Monthly Archives: March 2011

Featured Favorite

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Alexa and EricMeet the happy couple: Alexa and Eric went to high school together, but didn’t start dating until after Eric was out of school. Eric had always been a talented writer, Alexa said, he has written a lot of poems and songs so one night after dinner and a movie he played a song he had written for me when we first started dating and then got down on one knee and proposed. “It was very romantic,” Alexa said.

Alexa and Eric chose a graduation announcement from our site and turned it into a gorgeous wedding invitation. “We were looking specifically for an invite that allowed us to add our own pictures and that folded,” Alexa said. “We found the grad announcement and thought it fit the style of our pictures perfect so we tried it out and fell in love!”

When you have an idea in mind of what you want don’t compromise your taste. You can create the card you want with the designs we offer. Alexa and Eric knew they wanted a folded card, one they could add their pictures to and was at a price they could afford. And that’s exactly what they got by researching different product and making it work with the photos they had and the colors they wanted.

Alexa said they are most looking forward to settling down and spending all their spare time together.

We wish them the best of luck as they begin their new journey together.

Graduation movies: our top 5 picks

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Nothing like a good graduation movie to make you feel all grown up. There is the angst of leaving friends and the security of the school where they’ve spent the last 4 years. There is the looming uncertainty of the future. And of course there are the romances—do they get married or break up??? Oh, the drama. Here are our top 5 flicks featuring graduates, and the graduation invitations we personally chose for them:

1. Elle Woods in Legally Blonde (2001) Beautiful? Check. Hilarious? Check. Harvard Law School smart? Check. One of our favorite grads? Double check.
Graduation announcement: Favorite Moments Remembered, with matching pink return address labels and thank you cards, of course!

2. Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967). Really, Benjamin? Katherine Ross and Anne Bancroft? What were you thinking?
Graduation announcement: Elegant Angles, really? You can’t find a fit better than that!

3. Sandra Dee in Grease (1978).  Sweet-turned-sexy Sandra, her pals at Rydell High, and their timeless tunes have been the icons of youthful exuberance for decades.
Graduation announcement: Photo Booth Strip, so Sandy can show off her cast of friends.

4. Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything (1989).  John Cusack’s Lloyd proves that a quirky, great guy can get the It Girl. Need we say more?
Graduation announcement:  Picture Perfect, featuring one memorable photo of him, say, holding up a boom box outside her house at dawn. This guy knows how to strike a pose.

5. Jules in St. Elmo’s Fire (1985).  Demi Moore’s character reminds us that it really is hard to have your act together after graduation.
Graduation announcement:  Looking to the Future, which is especially important if you don’t know where you’re going.

What movies did we miss?

Should you send a thank you note after a job interview? Yes!

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Thank YouYou just had the greatest job interview of your life and you want to do everything in your power to seal the deal. What do you do next? Don’t underestimate the power of the handwritten thank you note. It is not only an essential part of job interview etiquette, it is the perfect opportunity to hammer home the key points you want your interviewer to remember about you.

Job interview etiquette dictates that you send thank you notes to everyone who interviewed you, even if you’re not sure you want the job. This message can be as simple as “Thank you for seeing me. I really appreciate the time.” But if you are serious about the job, it should convey much more than that.

Many people forget to say that they actually want the job during their job interview. They’re so busy talking about their qualifications and worrying about the next question that they forget to say the obvious: “This position is perfect for me, and I think my skills and experience are a perfect fit for your company.” If this is you, conveying this message in your thank you note is paramount. Be sure to also mention a few of those key skills that make you perfect for the position.

Personalized note cards are essential for anyone who is job hunting. Don’t even think about sending an email. A handwritten note makes a much bigger impression, and since it will probably be kept in your file along with your application, you want that impression to be a good one. Note cards also force you to keep your message short and to the point—if you have to write on the back or add pages it’s too long!

We recommend that you write the note a few hours after the interview. This gives you enough time to evaluate how it went and figure out what you would say if you had one more minute with the interviewer. A thank you note isn’t going to turn a bad interview into a good one, but it can, at least, give you one last chance to make a case for yourself. It is one rule of job interview etiquette that should not be ignored.

Spring Cleaning Checklist

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kids art as a personalized note cardIt’s spring. Finally! This has been the longest winter ever. (I say that every year, but this year it actually feels true.)  I don’t know why they call it spring cleaning, because for me the symptoms start about mid-January. I go stir-crazy and start to attack all the little things that are bugging me around the house. I fix the dining room chair that’s been broken for 4 years. I start patching nicks and dings in the walls and end up repainting three rooms. About a week ago, my husband had to stop me from demolishing a wall to expand my laundry room. Too much HGTV, I guess.

I don’t really have an official spring cleaning checklist, but there are several things I always do around this time of year:

1.      Wash windows, especially on the south side of the house where the sun shows all the dirt. I won’t tell if you don’t do the north side.

2.      Wrap a cloth around a broom and sweep ceilings and upper walls free of dust and spider webs.

3.      Vacuum or dust lampshades and window blinds.

4.      Turn on the self-cleaning oven as soon as you can open the windows.

5.      Clean the grill, inside and out. Can you smell the steak cooking already? Yum.

6.      Clean porch furniture and put out the cushions.

7.      Clean out the closets – especially the kids’. I know it’s hard to admit sometimes, but your children have grown since last summer so it’s time to go through them and start a pile for a garage sale or give them to your friends’ for their kids.

8.      Clean out those cluttered desk drawers. Toss mismatched cards and envelopes and upgrade to some bright, fun personalized note cards for the new season.

9.      Get rid of those piles of paper that seem to be everywhere—expired coupons, catalogs, junk mail and magazines you’ll never read.

10.  Our favorite idea for spring cleaning is to clear off your kids’ showcased artwork from the refrigerator and turn it into personalized kids stationery! They worked hard at those beautiful paintings, drawings, cut outs, collages or wherever their imagination took them over the winter months and now you can share them with family and friends by putting their art on personalized stationery.

Graduation Party Ideas: Pear Tree invitation featured!

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BBQ Graduation InviteOur BBQ Graduation Party Invitation was the inspiration for a party theme featured on the party planning website, Celebrations.com. They took our cute, little, red BBQ invitations and planned a whole graduation party around them!  From the finger-licking food choices to the creative decorations, they used our BBQ theme to pull everything together in a fun and festive way, while keeping things simple for the hostess. Check out the article and photos if you’re looking for crowd-pleasing graduation party ideas.

You’ll find lots of creative graduation party ideas and other great party ideas on their website.