Introducing AprilCards.com! Plus new designs for 2011!

See How I Made Over $100 On The iPhone and Doodle Card Samples to catch up if you're new- and if you are, welcome!! :)

If you remember, in How I Made Over $100 On The iPhone, I was talking about how I would soon get the cards to go online. Exaggerating, I made up some lame excuses why. You know, the whole, "I have SO much homework, and I have to live a life, and have time to chill" thing. Basically, we haven't really gotten around to it- until now. Yes, I have figured out an amazing way to do this and still have a life. I can see you all gasping- NO WAY! You can run a business and live at the SAME freaking time?? NO WAY!!! :)

Selling in packs of 10 of one design, you can browse on the website, and 10 envelopes for $16.00. :)

Here are our brand new designs to celebrate 2011, the new website, and the chilly winter slowly easing into summer vibes. You know, how after Christmas and Valentines Day, they start braking out the Easter and spring things... like, in early March. I guess I'm doing the same thing. Welcome to America.

Just to be clear, these designs below AREN'T on AprilCards.com- YET. Right now it's just the 10 designs from 2011, see links above. I promise you guys that these will be on the site SUPER soon! All we have to do is make them into the double PDF thing, top and bottom, email them to AlphaGraphics and take down the numbers and order the invintory. Then we have to go and edit the home page of AprilCards and update the number in stock, make sure the price and description is set, double check the viewing of the website so it still works if you try to buy something, .... THEN we're all set. (Not as easy as you think.)


As before in Doodle Card Samples (see above link), I inserted water marks. Just so I can keep these safe from freaks, and still share my newest designs with ya. Sweet. You gotta love technology.

"Cherry Love"

My dad's lady friend and their smiles inspired me to draw this. They are so cute together.

Kind of a valentines day type of card, but I guess you could use it for any occasion.

<3 Love is in the air. <3

"Doodle Berry"

The ripe strawberries with just a dash of sugar in the summer- perfect juiciness inspired me. 

The bold background sort of represents the hot summer kicking in.

Yum. :)

"Sunset Flipflop" 

Kind of the three summer sunset vibe colors all mixed into one here. 

Flip-flops left on the beach inspired me. 

One step at a time.
 These are really my favorite summer colors... I wear combinations of this a lot during the summer.

"Happy Hour"

(Sorry about the weird black line on the side... on the actual cards it doesn't have that.)

I drew this thinking of how you're on the beach, and you have your pink lemonade (or other pink beverage of your imagination...) and it's your day off. No one at work ever has drinks with umbrellas in them. :) Make the long hour last.

"Endless Life"

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." from Closing Time, by Semisonic inspired me.

How life will last forever, or so we hope, inspired me.

We never know how things will end. Or if they will.

Live like there's no tomorrow.

"Thankful"

I was so thankful for the gifts we have when I drew this.

The ocean- a whole new world full of beauty. 

The sun and the shade. 

But you can just think of it as your typical beach day.

I'm thankful for that too.

"Teamwork"

The Boston Red Sox's many world series championships have inspired me.

(... Also since I hate working in groups.)

To have fun, work together, and be the idols of so many.

Responsibility. Role models. (My dad is my role model. Yup. I'm going to worship Steve Jobs when I grow up.... ) 

"Life's Journey"

Similar to Endless Life, you never know what's going to happen in your life. Everything can change in a minute. Endless possibilities of where to turn, and planning your destination.
I was watching the Truman Show for the 100th time when I was drawing this...
This could always be just your basic everyday cute sailboat. 

Gotta love that too.

You'll notice most of them sort of have deep thoughts connected to them. If you get your hands on these cards, you don't have to be that deep. I just like thinking deep. For example, the beach umbrella one, ("Thankful"), can be used for a beach party invitation. You don't have to use my deep thoughts. I just like throwing them out there, because art isn't just cute. It's representation- it's a symbol of something much deeper. I dug out the symbol for you. :) You can always fill the hole with something else if you'd like.

Now open for business at www.AprilCards.com... so go check it out! :) 

If you're wondering why it's called AprilCards, several reasons:

-Doodle Cards wasn't available, and even if it was, I wouldn't get it because it would seem too cheesy and kiddy. Even though my cards are cheesy and cute and kiddy. But still. I wanted something a little more serious.

