IMPORTANT CHANGES for 2023

Hello! And a Happier New Year to you all!

We've some important changes to announce! 

We have had to make difficult but necessary changes to the way we work. Mainly because as you know the hike in energy prices is crippling small businesses. Not like we've been through enough after the last 2 years of covid we now seem to be stung by the increasing costs of everything. Our raw materials have skyrocketed. Some things have doubled.! 

Small business owners can only hold back the tide for so long before something has to give! 

I absolutely hate having to put up my prices and know I offer pretty competitive prices for the work that's involved, and in a bid to keep the increase as low as possible, it's become necessary to do as much as I can from home. If you follow me on social media you'll know I am constantly showing the temperature in the studio.... it's freezing!..... it's an old cottage with no fixed heating so I rely on fan heaters to keep me warm. These heaters are expensive to run especially small business tariffs which are more expensive than domestic! So it seems rather stupid to heat up the studio, which takes forever,  when I can do some of the things from home.

So I've decided that for the foreseeable future my opening hours with be flexible and varied! All this seems like a no-brainer!

I know that I will be more productive and less distracted! I've massively fallen behind on my blog, my website still needs new stuff added and my social media channels are never up to date! 

The studio is not a shop! The very reason I spent hours building the website is to make it quicker and easier for people to shop. There is no need to call in (I make and sell to people all around the world) unless you are collecting your order or want to discuss an idea and feel better face-to-face (I get that). It's not a shop you can browse in as all items are custom-made to order so there's nothing to buy. 

Yes, I have examples of items I've made, but nothing that you can't see on the website. 

Of course, I love meeting people and social integration, but I also realise that a consultation especially when it comes to couples wanting wedding stationery can take almost as long as the making of the order itself. As they say....time is money and this time needs to be incorporated into the product pricing somewhere. So rather than increasing my prices for the wedding stationery I will hold the price and only offer what's on the website. Custom orders can still be discussed but there will be an extra cost/design fee for this. We have over 150 wedding designs on the website so there's already plenty to choose from. Our wedding invitations can be found here https://inspiredbyscript.co.uk/collections/wedding-invitation 

Our website https://inspiredbyscript.co.uk  is open 24/7 - 365 days a year. Turnaround time will still be the same at 5-14 working days depending on your order. If you require something in a rush please call up first. If you do need to call in please call me first before having a wasted journey.Our phone number is 07816 537 275 and will be answered during working hours or as soon as possible if you leave a message, 

We're always happy to consider custom orders so if you have something in mind please CONTACT US for a free quote.

Thank you so much for spreading the word, and for your continued custom and support. Now more than ever before it really is very much appreciated.

Let's hope 2023 is kinder and gentler for all of us. 

Follow us on

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InspiredByScript

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/inspiredbyscript

HELP US FUNDRAISE FOR THE UKRAINE EMERGENY APPEAL

 

Hiya folks... Warning this is a long post....

Sorry I’ve been quiet. It’s been a mixture of being busy with orders and my head being all over the place with the events over the last couple of weeks! Blimey, just a couple of weeks? I don’t know about you but it already feels like months!

My first reaction was what can I do? how can I help?

Well I can’t drive to taking aid to Ukraine is out of the question.

I belong to a massive group of artists and crafters and we have our own group, we all decided that we would do what we do best and make stuff! The profits or a large proportion of the items sold would go to the Help Ukraine Emergency Appeal (I’ll add a link at the end of this post).

Anyhow, off everyone went to make and shake and some got their items listed for sale.... and then it happened! The trolls hot out hard. I saw the most awful comments accusing people of ‘cashing in’ on tragedy, trying to make a fast buck and serious threats. My friend's business pages were being trolled and many closed their pages for fear of being tarnished forever.

 I decided I wasn’t mentally able to cope with being accused of any of this so I shelved the idea of doing anything. But every night I go home and the terrible acts against humanity continue and I really HAVE to do something! Ok si I’ve made my own donation, but that’s just a drop in the ocean. I’m not financially able to donate my products for free, but I can offer a small selection of products and donate a large amount of the profit to the cause.

