WonderfulGraffiti

Wedding Graffiti Helps Womens Shelter

BRIDES magazine asked us to provide Wonderful Graffiti for an event that raised thousands of dollars to benefit The Retreat, the only shelter for domestic violence victims on the east end of Long Island. Here are photos we just received from BRIDES today. Note the cute bartender. 
   

First Meeting With Business Coaches

A little apprehensive going in, fearing that they'd find our numbers to be pathetic in some way. But no!
Dave liked our profit margins, excellent receivables, low inventory, etc. Geord and I each set goals for the next meeting.

One of mine was to get forecasts for the launch of our new venture with our really big new client. That's a one-sentence email.

Another goal was to maintain a system we already set up; I just have to keep implementing it. I'll make myself a note.

My FAVORITE goal is to imagine the marketing plan I'd execute if we had unlimited funds. I can't even get my head around that one. Unlimited funds? For just WG, WGWedding or both? Why, it's a pretend budget so I'll imagine both!

WG: Our target market is interior designers. So maybe trade shows for interior designers? Some of the online data bases for interior designers, like TODL? A knock-their-socks off mailer? Uh...what else?

WGWedding: Martha Stewart Weddings. BRIDE magazine. Event planner trade shows. Uh...what else?

We'll meet again in a month

What About Pigs?

I don't know about this one either. People here like it but I think, "Who wants to put pigs in their kid's room?" Not wild about the text. Also I can't figure out how to personalize it. Maybe we put the child's name on the pig's hard hat?

Need Help With Balloon Window

I would have liked to show more of our soon-to-be launched new Storybook Windows collection yesterday, but only two photos showed up on my saved entry. (I attached three.) Mike is sending smaller photos Monday so I'll post as many as I can then.

Meanwhile, here's a window that Mike and I are stuck on. We love the window, we love the photo, but can't land on what it might say. It should say something positive or inspirational, welcoming or heart-warming and, ideally, personalized.

What we've come up with so far:

Every Day Brings New Surprises
(We could put the child's name on the large balloon.)

Please help. I don't want to think about this any more. 

Help With Our New Collection

I've never done this before but it suddenly dawned on me that mine is not the only critical eye out there and I have lots of creative friends/relatives whose opinions are more objective than mine. So here goes.

The collection is called Storybook Windows. Here are three examples (not necessarily the best.) There are sixteen in all. Something for babies/toddlers, some for preschoolers, some for girls, some for boys. Four windows for sports: baseball, basketball, football and soccer. All are personalized in some way.

They'll be sold as windows only, windows and Graffiti, or where applicable, only Graffiti. (Say, Welcome to Amy's Garden.) The windows are made of heavier, repositional vinyl with a fabulous fabric finish our supplier just introduced us to. Silky, matte, gorgeous. Not impervious to little finger smudges, but most windows will hang high out of their way. The Graffiti is our regular, one-use stuff.

We had to use stock photos, whah, because finding lots of real kids rooms to shoot is impossible. We're still tweaking, but what do you think? Tomorrow I'll show you a window that I desperately need help with. I can't think of what it should say. And I'm out of practice as a snazzy copywriter. M.

We Got A Business Coach!

Well, it's actually two-ish business coaches, Dave and Linda Brinks, from ActionCoach. (They'll see this entry as either an invasions of their privacy or an enthusiastic plug for their business. If it's the former, I'll remove it from my blog.)

Geord and I have known for awhile that we wanted outside expertise, in case you haven't been reading about my doomed attempts to win the Athena Award. Not to sound like I've been feasting on sour grapes, but in retrospect, a business coach is more what we needed than any dumb old Athena Award.

We took the day off today to go to a seminar run by Dave and Linda's company. It was way more productive than we had imagined. We realized how many areas of our company need improvement, and how critically. We set goals, prioritized those goals, developed strategies to reach those goals, and generally got jazzed about the business again.

There were maybe 40-50 people there, all from established companies. Tons of other coaches, too, so as we worked to develop our 90-day plan, there was someone to help if we got stuck. Or break up heated debates, as in Geord's and my case.

We were overwhelmed. So much to think about, discuss and do! And business coaches are not cheap. But especially after today, Geord and I know how much we need one. Every business owner needs one. Even our business coaches have coaches!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Kid Update

Mackenzie is doing a second year as camp counselor while stage managing Rent downtown. (Performances Th, Fr & Sat for the next three weeks.) She asked Ryder to help with crew last week, and he loves it, as long as he can substitute for a crew member who doesn't show up. Hates sitting around "feeling awkward."

