With Halloween literally around the corner, I finally decided to do something with the barrels of dead marigolds outside of my studio. After browsing Pinterest for inspiration (my new favorite addiction that I credit Kristi for getting me hooked on), I put my kids to work after school and we came up with a great way to fill the wooden barrels with the essence of fall! It took us an hour out of our day, a lot of gold thumbtacks, 11 pumpkins, some clearanced fall decor, and a can of shiny gold spray paint.

I love hands-on decorating. It gets me away from the computer and takes me from 2-deminsional designs to 3-dimensional creations and always proves challenging without my "apple z" command from my keyboard! I drew the lines on the pumpkin with a back sharpie. My children then proceeded pushing thumbtacks into the pumpkin following my lines. My 5 year old then decided to make a smiley face on the pumpkin with the thumbtacks, so I had to redirect her–art direction is hard with a strong-willed and creative 5 year old! We would have done more thumbtack artwork on the pumpkins in barrel two, however I under-estimated how many thumbtacks this project would actually require!

Nearly an hour after we had started we ended up with some festive barrels that should last until Thanksgiving, then it's on to thinking about what to do for Christmas....hmmm....any ideas?

If you have an account on Pinterest don't forget to re-pin this and follow my Pinterest account!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Melody

Okay, so I can't stress enough how important it is for folks with websites to blog. I see so many not utilizing this fabulous feature! If your website includes a handy little blog platform or news feature, use it!

There are so many reasons as to why you should blog, but for now I'm just going to mention the obvious basics. (Yes, I realize I don't blog enough, and I plan on changing that...you should see my library of things I want to blog about! Enormous!)

1. Fresh content on your website is good for SEO (search engine optimization). By adding a new article even just once a week, you are adding new keyword-rich content to your website for search engines to index.

2. It gives your customers a feel of what YOU and your company is about and personalizes your website. Not to mention it gives them something to come back to if they find your articles interesting! If they visit your blog, they are most likely going to visit your sales pages!

3. Sharing your blog articles on Facebook and other social media, even sharing on your personal profile, can drive extra traffic to your website. Granted, not all of your friends buy your product, but their visit to your website to read your blog article counts as one more unique visitor to your site, and that means it's increasing your site's rankings in the popular search engines.

4. People like reading blog articles more than they do product descriptions. Have you ever flipped through a magazine and seen one of those advertisements that looks like an article in the magazine but is actually just a paid advertisement? I've caught myself reading those before, when most of the time I flip right past the regular ads. Instead of posting your product on Facebook with just a link to the product page, try posting an blog article link about something interesting then cleverly sneak your product into that article.

5. It's free PR advertising for you! Blogs can be the best way to tell your customers about something that is new, improved, scheduled, or changing. It's a great place to showcase where you will be and what your business is up to these days. If you use something like Google's Feedburner, you can also set it up so that your subscribers can receive notifications directly to their email inbox each time you post a new article! How easy is that!

So there you are. Five reasons you should be blogging! Blogs don't need to be long, they aren't essays. If you don't feel comfortable writing them, find someone that does! We will soon be offering a blogging service through Sublime Ballyhoo (a new service Kristi and I are working on) so keep an eye out for that!

Happy blogging!

Are you looking for the perfect solution for social media sharing on your website or blog? Want a tool to increase sharing of your product or pages? Wibiya is that tool. We've installed it on our website and love it. You can see an example of it in action at the bottom of every page on our website. Of course, we don't use many social media venues ourselves, but you can load this toolbar with all kinds of neat icons and gadgets.

When designing websites we're always looking for those type of things that can benefit our clients, and we love sharing them! I believe this is the perfect tool for any person looking to increase social media sharing on their website. Wibiya has a free plan available for those that are limited on budget, and also offer paid premium plans for more custom control and features. Check out Wibiya and get your social media toolbar today!

If you need help installing it on your website or blog, contact us and we can set it up on your site for you, but you will still need to sign up for the service yourself, then contact us with your login.

Happy sharing!

