Merry Christmas!

> I love Christmas tree ornaments! I actually have some "ornament" traditions. I buy at LEAST one new ornament for our tree each year, (but it's usually more than one). One of my friends and I live far from each other, and each December, we exchange an ornament. It's a treat for both of us to find the "perfect ornament", and also to receive it—and I've learned that her kids love being a part of selecting what gets sent to me, and get just as excited to see what I send for their tree. With another friend, we digitally share ornaments for every day in December until Christmas. We started doing this a couple years ago, and I LOVE looking online for funny, cool, unique ornaments to email to her, and I'm excited to check my email each morning to see what she's sent to me. In fact, once Christmas day passes, I kind of have a let-down feeling, knowing the digital ornament exchange is over.

> In fact, it was while I was searching for some of the digital ornaments that I got my inspiration for this year's holiday promotional gift. A few years ago, I created business card sized calendars printed onto thin sheets of wood. I wondered if they had a precut shape in my budget that would work well for an ornament—they did!

> Both of my ornament-loving friends—as well as clients, vendors, family and friends—received a custom-designed ornament. I still have a few left...if you love ornaments and don't mind a little bit of branding on it, send me your address and I'll get one to you.

Post Promo

> I wish I could say I've just enjoyed the longest holiday break ever known to man...however the time was spent doing something much less exciting...I had surgery at the beginning of December, and spent the holidays recovering. It's taken me much longer to be able to return to work than I had hoped, but I'm finally back.

> Just before my surgery, I mailed out my annual holiday promotion (and yes, the timing was intentional!) I've never been so on-the-ball for the holidays. I don't plan on an annual surgery, but I did like having everything done so far ahead of time!

> I sent these to my clients, vendors, and contacts, as well as family and friends who are interested in what I do. And I made sure to have extras so I can give them out to new business contacts throughout the coming year (minus the holiday greeting portion of it).

> I really had a hard time deciding if I wanted to use the pun or not...was it unprofessional...silly...witty...you never know how it's going to come off, but I got enough positive feedback about doing it that I went with it. Hopefully it's more clever than cheesy.

> If you didn't get any encourage-mints and would like them, just subscribe to my (usually) monthly email newsletter (a couple months behind for the above reason), or like me on Facebook, then email me your mailing address. If you already do both and didn't receive one, email me to let me know, and include your address.

Finding Peace During the Holidays

> I started my holiday promotional gift in the Fall, and it's a good thing! I knew it would take a long time, but I didn't realize just how long. Most were mailed a week before Christmas, which is really late for my "normal", but in all the feedback I got, no one complained about the timing (or about anything else—yay!) 

> Here are several photos of the process of making the wood block perpetual calendars.

> I made 50 of the production-heavy wood block calendars, but that quantity didn't come close to how many people I enjoy send promotions to, so I needed to come up with an alternate. I was so excited when I found a vendor who prints on thin sheets of wood. I designed a business card sized calendar, and placed my order. Everyone got an mGraphicDesign custom calendar, on wood. Happiness! And now that they're finished, peace.

It Wanted to be Green

> Not too long ago, I posted an in-progress photo of the perpetual block calendars I'm making for my holiday promotion. At the time, I wanted to let them be "natural"—letting the wood show through, and using natural earthy colors. 

> And they were okay, but they were just "there". They needed some pop! I tested out a few color combinations and taped the colored squares onto the blocks. Wow...hands down, the green looked the best. I admit I'm biased, so without saying anything, I took the color combos to my husband and asked his opinion. And guess what, he chose the green! Now, he knows I have an obsession with a certain shade of green...so you might think he's an unfair judge, but if he thought one of the other colors looked better, he'd have told me so. I promise!

> Here's an updated look at the blocks. See? Don't you agree the green is so much better than the natural wood? 

> Because this gift promotion is so labor-intensive, I'm only making a small number of this type of calendar, and I have a super-cool alternative that I'm sending to the rest of my client/vendor/friend list. 

> I've got one more step in the process, then I'm going to post with photos of the whole process, so once again, this is just a teaser...stay tuned!

Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

> I learned a long time ago to start on my holiday promotion a couple months before Christmas. It's easier to squeeze time in between actual work projects to get it finished if I don't leave it to the last minute.