-April is my dream name. It's pretty. I think I look like an April. But it has nothing to do with the season April. ;) We're open all year long. Don't you worry.

Wondering more about my whole "dream" life? I wish I had dark red hair. Not because I'm a freakish goth, I love red and think it's a very pretty hair color. Well... more like Auburn. When I turn 18, the locks go red. Watch me. No one's stopping me. :) 

SPECIAL THANKS!!!! ...to Pinger, Inc., AlphaGraphics, Staples, my parents and my grandparents, James Ernst (employee of AlphaGraphics who was very patient with us!) and a super special thanks to my dad for helping me figure all this out, and registering the AprilCards domain name. Thanks so much for making this possible!!

Love you guys. <3 You're the best.

-SWH

Doodle Card Samples

2010 Doodle Cards is now selling door to door, and now, finally, I get to show you what they look like. (This is my very own simple artwork!! :D) These cards are great for any occasion, and each one is blank, so you can fill in your own personal message. Whether its get well, happy holidays, or an invite card to a get together, these cards are one of a kind cute. You'll notice each picture has a little statement or a story behind it, but that's just the "history" of the drawing and what I was thinking about while I drew it. You can use these cards for whatever you want. :) Here are the samples:

(Don't you just love the water mark text??) 

This I like to call Wild Flower, because of its bold colors. Inspired by Marimekko. 

I was thinking about how everyone should be themselves, and to stand out while I drew this. 

This is called Classic Ice Cream. 

The sound of the Ice Cream truck song in the distance down Central Street inspired me to draw this.j

I was thinking about how luck doesn't last while I drew this.  

Notice how it drips a little on the edges? 

Hurry, Johnny!! Lick it!! 

This cute scribbled in heart is called Doodle Heart. 

I was thinking about Valentines Day as I drew this one, 

and the smell of vanilla candles inspired me to do the tan background. 

This typical plant with just a little too much soil in the pot is called Life Plant.

I was thinking about how everyone is growing up, all the time when I drew this. 

The plant with tons of leaves at my grandparents house inspired me to draw this. 

This is called Peace Candle.

Yoga inspired me to draw this. (Yes, yoga.)

I was thinking about how lots of people aren't happy with who they are when I drew this.

This is called Flying Angel.

3 out of all 10 of these doodles are doodles I like to call "Sonja Originals" because they are one of my very first doodles, and have stuck with Doodle Cards all the time. First, the collection was just 3 cards. The originals. Then we added some more, then we deleted a lot. We summed it down to 10 to keep it simple, and the originals have always been in the collection, and we'll never get rid of them.

(ANYWAY,) My hopes and dreams inspired me to draw this.

I was thinking about how everyone should chase their dreams.

This is called Winter Cocoa.

(Also a Sonja Original, and #1 Best Seller)

This doesn't exactly have a life lesson to it, like be yourself, or chase your dreams, but I was just thinking about how badly I wanted to have hot cocoa right then. The smell of the melted marshmallows.. you gotta love it. The rumble in my stomach inspired me to draw this. :)

This is called Toasty Fire.

(Also a Sonja Original.)

The smell of pine from the Christmas Tree, and the heat from the warm fire inspired me to draw this.

I was thinking about how during the holidays, people should spend time with their families. 

(I appologize for those of you who do not celebrate Christmas, but we do have a Hanukah inspired one.)

Tah dah! The Hanukah inspired one. 

This is called Starry Night.

I've heard that blue and white and stars are some main colors/symbols of Hanukah, so those of you who would like to have some holiday cards for Hanukah, here you have it!

Hanukah inspired me, and I was thinking about how every night, we don't notice the beauty in the sky. (At least most of us don't notice... here's a cute animated version for you.)

(Last but not least...)

Ice Skates.

(Simple name... a cute "Just Married" kind of a look. Nice big bow.)

Skating with my mom while listening to Michael Jackson inspired me.

I was thinking about how left isn't left without right, and right isn't right without left. 

(Think about that for a sec.)

So there you have it! I'm sorry we don't sell online right now, ...but as I am editing this on January 27th, 2011, we have actually bought the domain name for my doodle cards to hit the web!! I'm not telling quite yet, because if you try to go to it, you'll just hit one of those, "Sorry, we don't know what website you were talking about!!" pages. That won't get you anywhere. 

