WonderfulGraffiti

Lost Sales Kits

Each of our 150 sales kits were shipped in really big black mailers. Each had its own UPS label. Out of consideration for our UPS driver, whom we love, we put 75 mailers in one box, 75 in another, so all those giant envelopes wouldn't slosh around in her truck.  Neither of the two boxes was closed, let alone sealed. Our driver scanned each of the mailers and put them all back in the two boxes. The kits were on their way.

Yesterday we get a call from one of the stores. They received one of the two boxes with all 75 kits inside. Yet the kit for their store wasn't inside. That store obliged us by sending the 75 kits out, which will hopefully arrive at the other stores  within a day or two.

Apparently the same thing happened to the other box of 75 kits, but we don't know where that box is yet.

Meanwhile, the stores have been told they'd receive the kits and are required to have everything set up in their department by today. But the stores don't have their kits. They know they're coming UPS. They call UPS. UPS says to call us. We have no more info than UPS.

Might we have to build another 75 kits and reship them?

We've been having trouble with UPS lately. Smashed boxes, lost packages. One lost package was worth $1600 and because it wasn't insured (what merchant insures every order they send out?) they reimbursed us $100. Although the service reps I spoke with seemed genuine when they said they felt horrible about the whole situation.

Mud

Massive road/watermain/sidewalk/curb construction going on outside our house today. Much mud, much bashing of concrete, much noise. No water from time to time. They broke the gas line in front of our house so no hot water since yesterday. The construction foreman asked if someone could stay home all day today in case of… I don’t know what.

 

Oh, yeah, and we have houseguests all week.  Poor them.

Store Sales Kits On Their Way

It's finished. After ten long, tedious, crazy-frustrating months of preparation, sales kits went out today to 150 test stores of our really big partner that isn't Home Depot. Geord and I are going out to celebrate. And I'm having dessert.

Graffiti'ing An ActionCoach Office

Today we're working on the Wonderful Graffiti we agreed to do for our business coach company, ActionCoach. We'll be doing four pieces throughout their building––their logo in the reception area, an inspiring quote by Arnold Glasow for their business education center, a montage of words that symbolize their 14 points of culture in a hallway, and for Linda's office (she's one half of our business coaching team) one of my favorite quotes:

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page. –St. Augustine

Linda loves to travel. M.

Photos & Samples

Busy, busy, busy. 

Got final approval today for colorways and sample sizes from our new catalog partner. Have to produce 15 samples and overnight them for the photo session. Half of the samples are designs we created for the catalog. One of the designs they get to use exclusively but the others  are also going on our site. You could look for them on the catalog's website any day now, if you only  knew which website on which to look. All of our partners' vendor agreements we have to sign say we can't write ANYTHING about them, and that includes blogs. It's so we don't say anything bad about them. Well, at least you can see the new designs on our website soon. All but the one that's exclusive. 

Also had to deal with the stock house––the company from whence we buy photos. (We don't take them all ourselves, especially in these budget-crunched times.) Usually the designers buy them for whatever they're working on, but for some reason I took it upon myself to buy the ones I was told to get. Except I accidentally didn't buy the ones I was supposed to get. And some others I was supposed to get didn't work out because they weren't hi-res enough. I thought I was doomed  but somehow I got the idea of begging the stock house to let me exchange the photos I got with photos I actually wanted. It worked! They said they do it all the time and they were perfectly  lovely about the whole thing. They're a company out of Alberta Canada. You gotta love Canadians.   

Speaking of which, Geord's  cousin and her terrific husband (well, they're both terrific, of course) are visiting from Canada next week. They come now and then for a concert (Columbus, music capital of Ohio) and we get to keep them while they're here. They take us out for wings. We like them. 

Ryder is sick today. Sore throat, cough, achy, blah, blah. He doesn't have a fever so we ruled out swine flu. Went to Target and bought him Nyquil/Dayquil, Vitamin Water because I never buy it for him and he loves it, milk so he can make chocolate milk and instant oatmeal just because he asked for it. Then I made him chocolate pudding. From scratch. Because my mom made it for me when I was sick. And I'm a good mom. 

Saturday Morning Paperwork

The internet is down at home–again–so I'm at the office filling out the Excel spreadsheets for the new catalog we're working with. More work than any other catalog we've worked with! Plus organize.com wants us to update our vendor information. I  hate paperwork. My head was not built for it. I wish I could get Alison to do it.

When I start to feel sorry for myself about having to do jobs I don't want to do, I think about the owners of our building; a second-generation, family-owned construction company. A few years ago, the owners moved out of our office building and built a beautiful new building for themselves. Dining room, private showers, gorgeous architectural details, full-on landscaping and nothing less.  Not long after they moved into their new space, the recession hit. They lost several multimillion dollar projects they'd been about to start. They can't rent the space they left  in our building, and we're one of two tenants left in it. 

