I am a Jill-of-many-trades, but one of the things that I love most is designing print products and seeing how beautiful the design comes out. I have designed about seven or eight Mary Kay planners, ample postcards, wedding invitations, business cards, and even notebooks for meal planning, business notes, and working out. I must say, now that I understand how to develop print products correctly based on sizing and file type, it’s one of the skills I enjoy improving the most! 

If I could add more consistent stationary sales into my repertoire, I would in a heartbeat. It brings me so much joy when I pick up a planner order that was printed. Seeing how great my design looks in real life as a tangible product is an amazing feeling that I’ll never get tired of. 

I have a deep discount at Office Depot that cuts my printing costs in half. I haven’t tried any of their hardback products, but I have an idea to create some new notebooks for personal use and even a recipe book. 

Right now, the recipe book I’m using is super small and inadequate. Personally, I would prefer it to be a larger, letter sized (8.5” x 11”) notebook so I could have more space to write ingredients and directions without it bleeding over into multiple pages. I think the notebook I have currently is closer to the 5.5” x 7” size. Long story short, it’s a little bit of a hassle using it since it’s so small. The paper is also rather thin and isn’t of good, thick quality. 

I have no doubt in my mind that I could create a better recipe notebook that would work better for me and my purposes. And you know, if I really like the design, I can offer it for sale on Etsy and on my website in case anyone else could get great use out of it. Creating the interior pages wouldn’t be that bad since all of them would be the same outside of the covers and the cute pages to separate the breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and sweets categories. 

If I happen to finish the design before this blog is published, I’ll make sure to link it here. 

One of my favorite things about creating print products is pricing out the cost to produce the item and deciding on a fair sale price. I believe the sale price needs to be worth the hassle of printing and shipping for the transaction to make sense. Of course some people pay lots of money for colorful planners that are filled with stickers, but I haven’t found a way to make those cost effective yet. 

Traditionally, color printing is far more expensive than black and white, so being able to toe the line between cute and cost effective is a very delicate balance that ultimately has to dictate design. Now, if we’re talking purely digital download products, the sky's the limit in regards to color. I could make any and every page full of color and it wouldn’t affect the price since there’s no cost of production to take into consideration. 

When I was younger, some of my favorite things to buy and hoard were notebooks, pens, and paper. I loved getting cute, new notebooks to journal in and I always had one empty one on hand when I got particularly close to running out of space. 

My favorite pens of all time are the Pilot Precise V7 pens. My aunt originally put me on, and I’ve loved them ever since. I had a pack of them in every color and I truly enjoyed how beautiful they made my handwriting look, especially my cursive. I don’t have any currently because I have a whole drawer full of pens that still write, but when it’s time to buy some new ones, I will definitely be getting a pack of those. 

I also had the Pilot Precise V5 pens, but those are a little too thin for my liking. Instead of gliding effortlessly across the page, sometimes those scratched the page or required more force to release the ink. The only downside to both of those pens is the ink does run out relatively quickly. They aren’t like the dinosaur Bic Round Stic pens that literally last 20 plus years. I can guarantee that I bought some of those during the numerous school supply shopping sprees that were well over 10 years ago at this point. 

There’s just something I truly love about putting a pen that’s actually a joy to write with, to thick, nice quality paper and going on an uncharted journey. It’s almost comparable to when I get in the zone of writing digitally….almost.

Signed, 

Jessica Marie