Sober Anniversary/Birthday in Autumn? NEW Card!

 If you have a friend, sponsor, sponsee or group member celebrating a sober anniversary/birthday in September, October or November, here is the perfect card! Completely customizable.

Autumn Vintage Sober Anniversary or Birthday Card
by sober_cards

New Design—Clean and Sober "Keep It Green" Blank Card

Finally...a new item posted on Zazzle

Keep Advent

Advent Button
by BestRegards

 

The best way to welcome the Christ Child is to keep Advent. You can sport this little (1¼") button on your lapel, your hat or your collar. Click on the link to purchase the button(s)! You can also customize it or apply the design to a number of products on the Zazzle site.

A blessed, holy, fasting, praying, almsgiving Advent to you all! 

New Designs at Sober Notes!

To see the entire collection of Sober Notes, click here.

This notecard is a cute take on the critical principle of humility. Attributed to the late, much-loved, much-missed Jimmy B. from Manchester/Bolton.

Good heavens! One of the favorite recovery slogans of all time! A cute dog with a leash is way more appealing than a load of laundry or a sinkful of dirty dishes!

No explanation needed.

Ah! Been around the rooms for a while and need a little reminder of the horrors of our former lives? This card reflects the phenomenon of listening to a fellow sufferer tell their story when, suddenly, the grace of identification brings us back to "what it was like."

In early recovery, a lot of us thought this notion was stupid. As it turns out, it was the one brain activity missing in all our dealings with the day to day life of active alcoholism.

 

Recovery Note Cards

I just wanted to dust off my rusty blog (which serves as sort of a website) to announce a new endeavor: 6 note cards with envelopes, each with a recovery slogan, in a boxed set.  I am selling the initial run of the note cards locally, since the only way I could sell them far and wide would be on Zazzle and I have not taken the time to upload the designs. Plus, I am enchanted with the little brown boxes and the physical note cards themselves.

Here is a link to see all the designs: SOBER NOTES

Also, I found a great printer: The Print Hub

At some point, I will do a post on why I've been away from doing any graphic design. It's quite a long and convoluted story. It involves lost eyesight, technology, advanced ophthalmic care and the problems of being a stranger in a strange land.

Best (and warmest—) regards!

Flannery O'Connor Button

I have a new category in the Zazzle store, and here's the first item:

Flannery O'Connor Button
by BestRegards

If you love the American writer, Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964), here's a small button you can wear to writer's conferences and workshops, library gatherings or even bars. If a person "gets it" (and, Lord, how I hate that expression, but it'll keep this post shorter ...) then you probably have just found a friend. If someone asks you about it, you might make a friend or introduce an existing friend to the work of one of our best Southern writers. One of our best writers-period.

Bosch writer and producer Tom Bernardo on Flannery O'Connor:

Easter is 50 Days of Multiple Alleluias!

The long season of Lent has come to an end, we walked through the days of the Triduum (Holy Thursday and Good Friday, culminating in the glorious Easter Vigil) and now EASTERTIDE is here! Also known as the Paschal Season, it extends from Easter Sunday (this year, April 1st) until Pentecost (May 20th) and you can send a religious Easter card during the entire season!

Greeting Card Universe:



and Zazzle:

The LORD is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia, ALLELUIA!

Happy Eastertide, everyone.

LENT

Well, it's that time of year again. The Church puts on purple, the color of penitence, we get ashes on Ash Wednesday (and no ... Father did NOT put them in the shape of a heart this year!!!) and we pick a penance. I won't divulge mine, but part of it involves something that starts with "net" and ends with "flix."  Here are some products I posted on Zazzle:

Lent Card Blank
by BestRegards

Lent Coffee Mug with Psalm 91 by BestRegards

Lent Greeting Card
by BestRegards

LENT Women's Plus Size Raglan T-shirt
by BestRegards

And this little item has a spot where you customize it with whatever penance you picked for Lent:

Customizable Penance Magnet for Lent
by BestRegards

More St. Patrick's Day ...

This design on Zazzle has a sweet and pithy Irish blessing (NOT "May the road rise to meet you ..." That blessing, though beloved of the Irish diaspora, has been done and done again by many terrific designers.) Also, if you delete the inside St. Paddy's day sentiment, you will have a lovely blank note card to send for any occasion on any day of the year. You can customize it, as well!

Pithy Irish Blessing Card St. Patrick's Day
by BestRegards

St. Patrick's Day is on the way!

Here's the newest card on zazzle.com/bestregards -- I rather like it. It has LOTS stuffed into it: celtic knotwork, green, orange, shamrock-ish, white, irish gaelic and it's understated without being ... understated. Here ... see for yourself:

Celtic Knotwork Sláinte St. Patrick's Day Card
by BestRegards

Oldie but Goodie - one of the first for Greeting Card Universe

Here is one of the first designs I did for Greeting Card Universe. Very vintage, very fifties! GCU asked for a general "having a girl" version and I also did a "having a boy" version, both vintage. But I thought, "What if mom and dad decided not to know the gender of the baby?" and "What if Baby is African American?" and I put this one out:

Obviously, I did not ask myself one more question: "What if Baby is bald?" But that's a design for another day!

One design, many cards. As many cards as there are people ...

National Bleeding Disorders Month Cards on Greeting Card Universe

When we think of March, we don't often think of hemophilia or other devastating bleeding disorders. A couple of years back, Greeting Card Universe put out a call for greeting cards acknowledging the significance of the month for bringing awareness to the issue. Here are a couple of the designs I submitted. Besides the month of March, World Hemophilia Day is April 17. The inside of these cards is completely customizable.