So at the risk of being called worse than poo I am going to offer these products over the next couple of days. Check out the COLLECTION HERE

Perhaps I won’t sell any.... but maybe.... just MAYBE I will sell a lot and together we’ll do our bit to help.

If for whatever reason you find this distasteful.... please don’t judge me.... just scroll on by. I’m not forcing or pressurising anyone to buy (It’s not my way). Thanks to those on my personal page who have encouraged and supported me to do this. Much love and peace to you all xox

This is the cause I am raising funds for so here’s the link if you’d like to make a donation. https://www.gofundme.com/f/helpukraine?utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR16uVEJdEBkRka4lndTfiiBM2R4WK1ucP0WVfxmdwQ3YWJlFt8n7tdJh18

Applying vinyl decals with and without static cling

 HOW TO APPLY YOUR VINYL TRANSFER

Firstly clean thoroughly the application surface. Surfaces can be cleaned with a damp cloth and water or a fast-drying cleaner such as rubbing alcohol.
Avoid using solvents, household surface cleaners or window cleaners as they can leave residues that reduce the effectiveness of the vinyl adhesion.

To apply your sticker remove it from the paper backing by peeling away the transfer tape. The tape will hold the individual pieces of your sticker design in place while you position it on your desired surface. 

Once your sticker is positioned correctly you can press the transfer tape onto a surface to adhere it. Next, use a credit card to apply pressure to the entire design to make sure it's fully adhered. 

Finally, slowly peel the transfer tape away at a 180-degree angle to leave the sticker adhered.

If your design is especially delicate, let it sit for 24 hours before removing the transfer tape. This gives your sticker time to adhere more strongly to the surface and makes it easier to remove the tape while leaving the design intact.

WHAT ABOUT THE VINYLS WITHOUT TRANSFER TAPE?

Simply peel and stick your decals to the desired surface and press down.

HOW TO REMOVE VINYL

Use fingernails or a blade to pick at and lift an edge of the vinyl. Slowly and firmly peel back the vinyl along the surface as opposed to straight out.
To remove the vinyl from the glass you can also use hot water (not boiling).

The adhesive can sometimes remain on the surface, particularly if the vinyl has been in place for a number of years. If you are having trouble removing it with window cleaner a more effective result will be achieved with an acetone-based adhesive remover.

VINYL MAINTENANCE

Vinyl can be cleaned with a soft, non-abrasive cleaning cloth. Use a warm soapy solution, and rinse afterward. Do not use abrasive cleaners or high-pressure washers or steam cleaners

 

APPLYING DECALS TO STATIC WINDOW CLING

If you would like to make your decals removable rather than permanent then you will need to add your decals to the static window cling. This makes it easily removable when you want to change or store your decal.

First, cover your decal with application tape. This is a clear slightly bumpy textured film that may already be covering your decal.

Rub down hard over the film with a store or debit card or something else suitably flat and hard.

Gently peel the application tape away from the backing making sure the decal is stuck firmly to the application tape.

Place down on top of the clear window cling and again rub hard with a store or debit card.

Lift the corner of the application tape and fold back on itself.

Gently pull away with your fingers flat against the uncovered decal.

Slow and steady until all the tape is removed and your decal is on the window cling.

APPLYING CLEAR STATIC CLING TO WINDOWS

Cut around your design leaving a border or square… this won’t be visible once applied to the window.

Clean and dry the window to remove any dirt.

Take a wet dishcloth and add a drop of washing up liquid and wipe over the window.

Peel the window cling completely with decal away from the backing and place against the window.

Wipe with a clean dry cloth from the centre outwards.

Keep lifting and pushing out any bubbles.

Don’t worry about the smaller bubbles, these will disappear once your window is dry.

