blog

DIY Lilo & Stitch Costume

May 9, 2017 Leave a Comment

With April 30th passing recently, it reminded me it’s the half-way point to Halloween! One of my favorite times of year! I have a special tutorial to share with you. I’ll show you how to make a DIY Lilo & Stitch Costume. I made my daughter K a SUPER cute Lilo and Stitch costume last Halloween and it was a super success! We always wait until the last weekend or minute to make or buy a costume. This time I made up my mind to make one that I can share and help other moms out like me make a super cute and easy costume. If you make this costume, I’m assuming you have a Stitch stuffed animal as your companion. You don’t really have to, but it makes the costume complete.

We are Disney fanatics. We have an overabundance of souvenirs! We were still on our high from our summer trip to Walt Disney World in Florida and couldn’t stop talking about how fun Stitch’s Great Escape was. Some people don’t like that ride, but my daughter and I thought it was cute! She LOVES Stitch, we bought him at Disney world and we watch the movies way too often in our home. So, K decided she wanted to be Lilo. Naturally, it was because this project was the easiest and would only take me a couple of hours it was a great fit for me! I couldn’t find anything online with the right size flowers for Lilo’s shirt. So, I made my own! You can download the flower file I made too! All I did was go to Michaels and buy a red t-shirt in my daughter’s size and white glow in the dark transfer paper from Jolee’s. That was actually an accident that I bought glow in the dark iron on transfer sheets. I meant to buy just the white transfer sheets for dark fabrics. But it ended up being pretty cool because my daughter wears the shirt as a sleep shirt now and the leaves glow in the dark.

I will make this as easy as possible. As long as you’re somewhat crafty, you can totally do this project. Adults should only be doing this project because of the hot iron – kids only under strict adult supervision. I left a very light line on the leaves so when it prints, you’ll be able to see where to cut. Make sure you have a secure table to work on that you can spread your items out on. I have a wood table that I use for letterpress papers and other things like that and that worked great for this project.

Step 1: Gather your supplies for your DIY Lilo & Stitch Costume

1 red shirt (wash and dry before starting the project)
1 package of printable iron-on transfer paper (this is the one I bought)
1 pair of scissors
1 iron
1 decent printer (I used my Canon PIXMA)

Step 2: Prepare your workspace

Download the leaf file – Click to Download the Lilo Leaf Template
Lay out your shirt
Get your iron out and preheat
Print your leaf template. I used the 3 sheets that came in the pack and then cut them out by hand with a good pair of sharp scissors.
- Load the sheet into your printer so that it will print on the NON-GLOSSY UNLINED side.
- DO NOT mirror or flip image prior to printing. Image will not transfer correctly onto fabric if mirrored before printing.

Step 3: Make that shirt!

Lay out your leaves on the shirt to get an idea of how you want to position them. You can see from my pictures how I did mine.
Peel the backing of each leave one at time and follow the package directions for ironing them on the shirt. They include parchment paper to place over the iron-on and make sure you press down firmly and totally follow the package instructions. When you lift the parchemnt paper up, you’ll be able to see if your iron-on is adhering properly to the shirt.
Continue the same process for each leaf and then let it cool off before wearing.

If you’re wondering where K’s hair clip came from. All you need to do is buy a fake tropical flower, green duct tape and a pack of flat alligator clips from Michael’s. I just cut the flower so it would fit the clip and used the duct tape to adhere it to the clip and voila. You have a close to what Lilo wore hair clip. We literally couldn’t find anything that was a perfect match so we just made the cutest tropical flower we could find work.

Now you will have a super cute and EASY to make Lilo and Stitch Costume for Halloween! And make sure you get an oversized shirt, it’ll make a great nightshirt! Just make sure you hang it to dry or the leaves may peel off. Don’t forget to download the Lilo leaf file! – Click to Download the Lilo Leaf Template.

Use the hashtag #designeditgirl on Instagram to show me your DIY Lilo & Stitch Costume! I’d love to see what you made!!

Customized BigCommerce Theme for Paula & Chlo

March 20, 2017 Leave a Comment

I recently launched a new customized bigcommerce theme for Paula & Chlo. Paulaandchlo.com is fashion forward accessory, clothing and women’s boutique located in Michigan. Paula needed a modern up to date feel for her site and didn’t want to go the route of developing a custom theme from scratch. I customized the front page and coded the image and text boxes she needs for displaying her new products. I also customized the top menu and links and added better icons from FontAwesome and made some homepage graphics to showcase her “get the look” section.

Customizing a BigCommerce theme is still a great way to get your site going and have a exactly what you want. It can be half the cost of developing one from scratch and goes WAY quicker too. You can have your site in a couple of weeks instead of 4-8 weeks. Drop me a line to get a new BigCommerce design for your site!