For National Bleeding Disorders month - March

For World Hemophilia Day April 17

Reorganization of Products

Best Regards Cards has products on both Zazzle and Greeting Card Universe. I have been out of the design business for a time, but my greeting cards (and other products on Zazzle) have continued to sell. I honestly have no idea how, but I suppose it's because many of them have been up for a long time. At right are a couple of the retro valentines I've designed:

Greeting Card Universe is relatively straightforward. All my designs are under one user name and share one "storefront." I cannot say the same for Zazzle. Over the years, I've had many stores on Zazzle, along with domain names that "pointed" to my Zazzle products. I don't own any of the domain names anymore and my products are scattered over the site in terms of "storefronts." Zazzle now has an option to enable sellers to get existing products into a different "storefront," so I'm giving that a whirl.

Please bear with me as I clean everything up and get it all into one place. New designs are forthcoming, as well. Below is my most popular card (talk about a niche!) on Greeting Card Universe:

Greeting Card Universe

I Have a Follower (who isn't me ...)

I shamelessly trotted out my blog at my twice-monthly writer's workshop and one of my fellow writers FOLLOWED it, without hesitation and right on the spot!  Here is a digital award for following someone who is of no earthly use as far as networking is concerned.  You have just completed an exercise in friendship AND existentialism, which is VERY hard to do.  I will bring you an assortment of my greeting cards as a prize. THANK YOU, Heather!

Hello Again, GCU ...

I'm back on Greeting Card Universe with a vengeance. I've been out of card design for a while, but over the last couple of weeks, I've designed five valentines and four PhD graduation cards.  As a matter of fact, one of those got Design of the Day on GCU—This one:

Click on it to purchase.  There's also a light-skinned version here.  By this time next week, there will be versions for other doctoral degrees.

So, it's February and Valentine's Day is just around the corner.  I LOVE vintage and retro stuff, so here are the Valentines I've created!

Back in Business

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything.  My store on GCU has been reopened, although I haven't designed much for them lately.  I will be uploading designs soon.

"August Stripes" Design ©2013 R. T. Freeman

The really big news is that I have an amazing printer and I am about to market my pet sympathy cards the old-fashioned way: to folks who own gift shops, pet stores, feed stores, veterinary practices and maybe even good-old fashioned convenience stores.  The printer is J&S Printing of Bloomfield, CT. They printed the ensemble above (my niece Jane's wedding invitations- shout out to Jane here for her help in giving me everything I needed to get the right "vibe" ...) and they did an amazing job.  The entire stationary ensemble for the wedding exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, and the bride was delighted.  They also printed the invitations for the Granby Pony Club 50th Anniversary Party (which I designed.)  Beth over there at J&S is knowledgeable, realistic and savvy plus she's a delight to work with.

I will be setting up a table and card display at The Horses and Hounds 7th Annual Ladies Night, December 5, 2013, 6:30-9:30 p.m.  It's an event that's put on by Horses and Hounds, 15 Mill Pond Dr., Granby, CT to showcase women business owners and entrepreneurs.

Here's a sample of my work, and some of the cards J&S will be printing for me. (These cards currently reside at my GCU shop):

It's good to be back in business.

Wedding Stationary Ensemble

I will unveil the wedding ensemble I just finished designing in a few weeks.  The inspiration came from my niece Jane, for whom this ensemble was created.  Although I have a picture now, I will not post it until Jane's invites have been sent out into the world and enough time has passed for them to be opened.

Just to fill space and bide time, here's a spin on the "Keep Calm" meme for all you summer sweethearts and lobster eaters ...

You can find this card here

Best Regards!

FIREWORKS!

I just watched an awesome less-than-five-minute YouTube video on how to make fireworks in Photoshop CS5.  Ryan, of Operation Photoshop, who did the video sounds like he's maybe fifteen, but he is one of the best "Tutorial Teachers" I've heard yet.

I designed a couple Fourth of July cards last night ... they all involve eating lobster.  Our founding fathers did NOT eat lobster, as it was considered pauper's food.  Here is an excerpt form a fantastic article in Mother Jones Magazine:
"Indeed, it's no exaggeration to say that people were downright ashamed to eat lobster. “Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation,” wrote American observer John Rowan in the mid-19th century. Peddlers in Portland, Maine carried lobsters around in wheelbarrows, selling them on the street to working class Irish immigrants. In one Massachusetts town, a group of indentured servants became so upset at their lobster-heavy diet that they took their masters to court and won a judgment protecting them from having to eat it more than three times a week."

Quick!  Bury those shells in the backyard before the neighbors find out we've been eating ... lobster ... oh, the shame! Oh, and you'd better hide the butter wrappers, too."

I'll have all the new Fourth of July designs here on the blog as soon as they are approved by Greeting Card Universe.

You can find this card here

Best Regards!

Graphic Design Done Here ... Too Much Too Late

Working on my darling niece's wedding invitations ... what a learning experience!  Saw my first Pantone book today, quite the eye-opener. At first I called it the "Pantene book."  Ordered my first envelope liners, paper for belly bands, monogram stickers, address stamps and now I have to find those dinky little tissues.

I need to get back to greeting card design (what I love to do best!)  My shop on Greeting Card Universe has really been growing over the last few weeks.  Right now they are working on a printing problem with some cards for PhD and Doctoral grads ... you know, the ol' doctoral robes ... all that black fabric with black stripes on the sleeves and black stripes down the front.  Oy.  Apparently, it's pretty hard to print.

Okay ... first post.  Necessary, since I had some business cards printed up today with this blog on them.

Best regards, everyone.  Send greeting cards, the people you love love to get them.

Father's Day card on Greeting Card Universe.  There are also versions for Husband, Brother and Uncle.