For pictures and detailed instructions see this log post here: http://inspiredbyscript.blogspot.com/2021/01/window-decals-what-you-need-to-know.html 

WINDOW DECALS WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Our vinyl decals can be used on all manner of things. Here I'm going to talk about how to apply your decals to WINDOW CLING. 

You can, of course, apply your decals directly to most clean, dry, flat)ish) surfaces, but this should be considered a permanent, non-reusable application. 

Window cling is ideal if you'd like to reuse your design somewhere else or replace it on a regular basis. 

Using window cling saves a lot of time and energy scraping off individual decals especially when the decals are small. 

Small decals come ready to peel and stick 

Our larger decals, however, come ready attached to a piece of application tape.  This tape helps you pick up larger or more delicate pieces of vinyl and position them so you are less likely to crease it when you stick it down. Whether you are using WINDOW CLING or applying to straight onto a smooth surface, the application is the same. 

FIRST OFF - Cut your window cling to the desired finished size.

Then gently peel the application tape away from its backing ensuring the whole of the decal comes away. If at any time you see it's not stuck, simply place back down and rub hard with a store or debit card or some other hard, flat, piece of plastic. 

Once you have peeled it away, lay it gently down onto the WINDOW CLING or position it wherever you want it to be.  

Once again take your plastic store card and rub very hard on the back. Check it is stuck by lifting up the application tape and peeling it away SLOWLY from the backing. If it's not stuck down you haven't rubbed hard enough. 

The best way to remove the tape is to pop it back on itself so that the non-sticky side touches the non-sticky side and pull at an angle from the top left or top right corner.... sort of in a diagonal movement. 

If any areas are not stuck properly, hold the application tape 90 degrees and rub the decal until successfully removed. 

Give it another gentle rub over once the application tape is removed to ensure it's all stuck down nicely. 

REGARDING RAINBOWS 

Rainbows come in all shapes and sizes, right? so where and how you place them is entirely up to you. 

I usually set out the 6 colours. RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, PURPLE and taking one of each space them out on my mainline. This gives me a great guideline to work from. 

I then fill in with the smaller colours until I am happy with the design.  Get creative and have fun! Remember there is no right and wrong way... everyone's design is different! 

TIME TO PREP THE WINDOW!

No matter how clean you think your window is... give it a quick clean anyway. 

Then take a wet dishcloth and drop on a few drops of washing up liquid (Shhhhh trade secret!). 

I know this sounds crazy but it helps you to move the decal into position and helps with the surface tension. 

Leave your window wet like this.... 

O.K. grab that plastic store card and a clean, dry, cloth and place them where you can get access to them.

Peel the window cling away from it's backing and stick to the window. 

For large decals another pair of hands is useful. 

Lift and place dow repeatedly until you have as few bubbles as possible. 

Take the plastic scraper and lifting away the window cling, place down and scrape to the outside from the middle.... repeat as often as you need to. 

Don't panic about smallish bubbles this is perfectly normal. 

Just get rid of as many of the larger ones as you can. 

This was the best I could do.....

But once dry the bubbles will disappear. 

And won't be noticeable at all.

There you go! Stand back and admire your window creation.... spreading a little joy out into the world. 

Keep the backing paper to the window cling. It will come in useful if you ever need to store it and preferably keep it rolled in a cardboard tube. 

You can buy WINDOW CLING HERE

See a selection of available WINDOW & WALL DECALS HERE

We also offer vinyl stickers to use for your own personal projects. These can be used to personalise just about anything TAKE A LOOK

If you have an idea and want us to cut it for you CONTACT US for a quotation

There's nothing more satisfying than creating products from clients' own artwork, especially when they know what they are doing!  

Kirsty decided she wanted 2 books and a t-shirt for her sisters birthday. 

The notebook with lined pages was to have a simple black graphic on the front with ivory covers.

And here it is finished. 

The second book was a coloured graphic with a coloured graphic

Looks great don't you think?

