Tag: living better

Birth Announcements

Birth Announcement, originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

So this is Hank’s birth announcement. It is cute, my friends. Can you handle the cuteness? If you want a similar design for your own birth announcements, or your save-the-date card, or your Christmas card, or whatever, here’s what we did:

The card is based on a Martha Stewart Baby design, and went out in a bright blue Paper Source envelope with a red address label and a little American flag stamp. The card stock was also Paper Source. (If there’s a store near you, they’ll have more color options available than the ones you see on the site, so it’s worth heading over.)

The round photo of him is actually a sticker, an Avery label to be exact. We grayed out this photo, then Warholed it in Photoshop, cut the label sheets in half, and printed the photos on one of those mini home photo printers. It was kind of a pain, so if Photoshop makes your head hurt, Zazzle will make the stickers for you.

I got the Hank stamp and the birth information stamps (for the back of the cards) through an office-stamp company online. I’ve since lost the link, but it was a lot like these guys. They’re the self-inking kind, which made the process much easier. We wrote in his birth date and weight info.

Ta-Da! If you make your own version, send me a note. I’d love to see it.

Nesting: the Nursery

Me painting, originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

Bryan and I adore our spacious, reasonably priced, one-bedroom apartment, so instead of moving when I got pregnant we decided to convert the breakfast nook (my old office) into a nursery. I have a photo set going to record the process.

So far, we added doors to the arched entryway, Bryan tore down a wall of mirrors and painted the room (twice, as the first color looked like a Tiffanys explosion), and we enlisted some friends to help paint this bubble mural on one wall. We’re going for a nautical, 1950s Illustrated Encyclopedia look.

Here’s how we did the mural, easy peasy:

-The design is from a letterpress card that we love. I photographed it with my digital camera, discarded the color info in Photoshop, and turned the contrast way up.

– We borrowed a projector from Bryan’s office (Thanks, Adaptive Path!), and plugged it in to my computer. We opened the image in Photoshop and moved the projector around until the image fit the whole wall.

– I tried painting a single circle with a paintbrush, and it took forever. Our friend Rachel suggested using common household items (like glasses, bottles, tins) to stamp the bubbles. She is a genius.

– We filled paper plates with paint and got to stamping. Before marking the wall, we tested potential stampers on a piece of paper to be sure they’d work well. Glasses with wider lips seemed to work best. With Ryan and Rachel’s help the whole thing only took about 45 minutes.

-We ordered pizza.

How To Make Nesting Terrariums

Originally uploaded by MaggieMason.

I like dirt. Unfortunately, apartment living in San Francisco doesn’t afford much opportunity for gardening, and we travel so much that most houseplants come with a built-in death sentence.

I decided I wanted to make some terrariums with succulents, so we’d have some green around that didn’t require too much upkeep. Here are the results.

I used antique apothecary jars that we picked up at the flea market for $60 each. We bought two small bags of cactus mix, which I used as a base, and one bag of decorative gravel to pour over the top. The project was surprisingly easy, but I still managed to trip over a few things. So:

Mistakes for you to avoid

-My jars came with lids. I think this would be great for ferns, which love humidity, but not so good for cacti. I ended up just taking them off because everyone looked sad, but the lids are so awesome that I’m bummed.

-Most of the bigger plants we bought were useless because there was such a small area to landscape. The two-inch plants were ideal, and way, way cheaper to boot. As you can see, I ended up putting most of the bigger plants in pots and vases I had laying around. (Yes, I have entirely too much stuff laying around.)

-I put one bigger plant in a jar because I loved it so much, and ended up bruising the crap out of it. Also, some of the outer leaves were touching the jar, which kills them. It looks like I’ll need to cut off all the outer ring of foliage to keep things from getting dire.

Suggestions

-I used a few plants that don’t need dirt, and they were heavenly. Impossible to kill or bruise, and super easy to place.

-I plan to get some little ceramic dinosaurs and things to place among the plants, as I think it would be hilarious. Mushrooms would be equally funny in a woodland scene.

