Catchup. Or catsup. Or ketchup.

Well, I got an anonymous "crickets..." comment on my last entry. Hint taken. Guess it's time to get back to this blogging thing.

Recent race highlights...Powder Keg Trail Run was quite possibly the most fun I've ever had at a race (other than my marathon). I should still give a bit of a write-up to that before I forget it all.

Training... for the Cincinnati Half Marathon is going well. I was sick a couple of weekends ago and somehow kept a slog up to finish around 8 miles. Now 10 has been conquered at the fastest pace I've ever ran 10 miles.

Biking...I get a ride in when I can. I am trying to figure out what to do over the winter. Because I think I would like to do more biking next year.

Work...is busy. Nice and busy again. Not the greatest of projects, but the steady work is much appreciated and will hopefully allow for Fill Creative to gain some ground to be able to seek out some stuff we would like to do. Also, I have been trying to draw more, and was blissfully drawing regularly for a while. But it has been hard to fit it in recently. I'm hoping to fit it in again soon. The motivation is definitely there.

And now, because pictures make this blog better...

Wednesday night bowling.

The odd nubby things you could win in the claw game.

It's Official...

My new business partner gave her two weeks at her current job today...
so her official last day is May 7th!!!!! Yay Christen!!!!!!


After 2 years and 8 months, Stephanie Smith Creative will become Fill Creative, keeping the same clients and working to gain more, with Christen and I as partners. It's going to be great. As this has been in development I couldn't really write too much about it. So more details later, but I'm just so happy that it is at long last happening! It's going to be so much fun. I feel relieved, happy and very excited about the adventures ahead!

Rubber Stamp Man

Tuesday I was visited at my studio by Barry, a rubber stamp salesman. Yes you heard correct, folks. Rubber Stamp Salesman.

He was probably in his 50s-60s, dressed in a nice suit, and had a hard briefcase full of stamps to demo, each in their own custom shaped foam cut-out block. He asked me if he could have 5 minutes of my time to demo his stamps.

Uh, sure. WTF? A stamp demo? Don't you just slam it on the ink pad and then slam it on the paper?

Turns out, professional stamps of the 21st century have evolved...if only a bit. (How much evolution can they really accomplish?) You no longer need an inking pad. Somehow through the amazing technology of Self-Inking™®, now the stamp has ink already built in. So you don't have to hit the ink before you hit the paper. And you can adjust the ink flow simply by turning the handle.

Amazing.

I didn't need a stamp. Or a brass nameplate, which he also sold. (Though I considered for a moment ordering one that says No Solicitors.) But he did offer me a quote on business cards, before I realized they were just the black raised puffy ink kind with 4 not-so-designed styles to choose from. Oh well.

He wasn't pushy. The only suggestion he made was for me to get a signature stamp, in complete olde-timey sales language all but missing "step right up!":

[stamp man]: Signature Stamp! George Washington's the example. [boom! stamp is stamped revealing G.W.'s signature] Who doesn't sign their name? A stamp of your signature saves you time and money! And it prevents carpal tunnel syndrome.

[steph]: giggles and turns to look at her computer

[stamp man]: It does! It's been proven.

awkward pause...

[steph]: do you have opaque inks?

Paul (studio two doors down) also got the demo. We discussed later. Death of a Salesman, how many stamps do you have to sell to pay for a nice suit, and who still uses stamps were some of our comments/perplexed questions.

I'm glad random people walk in to my studio to keep my days here interesting.

My Mac is Back

Yay! All fixed and $0 cost.
The power supply was bad, and this was covered under something or other since it is defective.
I took it in Wednesday night and they called Friday to let me know it was done! Quick. So Greg and I had to brave the holiday mall to pick it up. No casualties occurred.

My Mac isn't feeling well.

I have an appointment to take my Mac in to the Apple store on Wednesday. This is my diagnosis, and I hope it is what they find too and can fix quickly: http://www.apple.com/uk/support/imac/powersupply/repairextension/
Not sure if it matters that it is the UK.

BIG challenge here- what I'm going to do for working on a machine while mine is in the hospital. I'm going to try to beg for the floater mac at Luxottica. Basically they are my only client right now anyway, so morally, it doesn't seem wrong. If not that, I'll be working on Greg's laptop at night and will have to restructure my days. And we're seeing what we can do to juice up our mac at home. Greg has helped me greatly in keeping my head with this.

