If the video above does not play, you can also watch it here: Cherries Jubilee Creations on the Studio 5 Love List!

I am so excited to have talented designer, Melissa Phillips, on board to create some delicious cards with our new kits! Her designs show just how fun and versatile our kits are. Her designs, as well as many others, are featured in our card idea gallery. Are you interest in being a part of our card idea gallery? Have you designed a yummy card with one of our card kits? If you can answer yes to either of those questions, email a photo of your card to elizabeth@cherriesjubileecreations.com and you may just see it featured on the Cherries Jubilee Creations blog!

After what seems like such a long wait, I’m so excited to announce that our first two card kits are now available for purchase. Please visit our store at www.cherriesjubilee.etsy.com, or click on the link at the left to let the crafting begin! 

I love celebrating birthdays, attending and throwing birthday parties, and making birthday cards. With that said, it was so easy to decide that I wanted my first kits to be birthday party inspired. My color inspiration for the card kits come from the yummy desserts:  Raspberry Truffle Cake and Blueberry Lime Parfait. Both kits will be available for purchase, through this website, starting Monday June 2, 2008. Here’s a sneak peek of what comes in each kit.

I’m loving my new blog design! I can’t believe it! It really captures the vision of my company, and the designers at Logoworks by HP did a great job incorporating the look of my “inspiration dress” (see the “Fancy Threads for my blog” post for a better explanation). I’m so excited to continue and share my inspiration and design process…with a few unexpected surprises along the way.

10 bits of inspiration which influenced me to name my company: Cherries Jubilee Creations

1 I have been a fan of artist Mary Engelbreit since I was a little girl. I’ve even nicknamed her “Mary Cherry” as she accents many of her designs with cherries. In college, my dorm room was decorated with her motif, and now my office has taken on her theme.

2 Since I’m such of fan of Mary Engelbreit, I have my “everyday” cherry dishes.

3 I also have my “special occasion” cherry Mary Engelbreit dishes.

4 An ordinary white lamp spruced up with cherry ribbon and cherries brightens up a dark corner of my kitchen.

5 Most of the items I bought for my baby girl were pink. But, I couldn’t pass up this cherry diaper bag.

6 I’m drawn to two things: a good deal and cherries! Put those together and it’s obvious why I couldn’t pass-up these shoes from Payless Shoe Source. I loved them so much I bought two pair. The first pair I wore out, and unfortunately they are probably in a landfill somewhere. On that note, I need to go recycle something.

7 Oh good, something I can recycle. By 11 a.m. every morning (which means I’m due for one in about 20 minutes) I am usually seen with a Cherry Coke or Wild Cherry Pepsi in my hand! And I’m always good about putting my bottles and/or cans in the recycle bin. Just doing my part to save the rainforests!

8 Childhood game favorites: Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land, and Hi Ho Cherry-O. I fondly remember playing this game. Trying to pick all the cherries off my tree and put them in the basket without the crow or dog eating them! Good times!

9 I grew up in Cottonwood Heights, Utah; right around the corner from Cherry Tree Lane.

10 Married life introduced me to the magic of Saturday Night Live. Subsequently, my husband and I are huge Molly Shannon fans. We especially love her  “Sally O’Malley Rockettes I’m 50″ sketch, highlighting her audition dance: Cherries Jubilee.

I’m making good progress on my “to-do list” and feel like I have a handle on the logistics of starting my company.

So far:

• Company named: check.

• Printer lined up: check.

• Selected paper stock: check.

• Contents of the cards kits decided: check.

• Logo designed: check.

• Custom blog: almost…check!

So, now on to the fun stuff…designing the first card kit collection. In my free time I’ve been looking and researching all things birthday. For me, nothing quite hits the mark. My vision: I love the elegant looks of damask fabrics but still love the bright colors that invoke a party feel. So, in taking that just a step further, I was thinking how neat a damask design would be if there is a little unexpected surprise hidden in it.

As a mom to a nine-month-old little girl, I’m a sucker for darling clothes! During a shopping trip yesterday afternoon I found this darling summer dress and fell in love with the design of it! I’m going to upload a photo of it to the creative brief for my blog. I hope it will help give my blog designers a little more direction on what my vision is for my blog, now that I’ve seen the magic they worked with my logo.

Now that I have my logo, I’m ready to make my next step: a website. I’m terrified! Right now, I’m pretty new to this whole blogging scene, and don’t know anything about managing a website. I shared my fears with a member of the Creative Services team at Logoworks to figure out my options. She was so great to work with and after explaining my business vision for Cherries Jubilee Creations, she suggested I get a custom designed blog instead of a website. Brilliant! After all, I really want to have a personal connection with my customers, be able to share my creative inspiration, and get feedback! In the beginning I started with a templated WordPress blog so I could have a journaling of my creative process, and figured it would be in-addition to my website…sometime down the road, but now I can use my blog as my website! That’s not as intimidating, plus I have lots of options for the customization of my very own blog! Logoworks has really made it easy to let me focus on how I want to look and I trust leaving it in their hands. 

Thanks for all your great feedback on my logo designs. Through this whole process I’m always open to suggestions, as I feel It’s always good to know what other people think. A logo is like a piece of art, where beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I loved the layout of #4 and the cherries in #1 and #3. I also decided that after seeing #3 that I like it with Cherries Jubilee being the main text and creations being smaller. My suggestions in my revisions were to change the text to more of a custom look and make the cherries look more “fun” and “artsy”. I also gave them some color direction. They really hit the mark. I love the final product. I am so excited to see it on my product packaging and on my (gulp!) website.