When the two brothers who run the day-to-day operations of the construction company come over to show the unleased space in our building to prospective tenants, they always pop in to say hi. One of them was chatting with us in our reception/admin/design area. He said, "You know, things are tough. We've had to let half of our staff go. Now I'm doing jobs I haven't done in years. Jobs I never thought I'd have to do." 

And I"m thinking to myself: "Do you see where I'm sitting? Am I in my office? No. See? I'm sitting in Alison's chair. Answering phones. Ordering supplies. Tracking UPS shipments." Jobs I've never done. Jobs I'm not suited to. Jobs I never thought I'd have to do."

But I'm doing them. Because, when you own your own business, sometimes you have to.

I'm All About Allrecipes.com

I like the idea of cooking more than cooking. But I'm cooking more since I've become a devotee of Allrecipes.com. Here's why:

1. Say I only have bacon, bananas and green onions on hand.
It is almost certainly guaranteed that someone has submitted a recipe to allrecipes.com using all of those ingredients, and that many people have rated and commented upon that recipe. So I can skip grocery shopping for one more day, and have an idea of what I'm risking by making dinner from bacon, bananas and green onions.

2. You know how sometimes at a party you'll eat a lovely shrimp puff or something?
You might casually say to the hostess–perhaps you don't know her very well–"Mmm, great shrimp puffs." Perhaps you'll ask for the recipe. All very pleasant. Now take that little conversation and turn it into a universe-size bee hive of pleasant conversations. Listen for the hum of a billion tiny voices when you log on. All very pleasant.

3. At this site, women reign in the kitchen.
I know. Men cook too. But I've read too many comments on Allrecipes.com that start "My hubby and kids...." (By the way, I hate the word hubby. It makes all men seem chubby.)

4. Everyone makes a better version.
To me it's unfathomable that so many cooks come back to rate a dish after they made it. You know it's got to be a small percentage of people who made the dish because most of us are way too lazy. But go look at any recipe on Allrecipes and the comments of people who rated it. I bet one of every two comments is from someone who changed the recipe before she made it. "To make it healthier, I deleted the butter and added almonds." "I substituted fresh ginger for the dried." "I thought it made way too much, so I halved the recipe and added pinto beans." Geord says "When you're making something for the first time, don't @#*+ with the recipe." But he's just as guilty.

5. A perfect recipe in your in box every day.
I was so mesmerized by the site, I subscribed. Not something I ever do. Since I did, I've received a recipe or two that inspire me to pull something interesting together for dinner. The other night we had an amusing little black bean soup made with jarred salsa.

6. Blue-ribbon potato salad, banana bread and tuna noodle casserole.

Incredible recipes. Best-I've-ever-had recipes. Oh, my god, I can't believe what my taste buds are telling me recipes. You'll want to save them all forever in personal Allrecipes recipe box.7. The only thing I don't like about Allrecipes.com

7. Photo with most recipes. Usually really good photos.

8. I saved all my new Allrecipe favorites (and almost all of them are) to my Allrecipes recipe box. And ALL THE RECIPES WERE DELETED. Well, I guess now I won't feel so bad when people lose the Wonderful Graffiti they saved in their portfolios.

A Website I Like And Why

I really like theWonderful Graffiti and WonderfulGraffitiWEDDING websites.

But I really like the   King Arthur Flour website too.

I bought a pair of onion goggles from  King Arthur Flour catalog as a Christmas present for my friend Meg a few years ago. She was delighted with them, not so much for cutting onions but for riding in her Troika sidecar.

I started getting King Arthur Flour catalogs, natch. I  think it's fair to say everyone in our family regularily picks it up and leafs through it each month. Why? Photos that make you want to tear out each page and eat it. Recipes you actually believe you'll make some Saturday afternoon. Gadgets that have started conversations. ("Why would anyone need....?") Who knew a flour company could have so much personality?

King Arthur's website was voted Top 100 something or other and here's why I think it was:

Their home page is tidy yet comfy. There's a ton of information on it, yet it's not at all overwhelming. The first thing that hits you –okay, me– is "Wow. I didn't know they were such a big company." I thought their brand was a funky blast from the past that probably had a loyal following, but that following was off eating homemade bread in some obscure little marketing niche.

What really makes their site great is their baker/bloggers. Each week there's a blogger that demonstrates a recipe via entertaining instructions and close-up photos. Photos that make the baked goods look so good you want to grab your monitor and eat it.

Now I'm starting to suspect that King Arthur Flour has a really big following. Because I'm in it.

Can It Be?

We finally, finally, finally have every blessing we need to start shipping Wonderful Graffiti custom monogram sales kits out to stores. We only need the "go" date. Here's the photo required to show our sign with the UPC code attached. Not to be confused with the required sign without the UPC code.

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To protect the signs from scratching, we run the signs through a thing that puts a wet film on them. These are the first ones drying. I thought their little clothes line was so cute.

Sales have been slow. Let's hope this new launch into the top home improvement store that isn't Home Depot will go well. Fingers crossed please? M.