Like the bar at the bottom of our site? Get yours here:

Today I got my report card. Well, not the report card that tells me how I'm doing as far as quality and expertise in my field, but a report card that compares my 4th quarter income to other designers that use the same FreshBooks invoicing system as I do. To be honest my 4th quarter was pretty slow for my graphic design business, since I focused a gigantic amount of attention on my photography business during that quarter (those invoices are billed through a different system so they aren't on FreshBooks) but instead of rambling on about how much money I didn't make in the 4th quarter, I wanted to point out some interesting facts that this report card tells me about my business.

I do realize I only scored 4 out of 5, but I'm going to explain why 4 out of 5 isn't such a bad thing, particularly for my clients.

 1. I don't break the budget.  However, my services are still top-notch, my clients rave about the quality of my work. I simply do not charge what my competition is charging in most cases. Take the average invoice size on the report card above: My competition is charging nearly 6 times more on their invoices than I am. I even sent out more invoices than my competition in that quarter. That does add up on a company's design budget!

 2. My clients keep coming back for more!  They like the work I do, so they keep coming back, probably because I'm cheap but I'm going to flatter myself and assume it's the quality original work I produce for them. While my "new client" revenue is down compared to others in the design industry, my "recurring revenue" is up, which means my clients are loyal and enjoy making return visits.

 3. I'm dirt cheap.  Just look at that average amount invoiced per client billed!  Whoa! Others in my profession are charging 10 times more per client than I do! That's a lot of George Washington's people! Maybe this is why I still drive the vehicle I bought 10 years ago and not sporting that new lime green Volkswagon Bug I've been craving for years?

In summary, I work hard for my clients and get them their money's worth. I ponder that I could be making more money if I would put my foot down and catch up with the Jones's....but I love my occupation and enjoy the fact I get paid for doing what I love, even if it isn't "comparable" to what my competition is getting paid, I think that's A-okay. Because in the end, after the project is done and the invoice is sent, I know the report card from my clients is going to be an A+...and they will still have change burning a whole in their pockets to pay me for additional design services down the road.

Video courtesy of huskers.com

The winner of our GROW Nebraska member Website Giveaway is..... Danielle Tegtman owner of  Candles by Blazin' Saddles  from  Stamford, Nebraska ! Danielle currently does not have a website but sells her candles on Grow Nebraska's online store. Congratulations Danielle! Sublime Artistry looks forward to working with you to create your official Candles by Blazin' Saddles website! Watch our website often for more free offers and surprises!

Our SublimeSiteCMS and Insta-Site(CMS) are already super easy to use, but now with the newly revamped support system, you'll be flying even faster through building and editing your websites! To view the new support system, log on as an admin to your website, then in the black bar at the top, click on "help." This will take you to our revamped site support system including all the information and tutorials that you need to build out and maintain your SublimeSiteCMS or Insta-Site(CMS) website!

It's a vicious cycle I'm vowing to break...so...with that said, you'll be seeing some changes on my website: updates, fresh info, more blog posts, and navigation reworks to make things easier to get to and find. If you have any suggestions to how I can make the Sublime Artistry website easier for my clients and client prospects to navigate please feel free to comment below. We love feedback and suggestions!

Keep a look out for the "freshened" Sublime Artistry, coming soon to a browser near you!

Finally, a shopping cart website for our portfolio! It turned out great and is even being featured today as "shop of the moment" on the Shopify website! Read more in our project-of-the-month blog!

So I put my Nebraska roots to work. The Nebraska Lottery was running a contest for the next Nebraska $1 Scratch ticket design so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I put my thinking cap on and began brainstorming...there weren't really any limitations besides couldn't be a previous scratch ticket game concept so it was pretty wide open. I thought it only fitting to represent the locals and our way of life out here in the "boondocks" of the midwest, so I chose to design my lottery ticket around a "cow-pie toss" theme. Cow pie tossing? Really? Yep, and proud of the idea! Why not?

Well, with my rancher husband's expertise, and my illustration & design skills I was able to concoct an anatomically correct cow, and illustrations of cow pies that met my husband's satisfaction. After all, he's the one out there working in it all day, what better expert than the cattle man!

I submitted the design the night before the deadline and a couple of weeks later found out that I had made it to the top 20 finalists! Then from that point it was up to the public to vote on the winners on the Nebraska Lottery website.

I was super pleased when I was contacted and told that I had won 2nd place in the contest! How rewarding! To see more of the entries and other winners you can go to the Nebraska lottery website at nelottery.com »