There are conflicting opinions out there about the necessity of printing up business cards for your small biz. This article makes a good point that there may be better promotional tools out there to keep your business in people’s minds, but even so, a nicely-done business card is still a great tool.

Other than giving people your contact info, though, in the end a business card is still just a disposable object, and those of us who think about sustainability issues may give pause at using up lots of paper just to have it end up in the trash, or lost in the back of somebody’s junk drawer. But, thinking outside the box, there are ways to create business cards that spread the word about your awesome business, and let you show off your creative, and greener, side.

These cards are a piece of art in themselves. Made by Matt Whitwell, each card in this series is a handmade collage made with found materials and old business cards from an earlier project.

Another great DIY card, this one from Bryan Anderson combines reclaimed paper from a vintage book, hand-traced text and a website embossed using a typewriter with no tape. He admits that, though these are a really cool idea, each one took 6 minutes to create, which doesn’t make them the most efficient project. In using a limited edition of cards like these for certain recipients, though, the impact probably outweighs the time investment.

This business card from Micha Kaufman utilizes recycled cardboard as a surface. A card like this would certainly make an impression, and the materials are free out of the recycle bin.

These cards from Treatzone, a screenprinter, rescue misprints to be remade into charming illustrated business cards. Each one is a tiny little (if slightly askew) piece of art.

Eco Retro Bling’s business cards are created from reclaimed file folders (recognize those colors?). The decorated edge punch gives the recycled material a more polished look and creating a stamp like the one used here is useful for decorating not only business cards, but also for branding envelopes, packaging, notes and anything else you can think of.

Obviously, no one of these options will work for everybody, but with the range of interesting ideas, from super polished to DIY, your business cards can transform into tiny, green works of art all their own.

Growing up in northern Indiana Amish-country, I was lucky enough to attend the wedding receptions of a couple of Amish friends of our family. Besides the huge array of amazing food that was served, the thing that made the biggest impression on me at these events was the gift-giving. Instead of wrapping presents for the new couple in disposable wrapping paper, gifts always came covered in linens, new bath towels, dish towels and washcloths, tied sweetly with string. These were goods that the new couple would need anyway, and instead of the wrapping being a throwaway item, it was suddenly utilitarian, and thoughtful.

Obviously, as artists who are often sending our work through the mail, wrapping work in a towel isn’t necessarily the most practical solution. But it is worth thinking about the impact our packing and shipping methods have, and how we can make them more sustainable. Below are a few things to consider about when thinking about how green your shipping is—



What kind of boxes are you using? Are you reusing boxes and bubble mailers when possible? Most shipping containers can handle at least a couple of uses before they’ve lost their shape. A piece of paper over the previous address can do wonders (and often looks nicer than marker-on-cardboard anyway)

If you don’t have your own supply of reusable boxes, you might ask at a local shop or boutique (maybe the next time you’re dropping off a restock of your own work) whether they’ve got boxes in the back that you could take off their hands. Oftentimes stores who’re getting resupplied day after day have more boxes than they know what to do with and would be happy to let you take some home with you.

(image by donger)

Are you still using petroleum-based packing peanuts? Starch-based biodegradable ones are now widely available, and way easier on the environment than polystyrene ones. There are also quite a few shredded paper options to keep in mind.

Do you wrap things in paper? Consider unbleached kraft paper, or a reclaimed/vintage source-- For my packages, I’ve always used vintage sewing patterns to wrap my products in. They’re cheap and plentiful at thrift stores (just avoid the musty smelling ones!) and more memorable than plain tissue paper.

Worried about customers finding your reclaimed packing and shipping materials unprofessional? Consider printing up a little note to slip into your orders that explains your decisions to use more sustainable shipping options, or making a note in your online profile or on your blog. Explaining the thought that goes into your practices will make purchasing from you even more appealing to customers who share your concerns.

In this online world, where we put our successes (and sometimes failures), our networking, and very much of our lives out there for all to see, it is so easy to compare yourself to others. Why don’t I make as many sales as this shop, why don’t I have as many Twitter followers as that guy, why did she get mentioned on that blog and not me?

Those are not productive questions. I truly believe—because I do it all the time—that the worst thing you can do to move your business forward is to start asking yourself why you are not as successful as someone else.

Because, let’s face it: the only way you can measure your success is against your own goals and hopes and dreams. Do I wish I were as successful as Grace from Design*Sponge? Sure. Do I have any idea how she defines success? No. Do I really want the same kind of success and career that she has? Probably not. Actually, I have very little interest in doing what she does, but when I’m feeling a bit glum and banging my head against the desk, the easy answer is to wish for someone else’s success.

The better answer is to determine how you define success for yourself, and then push yourself to reach that. Get a pencil and paper. Write it down on a little slip of paper you keep in your desk. Take it out and read it when you start comparing yourself to others.

