ve done well (or failed at miserably) so far has been by a pretty steep learning curve. During the summer I happened to come across Alt Design Summit through following Hank + Hunt, and it’s like I’ve had an entire vat of knowledge delivered to my virtual doorstep! Literally. I can’t believe I’ve been missing out for this long! You can find out what to do when you feel like your mom is the only one reading your blog (hey, mom!), how to start working with advertisers, and the importance of keeping the community alive.

Not only can you take classes online & attend their conferences (like where Martha Stewart showed up, ah!), but they have some of the top bloggers post tips and info on the Alt blog which is available to everyone. Needless to say, I realllllyy wish I could have snagged a ticket to the conference, but now they’re giving one away! I feel like I’m trying to win a visit Willy Wonka or something! Anyhow, what are some of the things you’ve learned along the way from blogging, or what do you love most when reading other blogs? I’m learning to love getting more involved with readers and other bloggers instead of having tunnel vision glasses on constantly.

photo via // design by S+C

I’m really into industrial & vintage decor right now. I don’t know what it is about it, but if I could afford to decorate my whole house from Schoolhouse Electric & Supply, I totally would. These are my favorites–

Noble memo pad // Ion lamp // Taper candle set // Cocanu chocolates // Apothecary soaps // Radar wall sconces

I’m almost too embarrassed to say that I got new business cards, again. I feel like I’ve shown you a lot of new promo material lately, but I really needed personal business cards. You know, the kind that people read and then actually know what name to call you besides just “Sugar & Cloth”. Let’s be honest, being called Sugar & Cloth randomly out of context kind of sounds like it could be a stripper name.

This time around I asked Mike from Eat Sleep Ride Print to help me bust out some last minute cards, and I’m totally in love with them! They are letterpressed on both sides and are much more gender neutral than my previous design, not to mention they were a total hit at the blog conference this past weekend!

I’m a total sucker for cute packaging. In fact, just last week I bought 4 more macaroons than I really needed just because the mint green box was too cute to pass up (don’t judge me). I want people to have the same experience and excitement when it comes to the S+C shop items, so I’ve been working on designing some materials for the launch at the end of this month.

I decided on magnetic business cards to ship with items as a goodie of sorts instead of traditional cards that tend to get tossed. I combined bold stripes & colors with an understated logo so that it’s cute enough to use, but doesn’t scream sales pitch (I hate sales pitches). I designed these myself but had them printed courtesy of BuildASign.com, and they turned out great! What do you think? Is this something you would keep?