Ryder was hired as a camp counselor, too, but is ending up only getting sub jobs, which are few and far between. It's the summer of subs for him. All of which means he has much less to do this summer than we all had hoped. I hate that he's alone during the day. I know I shouldn't feel guilty about that but I do. My mom was there....blah, blah, blah. I can't help it.

I pop in at lunch to see him. I give him chores to do. He makes plans with friends. (Today it's Ultimate Frisbee.)

Since we've cut staff and Geord and I are working longer hours, we don't get home until late and dinner wasn't made. So I made a deal with Ryder. He makes dinner, I up his allowance to $25 a week. He has to plan menus, make grocery lists and cook. We clean up. He was into it. In fact, we were surprised by how much he was into it.

He immediately wanted to go to the library. I said, "We'll go to our local library." He said, "No, I want to go to the library downtown. They have more books on Asian cooking." He checked out a stack. Then he made me drive to a Chinese grocery store (an hour's trip there and back in the middle of a work day) to buy special ingredients. I wanted to encourage his new passion!

His specialty is anything fried. Loves the Fry Daddy. He also loves dumplings. Asian.

The funniest thing? He hated to cook. Didn't know how, didn't want to learn. Funny boy.

Last night Mackenzie and I were on my bed chatting. Ryder comes in, plops down and says, "Are we painting our nails and sharing our feelings?" Don't know where he got that, but I fell off the bed laughing. Funny boy.

Met yesterday with my new best friend Linda, a business coach who has apparently been reading my blog. Both of us are NAWBO members and she invited me to lunch. Café Istanbul. Fab.

Talked for two hours! She invited Geord and I to a small-business seminar this Friday. The object of the day is to develop a 90-day plan to help managers prioritize and focus on what’s really important to their businesses right now. I’m looking forward to it because 40 other business owners will be there. We can bond. Plus it’s a good excuse to get away from the office for awhile. (Orthodontist and dermatologist appoinitments don’t do it for me.) And Linda promises there will be really good snacks.

Hello. How was your 4th of July weekend? I got poison ivy.

I have just a few spots in my yard that I want to reorganize. My south border is a problem child. I had to pull out one pointy evergreen and a short roundy one; that means I lost two important “bones” for that bed. Maybe because it’s hot, dry and clay. Only the very hardiest survive. I keep throwing different things in there, just to see how they do. If they hang in there, they get to stay there. Apparently one of the hardies was poison ivy.

Our wedding website is down. Our web hosts changed it to another server. For the first few days, brides couldn’t see photos but they could still buy from the site. Now they can see pictures but they can’t buy anything. All at the peak of wedding season. Lovely.

Here's another photo BRIDES sent us yesterday from a previous shoot. We don't offer the daisies online and unlike our previous BRIDES magazine votive holder fiasco, we didn't order 5000 votive from China either.

Friday Business Outing

Met yesterday with my new best friend Linda, a business coach who has apparently been reading my blog. Both of us are NAWBO members and she invited me to lunch. Café Istanbul. Fab.

Talked for two hours! She invited Geord and I to a small-business seminar this Friday. The object of the day is to develop a 90-day plan to help managers prioritize and focus on what’s really important to their businesses right now. I’m looking forward to it because 40 other business owners will be there. We can bond. Plus it’s a good excuse to get away from the office for awhile. (Orthodontist and dermatologist appoinitments don’t do it for me.) And Linda promises there will be really good snacks.

First Week In July

Hello. How was your 4th of July weekend? I got poison ivy.

I have just a few spots in my yard that I want to reorganize. My south border is a problem child. I had to pull out one pointy evergreen and a short roundy one; that means I lost two important “bones” for that bed. Maybe because it’s hot, dry and clay. Only the very hardiest survive. I keep throwing different things in there, just to see how they do. If they hang in there, they get to stay there. Apparently one of the hardies was poison ivy.

Our wedding website is down. Our web hosts changed it to another server. For the first few days, brides couldn’t see photos but they could still buy from the site. Now they can see pictures but they can’t buy anything. All at the peak of wedding season. Lovely.

BRIDES Daisy Votive

Here's another photo BRIDES sent us yesterday from a previous shoot. We don't offer the daisies online and unlike our previous BRIDES magazine votive holder fiasco, we didn't order 5000 votive from China either.