First Commissioned Card!!!!!!!!!!

After working at a top New York law firm for many years, I finally decided to reach for the holy grail of law firm associates everywhere - a job in the in house legal department of a company (in my case, a financial services firm).  It took a lot of soul-searching on my part, and I didn't make the jump until I was absolutely sure that that was the direction where I wanted to take my career.  

I seriously considered a number of offers, and a few months ago, chose the one that I felt had the best combination of substance of work, career advancement opportunities and - last but definitely not least - a nice culture.  

Boy, was I ever wrong.  

But sometimes karma works in wonderful ways.  I was having a particularly difficult day one Monday a few weeks ago when Lauren (my friend who rescued me from the effects of Hurricane Sandy and for whom I made The Jar of Southern Boiled Peanuts card) texted me to commission a card from me!!!

My very first commission!  Lauren told me she was going to a wedding in a couple of weeks, and she hoped that I could make a card for her to give to the bride and groom.  Of course I was ecstatic to do it!

I spent days doodling and sketching designs on scraps of paper, and came up with the below idea.  How do you like it?  : ) 

I'll let you in on a little secret:  I used to tie my bows with nothing but my fingers (sometimes with help from my feet - really!), but I found that it took me half an hour and plenty of wasted ribbon to get one bow that was a keeper.  Also, I couldn't tie tiny ones, as dexterous as I like to think of my dainty little digits.

So I bought the below nifty gadget:

It's deceptively simple - just a piece of plastic with funny cutouts - but the Bow-Easy makes tying bows fail proof.  Learning how to use the Bow-Easy is a little difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it, you will spend your days trying to incorporate bows into your creations.  I'll make a video tutorial soon to show you how!

See?  The bow comes out beautifully every single time, without any trouble at all.

A final - wholly gratuitous - picture of the card, since I like it so much.

Lauren's opportune request turned my frustrating day around.  I had been feeling stressed to the max with the work situation, but Lauren's request gave me hope and reminded me that I am much more than my job.  At the very least, I almost never work past 6:30 p.m. now, and I have all the time in the world to pursue my (numerous) interests.

As long as I can contain my stresses to the workday and let it all go at 6:30, I will be fine.  My evenings and weekends are, at long last, my own.  I'm hoping to be able to make Christmas cards for everyone this year!