check me out! the nic studio on brooklyn bride

i have a new vendor listing on brooklyn bride! thanks to vané for the great posting. i'm proud to be listed alongside such great stationers!

sneak peek: christine & rich's save-the-dates

here's a sneak peek of the save-the-dates for christine & rich's wedding... can't give too much away, because they haven't even gone out yet! i'll show the full piece when they are happily out the door. =)

The Nic Studio in 1000 More Greetings book!

if you follow me on twitter, you know i was surprised a couple weeks ago when i found out that my work was featured in the new book, 1000 More Greetings (rockport publishing). i had submitted my work last year for the book, but we were never notified as to whether or not they were using it. so what a happy surprise to find my work in the book, along with so many of my wonderful collegues!

the above photos are of my pieces in the book. first is adrienne and andrew's invitation suite, and the second includes two images from betsy and jeb's suite, their RSVP and their pre-wedding softball game invitation.

also included in the book were several of my stationery buddies, including (but certainly not limited to) those pictured above. from top: wedding invitation from brown sugar design studio; first birthday invite from jane hancock papers; note cards from sycamore street press.

my dearnic etsy store is back up and running... with new stuff!

so i finally put my etsy store back up... after months and months of neglect, i've added some new (and some old) items back into the space. just in time for the holidays!

first up, my holiday cards. nothing new here, if you've followed my work. but some have been rather popular, and since i'm so busy getting my line ready for the national stationery show in may (eeek!), i opted to reuse the old ones for the time being. plenty of people still don't have the hot santa cards yet, after all!

but the new additions are what i'm most excited about... i've decided to start doing some new poster prints. the ones up on etsy are just the tip of the iceberg, but i think they're pretty great...

the kid prints are all pieces i did for special occasions in my own life. my daughter's first birthday invitation and art piece were the "winter girl" print, and the "little boy blue" and "mary, mary" prints were original pieces done as gifts for friends and their first babies.

the "brooklyn woman" piece is something that's part of my new collection. one of the things i love most about brooklyn are the people here. they all have attitude, they all have tons of personality, they often don't know how funny they are. i walk around my neighborhood from time to time snapping photos of people around me -- old men playing dominoes or mah johng, old ladies sitting alone in chairs outside of their buildings, kids playing hopscotch... it's an amazing environment rich with character, if most of us just take a moment to stop and look around.

if you'd like to order anything, please go to my dearnic etsy shop. thanks!

cross-post: wood inspiration

i'm currently working on a drawing for a ready-to-order set to add to the nic notes marriage line. it involves winter, and wood, and all those great outdoor things.

so i started thinking, how many illustrations out there really involve wood? how many will inspire me? well, i have my answer. check it out:

 my dishonest heart by audrey kawasaki.

 aesop's fable cover, illustration by milo winter.

 illustration by kristiana parn.

 winter woods abstract by joseph rossbach photography.

 we in winter woods, morton lloyd garchik.

 winter woods, illustration by vivien blackburn.

illustration from lokomotywa, by jan lenica

 the old woman in the wood, illustration by arthur rackham.

winter woods, illustration by karin neumann.

i'm a "leading moms in business" winner!

hooray! i ranked in the leading moms in business competition on startup nation. i'm so proud to be one of the top 200 women that competed. thanks so much for voting for me over and over again.

my little girl thanks you too. =)

our apartment is for sale! spread the word!

if you have been following me for a while, you will remember when we moved into our new apartment. we love this place -- it was the first place we owned, it is our daughter's first and only home, it is a great space. we love the building and we love this apartment.


but we have recently realized that we may be able to get a small house in brooklyn now. with interest rates as low as they are and prices down, we can move into a home that we can just grow with and stay in for a long time. i can have an office at home. everything that we eventually want.

so we're selling our place. it's bittersweet, but the right move for our little family.

if you or anyone you know is interested in buying a place in brooklyn, spread the word and let me know! it's a great space, and you can't beat the price for the space and layout.

my promos, and the step-by-step process behind them.

if you follow me on twitter or facebook, you know i've been working on promos for a long time. the concept was to highlight for the recipient that i am an artist as well as a designer, and that my strength is putting ideas down on paper (quite literally). so i decided to make a "sketchbook" of sorts that featured my work, a personalized note and a catalog of work shown. the remaining blank pages are a gift to the recipient to sketch their own ideas.

i found out that i could easily make these sketchbooks myself. yep, glue and all. how cool is that?!

i began by laying out all my pages on the table. every promo contained different pages and a different personalized note. so i needed to assemble them one by one.

after compiling the pages for each book, i put them together with a cut chipboard backing and a few pieces of cardstock on the front. this was because i was clamping the books together for gluing, and i wanted to make sure that there were no imprint marks from the binder clips on the paper. i took a synthetic paintbrush and used it to brush on quick-drying paper glue. finally, i added a third clip in the center and waited for each book to dry. after dry, i would take off the cardstock from the front (often with the help of an exacto to make the process neater) and add another thin layer of glue. then i would let those dry.

finally, i took another piece of paper to make the cover. i measured the width of the dried sketchbooks, and used that to determine how long the cover should be to wrap around the top to the back for gluing. i also added in scoring marks so that i could score the covers to fold easier. before gluing, i stamped each cover with my logo in white.

finally, i added the covers and glued them much the same way as i glued the rest of the book, adding cardstock onto the front and back of each book and clamping them down.

the finished sketchbooks had a note on the front for the recipient, hand written, tied to the books alongside a golf pencil.

this was a very fun promo to put together. i hope my recipients loved it as much as i did.