Custom Boutique Illustrations and Graphics

March 6, 2017 Leave a Comment

Custom Boutique Illustrations and Graphics can add a touch of cuteness and fun to any website or social media post. I offer custom packaging illustrations, character illustrations, animals, essential oil bottles and more. I have been drawing cute characters since 2008 and have loved every moment of it. I was one of the original cute boutique illustrators. When my business first started back in 2007, it was called Sweet Boutique Design. I have since changed my business name to Design Edit Studio, LLC because my business grew and changed and I wasn’t the cutesy template maker for template shops and eBay anymore. But, I loved making those templates for the mom and pop shops and the cute, fun and girly graphics that went with it.

I have been going through all my extra extra backups. When you’re a web developer, 1 backup is none, 2 is 1 and 3 is 2. I have a MANY backups. No joke, I collect and collect files and make new ones and forget about them. I found a ton of my old work and decided how fun it would be to bring back and update a lot of it the illustrations. I have a so many cute girly characters, animals, cards, etc. I will have a new shop on my site soon where you will be able to order premade logos, branding kits, business cards, my fun illustrations as well as custom illustrations.

Custom Boutique Illustrations and Graphics by Design Edit Studio

Above is a cute and girly set of illustrations I drew 9 year ago. Cupcakes, turtles and babies are just so much fun to draw! And below are the cute woman and girls I drew in 2009. The 2 little girls in the picture below are based off of my two lovely daughters that were 3 and 8 at the time. I wish I looked like the girl in the picture, I guess my woman illustrations are always wishful thinking on what I think I look like. Or maybe it’s me in an alternate universe 😀

Woman, Girl and Baby Illustration

Recently, a project for one of good friends Melinda, inspired me to create a set of essential oil bottles. I have a preference my essential oils, but I’m not selling those here, just the cool graphics of whatever you love to promote or use. Coming soon in my new shop, I’ll have premade business cards for dōTERRA and Young Living reps. Choices will be available for background, colors and bottles and have a semi custom downloadable file to get printed at vista print or any other printer of choice. I’m totally flexible and can make a file up for literally any printing company you choose. If you have a local one, which a lot of my clients do or you like the online ones. I will have 1 or 2 side cards with lots of customization choices.

Custom dōTERRA wellness advocate business card design

I am also designing, drawing and making up downloadable marketing packages for any business whether you’re an essential oil rep, aromatherapist, retail clothing store, jewelry store, candle shop, body care shop and more. So, I have a lot of new products coming soon and a revamp of the oldies but goodies.

Essential Oil and Aromatherapy bottles illustrations

I can design any type of illustration for a Facebook cover image, twitter cover, google+ cover, website homepage graphics, etc.

Facebook cover photo with a girly illustration

Online shop homepage graphic with illustrated aromatherapy bottles

Get Your Own Girly, Fun Boutique Illustrations!

Get a quote for your new website or re-design, logo design, print design or marketing plan!

Get a Quote

12 Days of Christmas Landing Page Ideas

December 9, 2016 1 Comment

There are 15 days until Christmas and that means there’s still time to make a holiday marketing plan. My previous client campaigns to promote your items to your customers are a great resource!

The Twelve Days of Christmas campaign 2012 for Paula & Chlo was so fun and colorful! I helped her come up with the best products to promote and how to present them for each one of the daily deals. There were also coordinating email newsletters that went out daily to remind her customers of the daily deals. This campaign consisted of a website landing page with flip calendar numbers and multiple marketing images.

Next, a 12 Days of Surprises Campaign at Paula & Chlo. This consisted of a responsive website landing page with hover boxes that were activated for each daily deal. There were also coordinating marketing emails, homepage graphics, social marketing media graphics

This 12 Days of Giving campaign was a fun one to design and code. It consisted of a responsive landing page with circle coin flip offers for each day. Each circle when hovered on revealed a new deal and link to the product or category to shop. I made a super cute and fun holiday vector background in Illustrator.

These are fantastic ideas for a 12 Days of Christmas or 12 Days of Giving campaign for an online retail shop. If you’re short on time or don’t have that many promotions to offer, you could certainly drop some days off and make it a “7 Days of Giving” or “5 Days of Deals” promotion. There’s no hard and fast rule about how many days you need to have a sale for during the holidays. But, from experience, customers expect coupons and deep discounts throughout the whole shopping season until right after the new year.

Christmas Sale Collage Graphics

Another great way to market your holiday sale prices and products to your customer is with marketing graphics. If you don’t have time for the landing page or big plan, make graphics. A grouping of products with a holiday theme placed in a newsletter or social media post will work too!

Hire Me to Make Your Next Marketing Plan

Clients can hire me to help plan your holiday or any other time of the year marketing plan. I will consult with you about your business needs, what products you’re selling, the sales you’ve previously ran, keyword research, graphic design, landing page coding and optimization, web graphics, email newsletter creation and graphics and social media graphics and post planning. Contact Me if you’d like to start your own marketing plan for promoting your discounts, sales and products!