–I’m watering every few days with a couple squirts from a spray bottle, and it seems to be working out, but I watered the soil at first to give the plants help with transition. UPDATE: Gayla says:
“Misting the soil directly about once a month is all that is needed for most cacti and succulents of the desert sort. Unlike most plants they don’t need to be watered when planted but prefer to adjust for a few days before a first water.
Definitely keep those lids off! Even with the humidity-loving tilandsia ’cause the lack of air circulation will drive them straight to Death By Rot.”

That’s it! Do this, it’s fun.

Business Lessons

The most compelling parts of The Big Moo, edited by Seth Godin:

(Thanks for the loan, Evan!)

Name something.
“If it has a name, your peers can measure it. If it has a name, they can alter it. If it has a name, they can talk about it. And if it has a name, they can eliminate it.”

Finish with something remarkable.
“Those last five minutes make it easy for your customers to find the difference between you and everyone else.
“It takes 99 percent of the time you spend just to be average.”

Question yourself.
“What if we did things the way our competition did them?
What if we could charge ten times as much for this?
What if we had to charge one tenth as much?
If we were on Oprah, what would she say about us?
Is it generous?”

Ask your customers.
“He loves his customers, and his customers love him.”
“What am I doing right?
What am I doing wrong?
what can I do better?
What else do you wish I would do?
Tell them your biggest ideas about your company’s future.”

Learn from new hires.
“Make it a habit to sit down with your new hires at about the three-month point. But don’t give them a performance review—ask them to give your operation a performance review. After three months, their eyes are still fresh enough that they’ll be able to see things you’re missing. And they’ll have been on the job long enough to know how things really work. Chances are good that they’ll have great ideas to contribute.”

Reach out.
“Make a list of people you know whose minds you genuinely respect. Make it a point to call them on a regular basis for a conversation. All you have to ask is, ‘What’s new?’ Then listen and take notes. Journalists do it all the time; it’s called developing sources.”

Ignore critics, embrace criticism.
“Online critics are motivated by a need for attention… So ignore the harshest ones. But don’t ignore what they say. This is valuable feedback. It’s free, and it’s quick, and it’s useful.”

Know what the customer expects.
A product isn’t for everyone, it’s for someone.

Care.
It’s the essence of good customer service. Caring goes a long way. Caring shows up in your tone of voice, your interactions, and your policies.

Smaller can be better.
“A group of two people needs only one meeting to exchange information. Fifty people, on the other hand, need 1,225 one-on-one meetings to have a similar exchange… If you want to do something really extraordinary, take a colleague and set up your office in the Kinko’s across the street. Come back to headquarters when you’re done.”

Have fun.
Your attitude should say, ‘I’m prototyping, playing, and palling around.’

Dirty Talk

This page lists dozens of ways to bypass voice response systems, and it reminded me of a trick my friend Jeff shared with me a while ago. It doesn’t work for every system, but when it does, it’s glorious. It goes like this:

Robot: Please press one to access your account, press two to

Me: Fuck.

Robot: I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Can you repeat what you just said?

Me: Fuck.

Robot: I think you said you want to talk to an agent. Is this correct?

Me: Yes.

Agent: Hello! May I have your account number please?

Of course, I’m extra polite once the operator gets on the line, as he or she presumably knows that I got aggressive at the phone. Yet another example of how nastiness is rewarded. Unfortunately, until someone designs a system that reacts similarly when I say Please and Thank You, I’m sticking with the program.

Free Time

Best headlines from this month’s Martha Stewart Living:

  • Frosting Like a Pro
  • Mum Pillow Covers
  • Setting a Course By the Homemaker’s Star
  • Embellish Envelopes

Bourbon Cherries

For those of you who also have surplus maraschino cherries on your hands, Stace Dayment had a good tip for me:

“Dump out liquid and save for drinks/Shirley Temples. Fill back up with bourbon. Put in fridge until the next big party. Make frou-frou desserts with those cherries on top or, just serve the cherries alone.”

Pie

Last year, I pulled a list out of San Francisco Magazine, “125 Very Best Things to Eat in the Bay Area.” I recently came across it again and decided it was about time we started working our way through. In that spirit, we grabbed a couple of friends and headed an hour and a half south to Pescadero for Olallieberry pie at Duarte’s Tavern. Pie, we learned, is a superior theme for Saturday night. We also learned that if you’re looking for some post-meal protein to accentuate your pie and ice cream dinner, don’t go with the oysters.