And start small. You’re going to be disappointed if your goals are to become a power seller within the first six months of opening your shop, or gaining 20,000 twitter followers this year. Instead, boil your thoughts down to what it is that you really, truly want on the simplest level, and reach for that. I bet reaching that simple goal will wind up making you happier than all the followers in the world.

How do I define success? Right now it is being able to support ourselves doing things that we enjoy. Not working too hard, but hard enough that we hopefully don’t have to dip into our savings, and can still take some time to travel. And that’s it. Happiness is my success. So if measuring my accomplishments against others’ makes me unhappy, well, then that’s not a productive path toward meeting my goals, now is it?

When Jeff and I sat down to build cosa verde, waaaaay back in 2008, we did so for a number of reasons.

We saw a niche that wasn't being filled. We wanted to be a real part of the handmade community. We wanted to give back. But we also wanted to try building a big site together.

With my background in design and his in programming, it always made sense for us to work together on websites. But it also always seemed like a fantasy. I didn't take the idea of starting our own web design company seriously until we built cosa verde.

And then... things began to happen very quickly. We were welcomed by a warm community of independent businesspeople, who made us realize that running our own business — living off our talents — was a real possibility. Something that all of you are doing every day. I left my job in January to start making our company a reality. And Jeff will soon follow suit.

So I'm really pleased to be able to announce the launch of our design and web services company, Super Runaway. We offer print and web design, and programming an technical services, with the aim of helping independent artists and small businesses — people like you! — grow your brands and your online presence. Our clients thus far have included crafters, bloggers, and an independent production company... and we're looking forward to a lot of great projects in the future.

I wanted to announce this here, because your reception of cosa verde, your encouragement and support, helped us to get to this point. And you are exactly the type of people we hope to work with in the future.

Thanks guys, for being so awesome.

<3 Liz

p.s.— While Super Runaway will be primariy doing work-for-hire, we also plan on developing some of our own projects, including (drumroll, please...) a sister site for cosa verde to launch in 2011. Stay tuned for details!

Now, I know we've all heard a million times that the best way to get great pictures of your work is to shoot in natural light. But let's face it: that's not always possible. Many of us have day jobs, and can't start our crafty work until after the sun goes down.

So what do you do to get great color in your pictures if you have to shoot in artificial light? This is a suuuuuuuuuper simplified tutorial on how to tweak the colors in your photos in Photoshop or Picasa to take out some of the yellow that comes from shooting under a regular household lightbulb.

Before you even start: check the white balance on your camera. If you can adjust it for indoor shooting, do. It will make a world of difference.

To start: I took this picture one night of a necklace I made. I like the image, but it is just a bit too yellow.

First thing I tried was using the "Auto Color" feature in Photoshop. Sometimes Auto Color is a lifesaver, and with one click your photos look perfect. This time, not so much. This photo lost a lot of its contrast, and turned kind of greenish.

Instead, to pull back the yellows but keep the deep contrast of the original shot, I used Photoshop to adjust the Levels of the image.

Often times I will play with the Levels of an image to adjust its brightness or contrast, as I feel it gives me more control than some of the other adjustment tools. I do that by leaving the Channel on its default: RGB, and sliding the three triangular sliders back and forth until I'm happy with how the image looks. (Real technical, right?) But with this image I was already happy with the contrast, I just wanted to tweak color.

So, on opening the levels task box, I change the Channel to Blue. (Blue tends to be the opposite of Yellow on screen.)

I slid the midtone (middle) slider to the left to increase the blues in the mid tones of my photo, until I was happy with the way it looked. Often, just adding a little bit of blue like this is all you need to do to get rid of that pesky yellow. On this picture, I adjusted the reds a little bit as well, by changing the Channel to Red and moving the same slider just a tiny bit to the right to remove a little red.

If you have Photoshop, I encourage you to go in and play with the levels box and get to know it. You'll get a feel for it and your photos will thank you for it!

Picasa is also great for editing your photos, and has the added benefits of being (a) Free and (b) less complex than Photoshop. Photoshop is an amazing tool, but most people don't need everything it has to offer. In my life as a graphic designer I use Photoshop every day, and I'd say I'm proficient at it, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know how to do at least half of what it can do.

In Picasa, same as in Photoshop, it's always best to first try to let the program do the work for you. Picasa has its own Auto Color funtion, and on this photo I think it did a really great job.

If, however, you want more control in Picasa, you can play with the "Color Temperature" slider in the "Tuning" tab. I don't think this gives quite the same level of control as the Levels in Photoshop, but it does work well at cooling down an image that is too warm, or vice versa.