I knew this day would come, but what can you do? I can't afford ONE mac, let alone TWO machines for a backup. My plan has always been to get a laptop in the future, but profits just don't allow it yet.

Craptastic Buffet

I just ate at the worst Chinese buffet ever. I would say the quality parallelled that of mall Chinese food and was just below the quality of frozen mystery-meat egg rolls.

So far the only Loveland hot spots for lunch are the Veg Head, the Works and El Picante. But the Works is a little much for the pocket book for lunch. I still need to try Angelo's pizza- not sure if it's take out only. Other than those, I'm not sure what else exists. It's nice to get away out of the studio once in a while.

On a side note, they finally turned the heat on in the building! Yay! It's actually down right toasty in my studio. I do have to keep the door closed now to keep the heat in.

Sorry, no pictures of the craptastic meal.

Pumpkin Time

Today it is raining, and it is supposed to continue the rest of the week. Bleh.
I didn't buy a pumpkin (nor many pumkinS) this year. However, I did buy a Pumpkin Spice Coffee at Starbucks and found....floating in my coffee.....
THE GREAT PUMPKIN!!!!

Workin' on Sunday

Not my idea of a good time, but I came in today for a couple of hours to get some stuff out of the way for Monday, and this is my break-time. I like to think of it as compared to Summer School... took all those classes so I could have an easier year and room for art AND music.

Nothing to say, but thought I'd post pictures of the Studio Cat, Remy. Not MY studio cat of course (I'm as allergic to cats as the Pope is Catholic). It's Pixel P's cat (aka Paul) who is 2 doors down and a very nice graphic designer. I let him crawl around my studio- the cat, not Paul.

New Loveland Lunch Spot

Here's my desk in the a.m.

Today I went down to Veg Head, a restaurant with absolutely the minimum amount of awareness signage a business could have. I stumbled upon it when I was walking back from the yummy Mexican restaurant the other day.

It was hippie day at Veg Head. It might be Hippie Day EVERY day at Veg Head. There was a group of three female hippies (I didn't think to check if they had burned their bras or not, but my guess is hell yes) who were going on and on about how the food was so good. Good sign for me, who had just ordered the bean and curry wrap. I sat down to read Vegetarian Times (or something like that) while I waited for my food. I couldn't help but overhear the conversation. ---Please read in your best hippie voice---
"In this (oh-so-awful) country we are supposed to have ONE god and ONE boss and ONE person we're supposed to just let RULE US, but we're given hundreds of cereals to choose from at the grocery store. Simply madness!" according to FH#1 (female hippie number 1). But then a male hippie who had walked in commentated how the only madness was having one god. Then the FH#1 shouted out the cashier's horoscope after he told them what his birthday was. In case anyone cares, Mr. Veg Head cashier is supposed to go backpacking across Europe to really discover his true self because he's in a time where he's letting people dominate him.

ALRIGHTY!

Here's my lunch. It was DEEEEElightful! The burrito was chock full of yummy flavors. I don't even know what all of them were. Some bites did taste like Old House though, which was weird.















And it came with a side of cabbage, that I tried to take a picture of:














Small hands... smell like cabbage...

It's Fall

It's fall because the leaves are falling off the trees. They aren't turning colors first, just falling off and becoming crunchy ground covering.

Last week I was a bit under the weather and had to take my computer to my house to work on my files while intermittently taking naps. This "working from home" experience has confirmed that the studio is the place to be! It's really hard to get up, take a shower, get dressed and then go sit in your dining room all day. To compound the feeling, Greg was traveling the last part of the week. So it was me and the dogs. Dexter and Harley DEFINITELY loved having me there. I even think that Dexter and I bonded. I never had the urge to throw him across the room... I do think he benefited from the extra attention. Today's my first day back IN the studio, so when I get home tonight, hard telling what I'll face.

I've noticed my blog is greatly lacking in pictures. Especially when compared to the only other two blogs I visit (you KNOW who you are!!!) I need to work on that.

A Name is Decided....

SAS Creative.

It's simple- my initials. I think it will make a very cool/sophisticated logo.

Everything super cool was already taken on the web. And at least I can explain this name- it's just my initials. It's easy to say also. And it doesn't force me to be one certain thing (i.e. illustrator, graphic design, etc). I really like having "creative" in there.

There is a site called sascreative that is out of Canada. They mainly do web it looks like. So my domain name is sas-creative. Who knows when i'll actually have the site up and running. I don't even have a logo yet.

Just wanted to give everyone the update on the name. I do feel more official now and not just like this girl who's freelancing.

