From Gloucester with Love

Be sure to check out my growing line of Gloucester USPS Postage Stamps on my zazzle store.  These stamps were created to match the postcards I sell at Angelwing Stationers on Main Street in Gloucester.  They are availabe in several sizes and in three different sizes for eight different denominations from postcard to 16 oz Priority Mail.  Not from Gloucester and not visiting?  I also have stamps for sale in my stamp store that were created to match my line of greeting cards.

 

It’s a Mother’s Day Give-a-Way!!

Buying Mother’s Day gifts can be very difficult. What do you give Mom when the reply to what she wants is always, “I don’t need anything.” How would you like to give her a GREAT gift that doesn’t cost you any cash and involves no creative thinking? Well, I’m holding a contest that will do just that.

If current and …new fans of “Photography by Michelle Harbour” grows to a count of at least 100 by April 1st, I will give one of my fans a gift bag to give to Mom for Mother’s Day! You will receive a coordinated gift package containing a tote bag, a coffee mug, a key chain, 100 flat note cards, and a mousepad. There will be at least two themes to choose from. (Watch my zazzle site for growing theme choices and new products.) If the fans grow above the 100 mark, a second and possibly third prize give-away will be awarded. If the fans grow to 200 or more, I will give away coordinated two gift packages. Current fans, be sure to share this with all of your FaceBook friends – and new fans, you do the same. The winner(s) will be announced on April 2nd. Your gifts will be sent out to you in time for Mother’s Day delivery.

Become a fan of

Photography

by

Michelle Harbour

Glory Be – A New Store Added

This week I began building a new store on my zazzle site.  This store will feature morning glory themed products.  Keep watching for more products to be added every day.  And just for fun, I added an experiment I tried while having a little fun combining photos.

Morning Glories Birthday Card

 

A Fun Experiment that Turned out Well

It’s All Coming Together

 

It has been a year in the making, but I am now in the Appointment Reminder Cards business.  Doctors, dentists, and veterinarians – to name a few – send out appointment reminder cards all the time.  I know I appreciate them.  As a matter of fact, the only professional for our family who does not send out a printed reminder is my daughter’s orthodontist.  We’ve missed a few of those appointments over the years because we’d forgotten about them.  (Guess who’s one of the first contacts on my list to pitch a sale to?)  So, after a year of looking for affordable stock and printing, everything has come together.  And the best, and most important, part of it all is that I can get the work done locally and at a price that is competitive with the big in-house printers most professionals purchase from.  (Thanks to The UPS Store here in Gloucester and the great owners – Kevin and Jennifer Rowe.)  My hook?  I’m offering local photography, (from me) printed locally.  Earlier last year when I began this plan, it wasn’t affordable and I couldn’t get the printing done at a good quality.  I almost gave up.  I guess Mom was right when she told me all those years as a young person, “Bide your time.”

New Product Ideas

As I was creating new designs for products on my Zazzle store,  I began to think about how I should make one product to match or go with another and what  a great gift-giving idea that would be.  Well, now that I’ve added many of those items to my store I decided I would make it easy for buyers when they come to the site.  Today I created a store within the site named Bluettes Themed.  Every product features the photo below and matching products include several greeting cards with matching postage stamps available, as well as tote bags, mouse pads, coffee mugs, key chains and a few other items to come.  So, as difficult as it is for me to stay on task, I am going to finish this particular theme before adding to previous product designs I’ve come up with.  I hope to have the Bluettes store completed by the end of next week.  In the meantime, I’m looking for a foggy morning coming up soon so that I can go out shooting.  Also looking forward to photographing some of the local Christmas Light displays around Gloucester for next year’s Christmas Card sales at Angelwing Stationer on Main Street.

Gift Pack Give-Away

Today the last item I’ve been waiting on arrived in the mail and my gift pack is finally complete.  Our local radion station here in Gloucester, VA - WXGM FM 99.1 – is holding a contest.  They play snippets from four of Santa’s favorite Christmas songs.  If you can name all four songs in order you win a great prize pack with merchandise and gift certificates from local merchants.  So, I thought, “Why not participate myself?”  I’ve won WXGM’s Christmas contests in the past and it was too much fun!  The gift pack I’m donating consists of a tote bag, 100 post cards, a mouse pad and a coffee mug.  All the items have a matching photo of black-eyed susans on them.  If all of these items were purchased from my Zazzle store they would cost $100.  So, I’m very excited about dropping them off tomorrow!