The black t-shirt was to have H.T.V. on it

No need for black H.T.V. as the t-shirt was already black 

Just look at that neon vinyl....see how it pops! 

I have to say this was probably one of the most enjoyable jobs I've done for a long time. Understanding what the creator needs in terms of graphic and format helps massively. It's probably best to ask BEFORE you get down to drawing and creating. 

Although the graphics her are one single graphic the coloured ones have to be split onto colours and layered, which can be time-consuming. Understanding this and sending in this format makes the job more pleasurable too. 

It might be good to add here that if you do send artwork it needs to be in 300dpi as a minimum. Anything less is likely to pixellate and the fuzzy printing is not down to the designer nor their printing method by YOUR bad image quality in the first place. Please bare this in mind when sending artwork. 

Fortunately, I didn't have this problem with this job. If in doubt CONTACT US first. 

Interested in having a book made? Here are the links:

NOTEBOOKS & JOURNALS  

T-SHIRTS

CUSTOM MADE T-SHIRT MENS/UNISEX   LADYFIT

Not aRANT.... more a PLEA!

hELLO EVERYONE! Hope you are all doing o.k.?

What a roundabout of a year this has been! 

There I was looking forward, like most people, to the year ahead. Spring had arrived! The next time you lift your head up and look ahead and it's Autumn!

At the start of lockdown, it felt like time had slowed down.... almost stood still at times. Now I feel like we are fast heading towards the C word!

For small businesses, it's been tough and for so many of them, it still is! .... really tough! And 

I'm not going to lie, my mental health has been very up and down and all over the place.  

Glass half full or glass half empty? Well, it depends on what day you ask me lol.

I am so VERY grateful for all those awesome people who have given me orders both large and small and who have kept me going when I wanted to give up!

Every penny spent with a small local business puts 80p in every pound back into the local economy. Shop online with the big boys and you're only putting 5p in the pound back.... pretty disgusting eh?  What you may not know... the big boys pay less tax than most small businesses! Why? Because they have an uncanny knack of offsetting so much of their profits and employ super-smart accountants! Most of them have offshore accounts that are subject to different taxation systems than ours.  

So as the C-word approaches and indeed wherever you can... PLEASE... if you do nothing else this year... shop small, shop local, shop independent. 

The advantages are huge! Not only are you helping a person who had a go at turning their dream into a business and took the risk to have a go, but you'll also find we are incredibly nice people who will bend over backward to give you what you want and REALLY value every penny you spend with us. 

O.k. now here are a few pictures of makes... some commissioned some as gifts.... 

These double-walled thermos flasks keep drinks hot or cold.

WEB LINK FOR THIS PRODUCT

 

Just one of the many cake toppers I've made

I really need to put them all into one long blog post! 

WEB LINK FOR THIS PRODUCT

Personalised Hoodie 

WEB LINK HERE

Personalised Hoodie 

WEB LINK HERE

I love making t-shirts, whether it's for business, business branding or clubs

Here's one for one of the Thirsk Bowmen.

WEBLINK FOR T-SHORTS HERE

After the kitchen repaint, I found this cute cat, brought back from Spain by a friend 

as a little thank you for looking after (and keeping alive) 

her gorgeous diabetic orange tabby cat 'Scooby'.

Do you ever look in the mirror on a morning and think " Oh me gosh! I look like my mother!"?

Me too! So I just had to inject a little humour into my morning visit to the looking glass...

If you can't read it I'll translate.....

Hello beautiful.... You look younger in real life! 

I love designing anything with letters and even more so when it's then cut in vinyl. 

Self-adhesive vinyl can be applied to most clean, dry, surfaces and can last up to 7 years outdoors if applied correctly. 

HTV (Heat transfer vinyl) is applied to fabric using a heat press and is generally used on garments, although I have used it on bags, books and even wood. 

I know that there's a lot of you using vinyl stickers for kitchen jars and bathroom pump dispensers so I thought I'd offer them for sale on the website. 