One full week down...

It has been exhausting. But good.
No major catastrophies.

Challenge #1- internet wasn't working one day. Had to climb a 5 story ladder to get to the router in the rafters only to find there was no reset button. So I unplugged it and replugged it, thanks to hubby's advice, and that worked. BUT- will we always have nose-bleed high ladders in this place? That's what I have to find out.

Challenge #2- the all-in-one printer-scanner-copier that wasn't. Needed to scan, but couldn't figure out how... No photoshop link. Again, thanks to Greg's advice on what do download, I installed software and now the HP that was printing but not SCANNING is now doing it all AND washing the windows!

Challenge #3- sun in the eyes. How many times must I say, what would I do without Greg? He came in and installed extra curtains what we have, which are too short for the big-ass window, but do block that 8:00 - 10:45 sun-in-my-eye. Goofy looking, but work for now.

Challenge #4- more of a lesson really. Ran out of phone battery today at 3:30. Emergencies with Givaudan are hard to handle when they can't call you on the phone...(but you also get more done when they are forced to compose an email). So I just have to rememeber to always have my charger with me. I didn't even have time to go home and get it!

So that's this week. I haven't billed anything, but i do have one, maybe two projects I can start billing. That will be fun. More hours.

First day in the studio...

It has gone well. I can't believe how busy I am. It's not exactly sinking in.

The day went a little something like this:
7:00 at the studio to work on LC files.
7:01 realized I don't have the LC files. crap.
9:00 meeting at Givaudan... for 3 long exhausting hours.
1:00 scarf down Taco Bell.
1:05 work on LC files for real.
2:00 beg for Kellie to reschedule 4:00 meeting.
2:30 praise Kellie, curse LC.
5:06 get comment from landlord that it's my first day and wow I'm still here. grrr.

Thought for the day- if I continue to work alone, will I slowly become a cat-loving, talking-to-myself-or-any-annoying-person-off-the-street, bad-music-playing kook?

I'm in my studio!

Today is a "Second Saturday" at the studio, and it's the first one I'm participating in. I just got my computer hooked up, found the wireless internet, and am now trying to find some good music to have on tonight.

I have a lot more to do, but I'm so excited I'm in and the internet works!

Stu stu studio...

After a wet trip to IKEA in Michigan, the studio is now furnished... mostly.
We went up to Perrysburg last weekend (?) and also did a day trip up to the IKEA in Michigan. It is a newer store. On our list: stuff for the studio and possibly a dining room table and TV stand. We got the first two, but no TV stand will fit Greg's big-ass receiver. He will probably have to build one himself.

Anyway, IKEA was exhausting, as usual. But we were able to break up the day with a visit with Greg's childhood friend Nate. Turns out Nate and his wife live about 20 minutes from the IKEA, so they met us at Chili's in the front parking lot and we had chips and salsa and chatted. After that we went back in to the store and made the final selections. Two guys loaded everything nicely into the truck and we were on our way back to P-burg.

But it started raining.

So we pulled over under an overpass and unrolled the tanno (sp?) cover only to realize at the end that we didn't have the last bar in which has the snaps for the end. Oh well- flap away tanno, flap away. Better than our merchandise getting wet, right? I sat facing backwards watching it flap violently and imagining it ripping off completely and flying into the face of a motorcyclist behind us.

So we stopped and rolled it back up.

It wasn't raining hard, and actually no water was hitting the back of the truck when we were moving. Luckily it stayed like this the rest of the drive. When we got back to Greg's parent's house, we put a tarp on it. The tarp, however, wasn't secured very well. Overnight it poured rain. In the morning, we had water in the truck bed- not tons, but enough that we had to pull out every piece and unpack it to see if it was wet. A couple of pieces we had to blow-dry with a hairdryer. Particle board is like sponge. But everything is OK.

The rain never stopped. Instead of trying to figure out a new tarp system for the way home, Greg's parents offered their van for us to take. So we repacked and loaded everything into the van. We just need to exchange the vehicles back which I think is happening this week.

A lot of work for our IKEA furniture!

We have spent the past weeks putting together furniture in the studio and moving art supplies and books over to it. It's all done now- shelves, tables, mini-flat file. And we've moved over the drawing table. The only thing left is the futon and computer!

So that's the update on the furnishings. I'll post pictures of it I promise.

Studio Update and Progress on the Plan...