Also, if you live in the area, or if you happen to know me, you're a lucky duck. 

Thanks again to everyone who's helped make this possible. :) Luv ya guys!!

Thanks AlphaGraphics!!

October, in the holiday spirit already. The Paper Store has Christmas Decorations up. I'm gonna be an eskimo for halloween. Cute, huh?

You all know how I started my little greeting card business, right? (If not, get your butt to this link: http://www.sonnysarea.com/2010/08/how-i-made-over-100-on-iphone.html) This small business started last year, just going door-to-door with cute little samples of 3 designs. We used to print our cards with Staples, which was sort of expensive, plus they printed it with discoloration, so it's not exactly the original. (Sorry!!! I always go to Staples for school shopping, I'm just being honest and saying that there copy center isn't the best...) But now, we print with, (sound the trumpets....) AlphaGraphics!! 1. Less expensive 2. Perfect paper thickness 3. GLoSsY FiNiSh! 4. They print it so we can fold the cards 2 ways instead of 4 ways, which is 2 cards per piece of paper, which all comes down to saving trees. Jackpot.

I badly want to sell them online to you guys, but for now, I'm just selling in the area. If you own office space in the Clock Tower building in Maynard, lucky ducky for you! I'm sending cute little postcards to offices in the Clock Tower building explaining how we sell them, because my dad said that companies might want to buy them in BULK for clients and customers. I'm sure you'll be waiting by your door for the mailman to come.

Thanks again to AlphaGraphics for helping make the 2010 Doodle Cards collection possible!

Other dedications:
-Erik J. Heels ~ My Dad, who is also a huge part of my small business. Thanks so much!!
-Helena Heels ~ My grandma, the brilliant mastermind behind the beginning. She came up with the greeting card idea. Luv ya!!!!!!
-Tom Heels ~ My grandpa, who luvs me. :D Thanks for the support!!
-Staples Copy Center ~ Sure, we're not ordering any more prints, but you helped a lot in the beginning launching the business. Thanks!
-Pinger, Inc. ~ The Creators of the Doodle Buddy application for iPhone, iPod Touch, (and I think iPad too now!?! Oh Steve Jobs. Let's see what you do next.)

Luv you guys.
-

How I Made Over $100 On The iPhone

Pretty crazy, huh? Here's how it all began: I was visiting my grandparents for the Thanksgiving break. I had just recently received my new iPhone, and my dad was just heading out the door to go home to take my oldest brother to a swim meet or something while me and my brother were staying in Maine for the next few days. I was browsing the app store soon before he left, and literally right before he left with his arms full, he typed in his apple password on my iPhone which allowed me to get Doodle Buddy. A very insane last-minute thing, if you ask me. He was typing with his pinky finger and his arms were full and one foot was out the door and he's trying to hold the door open. We are such klutz these days.

I love doodling and drawing and arts of many kinds (except for watercolor.. it always gets so messy and ends up looking all stained, no offense to the watercolor artists reading this... I just never seemed interested.) so this application looked fascinating, plus I loved the fact that it was 100% FREE. I'm sitting on the couch and I'm taking turns asking my grandpa, grandma and great aunt (Luv ya, Granny Hannie!!) of an idea of what to draw.

So how does simple doodle fun have to do with making money? Well, one evening I was just lying around, pondering about how to make money. (Classical for an 11 year old, right?) I had a recent idea to make earrings and sell them online, but I hadn't gone very far with that idea. (I have the materials, its just that I can't get the wire into a loop with the pliers! It's so hard! I give up.) You see, I'm a real business kind of person- I love making money rather than just waiting every month for my $20 allowance. So I asked my grandma (thanks for the great idea!! I'll never forget it was you!) what would be a good way to make some money for the holiday shopping season and just to have cash in general. She loved all my doodles and said, 'Why don't you make little holiday cards out of those spectacular doodles of yours?' At first I thought she was kidding, because first of all, how the heck am I going to get it on good, thick paper? I didn't even have a color printer. So she explained to me how I could print it on shiny glossy photo paper (oooh.. shiny..) and fold it four ways to make a blank holiday card. After she convinced me how it could all really work, I got extremely excited.