 WEB LINK HERE

At the moment I'm only offering Black, white, gold and silver self-adhesive stickers. HTV is best applied with a heat press. Using an iron can be an epic failure. 

And can you believe that I am already getting ready for the C-word. I don't want to be overwhelmed by Christmas stock at the end of the year so I think I'll be putting these out as pre-orders, that way I'll only buy-in and make the products that have already been paid for. And it will help me save space and stop everything bursting out of the work/shop door. 

On a final note THANK YOU so much for  every order you give me, it really is appreciated and you are helping keep the wolves from the door and put food on the table ... again THANK YOU! 

Until next time, Stay safe, keep well and please wear a mask xxx

Time for A Catch Up!

Hi Tribe,
We ventured into the studio yesterday, mainly to catch up on maintenance and get this kit idea off to a start. 

I set Steve to work on rubbing down the paintwork on this dilapidated cottage that I fondly refer to as my second home. But first.... he needed to trim back the bush as he couldn't get near the windows!

 During this lockdown I've noticed how blue the sky is. Something I haven't seen since I was a kid! I doubt anyone believed it when I used to reminisce how blue the skies used to be, but thankfully they've now seen it for themselves. 
In a selfish twist, I'm glad the plane companies are going out of business. Not only for the environment but the economy too. If more people spent their money here we would be more financially stable as a country and don't even get me started on the carbon footprint all these travelling planes cause. 

I have to admit, it was a hot day... perhaps too hot (Did I really say THAT?). It was so hot Steve went on a mercy mission to get the last remaining ice cream lollies out of the home fridge. 

I finally put all doubts and worries aside and the work on the new Charity Kits has started! As I said in a previous post it's really bothered me that the smaller charities are down on their vital fundraising. Their shops are closed and the events that they rely on so heavily cancelled. So, I'm making it a priority. 

Oh the irony of paying a small fortune for a diary this year! I bought this and remember almost fainting at the price.... but it went with my branding so I clenched my teeth and bit the bullet!

Now it looks like it's going to end up being a notebook, what with all weddings cancelled and such like.

Perhaps I'll buy a cheap one next year!

I'm thinking of launching the Charity Kits on the first Friday of every month.
This will give me enough time to make the kits, write the instructions and get the blog post written.

I've designed the cards already. I just have to decide on how many to make available and what charities to support.

Steve managed to get the paintwork rubbed down, but the more he sanded the more wood fell out. The heat was unbelievably hot and too hot to paint. So we ended the day on a high, but knew when to stop. at least.

Yesterday seemed much more optimistic. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it was when the government announced that we can meet in groups of up to 6 people? And while I have no intention of leaving my little town at least for the time being, it does mean we can see the grandkids, which is brilliant news.

Regarding opening the work/shop. While I'm happy(er) to be in there I am not happy to be open to the public anytime soon. Even though I have all the measures in place that I physically can, it all seems too soon and way out of my comfort zone right now.

The numbers may be dropping as a national average, I know fine well that they are NOT dropping here and while R number is nearer 1 than 0, I won't be opening to the public.

I have a website and I'm happy to do messenger video calls, so the only advantage of opening is that the public can see and touch things. Touching things is not permitted under the government regs even with hand washing.

Whether this is a good idea or bad, I have no intention of putting my life or the lives of my family at risk... it's as simple and clear cut as that.

We drink very little and haven't had a drink all lockdown, but last night it seemed right to crack open the Pimms that has been in the cupboard for at least 2 years and have a celebratory drink.

I'll leave you with a little video of my only lockdown ' non-essential' purchase.....my beautiful, solar, moon-gazing hare and the beautiful blackbird friend that serenades me first thing on a morning and last thing at night.

If you read my blog posts all the way through, please can you leave me a comment, a message or simply a quick hello? It will be nice to have something more than a thumbs up that we usually get on FB.

With love and bright blessings, Sue xox.