The best thing you can do for your photos is to get familiar with the programs you have... go play! Experiment! There have been so many times that I've taken a photo that I thought was pretty great and then tweeked it in Photoshop and suddenly realized that the original I was so pround of... really wasn't so great to begin with. The more you know about the programs at your disposal, the more you'll know what to do with those mediocre shots to make them fabulous.

I went to art school. All in all, it was a great experience, but I tend to be a bit self-deprecating when I talk about it. Especially when I get together with old friends from high school, who all have Masters degrees in things like public policy, or worse, who are finishing up their PhDs in chemistry or neuroscience or whathaveyou. It's not that I'm embarrassed about being an artist. Or that I think I'm not as smart as them. I am. It's just that my school didn't have classes like, you know, math. And it's easy to make fun of myself for that.

It was only recently that I realized that my art school education had taught me one of the most valuable lessons in my life, much more applicable than calculus: I learned how to fail. And how to not be afraid of failure.

If you're not familiar with the art school routine, it goes like this: each week you get an assignment—draw, paint, design, whatever—at the end of class, and at the beginning of the next week's class you pin your work up for critique. Critique in front of the whole class, by the whole class. It teaches you to talk about your work, and other people's work constructively and effectively. But it also teaches you how to take criticism, and that you won't always succeed on the first, second, third try. You toughen up. You detach from your work a bit, which is hard, because creating anything—art, craft, writing—is a very personal experience.

I don't think anyone ever gets to the point where they don't feel upset if a project they are really proud of gets ripped into... years later it still hurts if a design I really like gets rejected by a client. The point isn't about detaching yourself completely, but rather about being able to share your work easily. And that's my point.

It's hard to show other people your work, especially in an open forum like the internet, where anyone can leave a comment anonymously. It's hard to have the courage to think that what you're making is something that other people might actually want to buy, and to open up a shop. But the more you do it, the more you put yourself out there, the less scary it gets. And when you see that lots of people are in the same boat, like in art class, you remember that nobody gets it right 100% of the time. (And the ones who appear to—trust me—they don't think that they do.)

For me, this is a lesson I've been taking out of the art context and bringing into my everyday life, too. If you're scared of failure you don't challenge yourself—in life or in work.

image: digital print by linocutboy

Excuse me while I try to find my voice—it's been evading me for the last month or so, but I really want to get back in the habit of writing more opinion-type pieces, because I know those are what help me the most when I read other blogs. Here goes...

When I'm representing other people's work, whether online through cosa verde, or in person—helping a friend sell at a fair, or running an event like our giveaway at Crafty Bastards—I find that I work harder than when I'm representing my own crafts. I find that the fact that I'm accountable to someone else—I might make the difference in whether their site sees more traffic or they make that extra sale—for whatever backwards reason means more to me than being accountable to myself for selling my own product.

When I'm shipping out boxes of giveaway goodies I find myself wrapping everything so carefully, when I've admittedly thrown together packaging for my own work in a crazed rush more than once. Same with customer service—I try to go ten miles extra when it's for cosa verde, but I've definitely let opportunities for my own work slip through the cracks because I was "too busy" to answer a quick email. And when it comes to talking about my own work..ugh!...I get shy, I hedge...but if you ask me to tell you about someone else's work I can babble on and on and on.

I don't know if this is a common problem—I'd love to hear from you if you've ever found yourself in the same situation. I imagine there are a bunch of us out there, because I know that devaluation of our work is an endemic problem among us crafty-people, and I think this goes hand-in-hand with that.

So what if we all take the attitude that we're representing something bigger than ourselves when we set up our Etsy shop, or our fair booth? What if we're ambassadors for ourselves, and act the way we would if we were covering a friend's booth, or the way we would hope someone else would represent us?

These are all learned skills—good customer service, the ability to put on a cheerful face even after you've been standing for 12 hours, the ability to talk confidently about your work—and they're skills that every crafter should hone. But stepping into that mindset of "Ambassador" might help make that learning process a little easier, and might help you give yourself the credit, and representation you deserve.

So, how do you get your work featured on blogs? Well, in the case of this blog, make an awesome product (that's eco-friendly, of course), and then take lovely photos of it with adorable kitty cats on it. This strategy doesn't work for everything (it would be difficult to see a necklace with a cat on top of it) but it does work amazingly well for these repurposed cat beds from vintagerenaissance.

Seriously, though, want to know how to get your work featured on top design blogs? Grace put together an amazing post about getting your work published on design blogs over on design*sponge last week that is absolutely a must-read. And if you haven't already read Jena's piece on how to approach blogs over at Modish BizTips, go read that too! Plus, check out her list of design blog contacts to help you get started.

Also, kittycats. I'm telling you, they sell products. At least to people like me.

If my cats would sit on anything that is not (a) garbage or (b) something I really need to be working on, I would already have one of these beds on its way to me.