> You should know that while I love the holidays, I'm one of those people who finds it ridiculous that we are still weeks away from Halloween, and yet most retail stores have already decked their halls with Christmas! So, despite knowing I need to start thinking about Christmas early (where my clients are concerned), it still seems "wrong" to be working on Christmas gifts. However, today turned out to be a good day to start working on the assembly. A cold front came through, and since my home office sits at the mouth of a canyon, with a little higher elevation, it snowed today! Now, typically I'm not a fan of the snow. It's pretty, but I don't like being cold, or wet—I don't like scraping it off my car windows, I don't like bundling up, and I don't like walking or driving in it. It's just pretty to look at—that's it. But today, well, as a backdrop for working on Christmas gifts, well, it was fitting (and then it melted...perfect!)

May your Goals Become Reality

> There's a quotation that says (basically): "Written goals have a way of transforming thinking. Turning can't into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality." I like the message. It emphasizes the fact that you have the ability to change your own reality, but it requires effort on your part.

> At this time of year, people start to think about the coming year, and about "resolutions" they will make on New Years Day. I've never been a big believer of making resolutions...but goals are a different thing. I found an article that does a good job of summing up how I feel.

> As you may know, each year, I design and create a promotional gift that I send out as a thank you to clients, vendors, friends and supporters of my business. This year, I designed 2 notepads because people make goals and/or resolutions around this time of year, so I'm giving them a place to jot down their ideas and notes, and another place to write down their goals and the steps they need to take to achieve them.

> I chose to not include my name or logo on them—but of course one is "maralee-green", and with typography as the main design element, they visually "say" they're a holiday wish from me.

Logo or not?

> I sent my holiday promotion to production yesterday. A week ago when I was going over the details with my vendor, he was surprised to find out that I wasn't going to include my logo on it—anywhere. Typically on my promotions, I use some kind of brand reference—color, the letter m, etc. And I'm okay with only a minimal hint of my company's brand. After all, it's a gift to my clients, vendors, and to those who support me and my business. I find it a lot less likely that they would actually use it if there was a huge logo on it. 

> Is it somehow hypocritical to send a holiday self-promotion that doesn't have my name all over it? I don't know. But for a gift-promotion, I believe if the recipients like it well enough to use it, they will remember where it came from.

> Of course I will package it with a note, and my note will make clear who it's from, as well as the concept behind the gift. I guess for me, it's the golden rule of gift giving: if I receive a gift, I don't want someone else's name on it; so I do the same for them. I hope the recipients will appreciate that it is a true gift. Something they can use. Not something that is such blatant advertising that they feel like they should receive a royalty for using it. 

> Wondering what it is? Watch for a post in December with the big reveal!

a custom(s) promotion

> I was on track to mail my holiday promotion until I took a finished piece to the post office to get postage for the rest of them. I was surprised that the postal worker informed me that I needed to fill out a customs slip for each package. (what??) I asked several questions, but she just apologetically handed me a stack of slips that needed to be filled out and attached to each package.

> I filled them out whenever I had down-time. In front of the TV, while I was on hold, while I waited for a large file to upload for a client, etc. Finally, I had them all filled out, attached and ready to go. Monday morning, I went to the post office with a box of 20 (wanted to make sure I filled them out right so they didn't come back!). After waiting 30 minutes in line, I was apologetically told that I didn't need to fill out a customs slip for these. And, to make sure to remove them completely so they wouldn't get delayed due to confusion.

> Wow! If ever I wanted to go postal...

> Luckily, I kept my cool, put on some good music, and started peeling labels off. So, if you received one and the back of the box was torn up, well, now you know the story.

> They're all out now, and I'm getting emails, calls, and FB posts thanking me. That's what makes the time I spend on promotions worth it (even when I "get" to spend more time than is necessary).

your opinion counts!

> In a June entry, (http://betterdesignbym.blogspot.com/2009/06/clocking-creativity.html), I mentioned my annual holiday promotion, and that I was thinking about ideas back then. Well, now it's time to start production! I had so much positive feedback about the CD calendars that I gave out last year that I asked several people about doing them another year—and I got a lot of definite "yes's".

> I also considered custom gift tags following the theme "The 12 Days of Christmas". I threw that idea around and just got more positive response...which wasn't getting me any closer to making a decision. So, I put it to a vote. I asked the recipients of my monthly email newsletter (muse) to vote by email or on my FaceBook page, and said that I'd do a drawing, giving promos to 3 voters. I got a pretty good response, and it was a landslide...the calendar won!

> So, I'll be setting aside a little time each day to work on getting the promotional 2010 calendar finished and ready to send out as holiday gifts to clients, vendors, friends of mGraphicDesign, and those 3 lucky FaceBook fans! Sometime next month, you'll get to see what it looks like here on my blog.