Three Calendars for Sale

This weekend I added the third of three calendars I am offering for sale in my online store.   The calendar titled “Picture the Year” does not have 2010 on the cover.  That calendar would be a good choice for a gift to the person you forgot during the rush of the holiday season, as you can begin that calendar with any month.  It would also make a good choice as a First Year of Marriage calendar or Back to School for a college student in the fall.  After the New Year I will most likely change the cover on the other two calendars so that they will also work for any time of year.  But right now I am busy creating more items and getting ready for such a wonderful time of year!  I hope it’s a great season for you as well.

 

I’ve Opened a “Store”

Every year I make a calendar of my photos to send to family.  One year I made them on Snapfish.   They were beautiful calendars, but the shipping was a wee bit high.  No matter how many calendars I ordered, the same amount of shipping was added for each calendar.  It was rather expensive at the end of the order.

 The next year I ordered the calendars from Zazzle. 

 A couple months ago it was suggested that I turn one of my photography club’s assignments into note cards.  I’ve made note cards before many times on Vista and am always very pleased with the results.  But as I was beginning to prep for next year’s calendars, I decided to create the card on Zazzle just for fun.  Before it was over, I had also created a store.  Now I’ve added many more products to my Zazzle store developed from my most popular photographs with more in the works.  In addition, I’m developing themes of products for inexpensive gift giving ideas throughout the year.  Anyone can create products like note cards, coffee mugs, postage stamps and more on the site with or without the option to sell the items publicly.  I leave it so that many of my products can be personalized by the buyers with their own messages.  

 For example, the mug below can be bought as is, or customized with something like “Happy Birthday Mom, Love Jane.”   

 

This mug is blank in the middle with the photo on either side of the handle.

Or the buyer can purchase the same mug, but with one of several quotes I’ve already added on the mug.

 

Keep an eye on my new Zazzle store for new products being added all the time.

It’s that Christmas Time of Year

The owner of the stationery store that sells my Gloucester post cards had requested I come up with some post cards and note cards for Christmas.  I had wanted to get some pictures of the historical buildings in the main part of town under a little snowfall last year for the project.  However, we never received any snow and Virginia on the coastline in the winter isn’t very pretty.  I wasn’t going to be satisfied with photos of the historic Court House area that contained bare trees, gray skies, and brown grass.  The photos I already had with blue skies and bright green grass weren’t working for me either.  They just didn’t look “Christmasy.”

With the holidays quickly approaching this year, I had to come up with some ideas for the cards in time to get them in the shop so that specials orders with personalized printing could be made.  Using a couple of my infrared photos of the historic buildings, I ended up designing these three cards that I had both post cards and note cards made from.  I was surprised at LuAnn’s favorite; she is the owner of the shop.  Her favorite wasn’t the one I thought she would prefer.  I almost didn’t submit that one.  Which do you like best?

 

and just who was Peter Francisco?

That is the name of an amazing man that you must learn about.  I was contacted a little while back by Travis Bowman.  He is the 6^th generation descendent of Peter Francisco – Hercules of the Revolution.  Travis was at the Battle of the Hook Reenactment telling the story of his ancestor.  I cannot believe that I missed him.  I would’ve liked to have heard the story in person, and I plan to do so when he returns to our area on the Fourth of July.

 

As I was saying, Travis contacted me awhile back asking if he could use one of my Battle of the Hook photos in the design his book cover.  I cannot express how honored I am to be a part of his project.  I also cannot wait to read the book, as Peter Francisco was truly an American hero with a story that must be told.

 

Travis will be in Yorktown, Virginia, signing copies of his book and telling the story of Peter Francisco.  If you will be in the area, be sure to celebrate the founding of our nation with a stop in Yorktown to meet Travis and hear the story of Peter Francisco.

 

Keep an eye out later in the summer for his book to be available nationwide.

 

Hercules of the Revolution