Now the walls are all officially painted. Greg got a super tall ladder and reached the very top. He also painted the vent that runs through the room, after scraping and sanding some of its old paint. We have started to clean the floors - scrubbing with Simple Green (Soilent Green is PEOPLE!!) to get up all the dirt and dust. It is definitely working, just a VERY slow process and lots of work. We're removing years and years of grime from the time that the place was a shirt factory. According to Paul (Pixel-Paul who is 2 doors down), there used to be a big belt conveyer type thing than ran through what is now all of our spaces. So I think in a couple spots, we're removing grease. It's OK. The Soilent Green can handle it!!

In other updates, I had a lunch meeting with Jeff P. from Givaudan on Thursday. I had emailed him to ask him if we could meet to discuss any future opportunities with Givaudan work. If I can get an honest prediction that there will be some work in the next 3 months, then I'd like to use this opportunity to quit. If I can have a little income while starting up the business, that is of course optimal. And it's going to be really hard to obtain clients when I have a day job. Givaudan is perfect because they know me already. I'm currently working on 2 projects and just got notice of a 3rd. I was honest with Jeff in telling him that I want to work on Givaudan projects because I like to and that it would allow me to fully kick off my business. He seemed to think that the next few months were going to be pretty nuts for them. Scott is leaving, they aren't allowed to hire any more designers (lost their headcount in the acquisition), Patti may soon be out for 2 months because of surgery... and all the marketers are feverishly trying to meet their plans. I do remember that this was the busy time of year while I was there. So he thought it sounded good. But he is going to talk about what the team's situation is with Scott before he can give me a definite answer. He doesn't know all the projects or track them- he just thinks he has an idea. We're supposed to talk late next week and then I'll have a better idea. And from talking to Lori, who is embedded in the field, it does sound like it's nuts and they need help.

So here's to that! I hope I see a list of TONS of projects coming up!!!

I really need a name for my business...

Other updates- today is moving day for Casey and Jannelle into Pat and Jamie's house!! Nice hot day for it. Yippee. Casey's providing donuts this morning. :)

Studio update

I have now painted the walls of the studio...with Greg's help.

I was off Monday and got it all done. 3 walls are white and the one with the window is a rusty brown color. I'll take pics and post. I really do like how it looks. Greg said he will help with the very very high trim that I just was too chickensh$! to reach on the high rungs of the borrowed ladder.

I've taken the small collection of carpet samples we have over and thrown them around on the floor. It is going to take a whole lotta carpet samples to cover the floor.

The other graphic designer 2 doors down, (Pixel Pete I keep calling him even though his name is Paul) put in a new router since he said the signal wasn't very strong. So I need to try that out and get the login info from him.

I would like to use one of the tables that is in the main area as my desk. I don't know who they belong to or if they are for sale.

Today I've responded to some "designer wanted" posts on Craig's List that Greg found. Who knows what kind of work they are or what they would pay, but at this stage in the game, I can't be too picky! It's worth the investigation. I'm going to work on updating my resume and cover letter when I get home. Also need to make a pdf of my portfolio. I wish I had a web site. Maybe I can figure that out this weekend. I suppose I need to get a business name registered first though, since that is what I would want my domain name to be...

Anyway, doing my thinking out loud here.

Studio 105

Last week Greg and I were on our way to one of our favorite restaurants, The Works, in old Loveland. At the last stoplight, Greg suddenly said he wanted to check something out. I assumed it was a car sitting for sale somewhere, but it wasn't. It was a building that said "Loveland Artist Studios on Main". I was quite surprised. It was a large building - was it really studio spaces??

I got out of the car and looked in the window. Sure enough, there were a few artists listed along with their craft. It looked pretty cool from the outside...

After checking out their website, it said that there was one studio left, they rented the spaces at .80 a square foot, and that there were 26 artists. I sent the contact an email to say I was interested in learning more. He sent an email to say that I should give him a call to talk about it.

Friday, I left early and gave him a call. I ended up going over there, and meeting Greg there from work so he could look at it too. The space is 18' x 15' and is $190 a month including electric, heat, and wireless internet! A steal. There is no way I could get my own place for that money.

So, we decided to do it!

Today I signed the lease and gave the deposit and first month's rent. I'm SOOOOO excited. It will be so amazing to have my own place to work in. This really helps with The Plan. At the least, it will be an awesome art studio to actually get a portfolio built.

I'm so excited!!!!!!
I'm trying to think of a good name for my design business. I kind of like Studio 105, which is the name of the space I am in. Not sure though. I'm thinking...