I had fun experimenting with my tiny little finger what it could doodle and what holiday designs might be nice. I would love to share with you all my designs, but I'm having trouble finding a watermark to put on it right now, and I don't want some freak copying my artwork. We can all understand that, can't we? :) No one likes the freaky stealer. Ooh, they're the worst.

(Anyway...) So I uploaded them onto their computer and went crazy about how we could go door-to-door in my old neighborhood and selling cards, what the prices would be, how many cards in each pack, the whole envelope situation, etc. I was going bananas.

Finally Sunday came, and I couldn't wait to tell dad my brilliant plan. (Wow, that sounds like I'm in an evil movie of some sort all of a sudden. "I have the evil plan all set, master!" "Excellent! We leave at midnight...") I showed him all three sample cards that we would take door-to-door, and I had decided the prices and the packs and the envelopes. Here's how it works: 5 cards (of one design.. sorry, no variety here people. If you want variety... I don't know, listen to 104.5 or something. Jen and Steve in the mornin'.) and 5 envelopes in one pack, $7 a pack. We would buy the envelopes at Staples. He approved of the designs, and said that we would launch the business next week. I couldn't wait to get started.

About a week after we had gotten back from Maine, on a Friday night, (Nickelodeon, Spongebob, "Squidward! We're having a NIGHT shift!! Night night night night NIGHT night night night NIGHT night night night, nanana-night! -naNIGHT!!" Squidward, "Will you be QUIET?!") we decided to visit my old neighborhood for going door-to-door. I had my clipboard all ready, along with some change.

The cocoa/hot chocolate/coffee/tea card was very very popular. So many people saw it first as was like, 'Oh my. This is perfect!' I swear everyone loves it! I almost felt bad for the other designs. Anyway, my dad also ordered some for himself because I think he really enjoyed me having my very own little business, plus he probably needed some holiday cards anyway. What great convenience!

It doesn't take all that long to process orders. First you go to www.staples.com and order the necessary amount of pieces of paper with the designs in the lower right hand corner, taking up exactly 1/4 of the page. (You can order stuff at Staples Copy Center online) Then we ordered envelopes in bulk. A lot of envelopes!! Then when the order is ready which only takes a day or so, you just pick it up at your local Staples, then I had to get down to business and start folding. With all those Cocoa/Hot chocolate/coffee/tea cards that were so popular, I had a TON of folding to do. Once it was all done though, I gathered five envelopes with five cards, and tied a color coordinating ribbon around them and plopped the packet into the little 'ready for delivery' bin. :)

Unfortunately, for now, at least, I'm only going door-to-door with this. I would love to share these with all of you guys, but I still gotta live my life. I'm going into Junior High, (grades...homework, studying...) I have 2 dance classes (tap and ballet...), band & after school flute classes, plus I'm hoping to do track in the spring. I'm rereading the Maximum Ride series because it makes me laugh out loud, literally, and makes people stare at me, I'm putting my new room together at my moms new house (yes..... just my mom... get it now?... a hint hint.. and a winky... yup..) with painting and curtains and all that jazz, I've got to manage this blog, and my e-mail, and soon to be FaceBook & Twitter, and catch up on all the Red Sox news, and, oh yeah, I think it would be just a tad too much if I tried to cram in an online business in there, don't ya think?? Sorry guys. If I can find a program that puts a free watermark on photos diagonally across the photo, comment below. Thanks.

Oh, and just a shout out FYI, I'm doing AlphaGraphics instead of Staples now. Cheaper. Better. All that quality stuff. Sorry, staples. We'll still buy school stuff from ya. Everybody knows that Staples is easy.. except for large copy orders in their copy center. But hey, how often do you come along one of those anyway, unless you are printing holiday cards? Hmm.. oh, wait, if you're me, then pretty darn often!! See ya later!!

Special thanks to Pinger, Inc. who created the Doodle Buddy application. This is by far my favorite drawing app. No wonder it's the #1 application for productivity. :) Also, I know that Pinger, Inc. has created Doodle Buddy Holiday, but I don't think that I'm going to get that application. Sorry, but look how far I've gotten with Doodle Buddy already. :)