Doing favours for friends

Birthday invitations are so much fun to do and using the mini treat bag thinlits to make a cute little envelope to hold the invitation is always a cute little bonus.  However this blog is not about the cute little invitation it is about being a good friend and trying to help people out when you are also trying to run a business.

I absolutely love playing with paper and stamps and creating gorgeous cards and invitations for people.  I also love being able to share my love of this craft through my card classes.  Like everyone these days I do not have a lot of time on my hands with 3 kids, full time work, part time study and my card classes, oh and trying to fit in time to see my husband as well, time is of the essence.  When I offer to do a sample of an invitation for a friend it takes time and I do it understanding that they do want to order the invitation from me.

I did the sample above for a friend.  She wanted a design for her younger and older daughter's birthday parties in July.  She required 30 invitations in total and I spent an hour designing and making the sample as shown and quoted her $2 for each invitation, which included an envelope as well.  This is very cheap I know but I could make it for that as I wasn't having to buy any of the product I was using. This amount didn't even cover the time I would have spent making the invitations but she is a friend and if she is happy she will tell friends and that is how word of mouth happens. However, after spending an hour deciding on the design and colours and going through all my patterned papers (non SU!) to pick out colours to go with the coloured cardstock (SU!) I had picked, putting it together and then photographing it to send to her, she came back to say that her husband would kill her if she spent that much on invitations and so the job didn't happen.  I was really upset but it has been a lesson learnt that if I am going to do even just a sample for someone, even a friend, I will ask for money for my time and effort.