Save

Magento Vs. BigCommerce

April 6, 2016 2 Comments

I get so many questions about which shopping cart my clients should choose. You have so many options to sell your products online. I used to recommend Prestashop to all my clients but so many of them grew out of the software and upgraded to Magento. With Prestashop, I was noticing that if there were more than 200 products, it was really hard to manage the shop. The database was too large and making the back end run super slow. The same thing was happening with a smaller amount of products with tons of product options. Those clients that were having those issues moved over to Magento. Which was always a huge production, but I was more than glad to oblige and help them. That involved setting up temporary servers, installing Magento locally, then to the new server then transferring all of their data (customers, orders, products) to the new server. And, to top it off, making a new theme for Magento.

I’ve found over the years, Magento is fantastic to work with. A developer’s dream! I was able to customize and create fantastic options for the themes, custom landing pages, custom extensions for the exact need for my clients. But, again, as time went on, my clients expenses and resources grew with Magento. Now, when I say resources, I don’t necessarily mean money. Magento is very intensive. You literally need a team to handle one shop with it. If one person is managing it and uploading products, managing orders, etc. you need at least one other person to maintain the back end of the site (that’s the role I usually end up with – not a bad role either). Some have hired me for ongoing maintenance and some haven’t. Basically, if you have Magento, you need a support package. Whether it’s from me or someone else qualified to maintain your site on a regular basis, you need a Magento support package.

And, Magento and BigCommerce are set up for optimal SEO. Google loves both carts for their great built in SEO. Many high profile brands use Magento (Rebecca Minkoff, Vizio, Alex and Ani, etc.) and BigCommerce (Bulk Apothecary, Josie Maran, Martha Stewart Cafe, etc.).

This is How You Decide What To Do

I’m going to make this SUPER easy to decide whether or not you should use Magento OR BigCommerce to run your online shop. Ask yourself these 2 questions?

How much money can I spend each year on my website to keep it up? (including website hosting, and hiring a developer to maintain my site)
How much time can I devote to maintaining my own website above and beyond uploading products and processing web orders?

If you answered “Small Budget” for #1, use BigCommerce

If you answered “Large Budget” for #1, use Magento

If you answered “No extra time for I’d be doing it in my sleep” for #2, use BigCommerce

If you answered “I have tons of free time and lots of help from my staff or team” for #2, use Magento

Just so you don’t have sticker shock with Magento, these are the things you must buy to run your site:

Dedicated server ($1200+ per year)
Domain name (s) ($15 – hundreds of dollars a year, especially if you’re a domain name junky like me and buy up every variation of your business name)
SSL Certificate ($100-$1200+ per year)
Payment processor extension ($75-$200+)
Payment processing (authorize.net, PayPal, etc.) ($25+ per month)
Extra extensions to run your site if you need special features (up to $1000+)
Web developer who can maintain your site ($500+ per month) THAT’S ME
Extra support costs for priority support from you web hosting company ($$ monthly fee)

About a BigCommerce site:

BigCommerce is self hosted, so your server, SSL, payment processing are all in one bill and a fraction of the cost of Magento ($29.95 per month to $199.95+)
You do have to pay for most good apps (monthly fees of $10-$15+) On the downside, the apps leave a lot to be desired.
Product filtering is only available on certain plans (sidebar searching and filtering by brand, prices, color, etc.)
No real blog. Yes, there’s a blog that comes with it, but it’s not a WordPress blog and it’s not customizable and it’s not that great.

In conclusion, just to make this somewhat short and sweet and easy to understand, it’s all about money. It always is. They are both fantastic carts to work with. I personally love to work with Magento because it’s so customizable and I can do whatever I want with it. BigCommerce, not so much. But, it will still do a lot for your business! I go with what is the best option for my clients. If you’re tight on budget and manpower, go with BigCommerce.

Want to see what a site on BigCommerce looks like VS Magento? Check out Paula & Chlo! We started with Prestashop, moved to Magento then to BigCommerce. BigCommerce suits their needs perfectly and there’s no sacrifice of design and functionality.

Read more “Magento Vs. BigCommerce” →

New Boutique Website for Beau & Stella

June 11, 2015 1 Comment

Marcie from Beau & Stella came to me with a shop that she had on Big Cartel. She needed a more robust platform with more control over her site. I developed a responsive theme for Magento that was lightweight and had all the features she needed.

Client: Beau & Stella

Website: www.BeauandStella.com

Platform: Magento

Desktop Version of Beau & Stella

Product Page

Website Graphics

iPhone &Mobile / iPad & Tablet Version

BEFORE

Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?

April 1, 2015 2 Comments

Starting April 21st, Google will be rolling out their next algorithm update and it’s a very important one. They will be using mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This will have a HUGE impact on search results for your website.

So, what should you do?? I’ve made quick list of how you can check if your site is mobile-friendly and what you can do about it,

Go to Google’s Guide to Mobile Friendly Sites (tons of info is on this page to get your started)

Test your website using the Mobile-Friendly Test.
In Google Webmaster Tools, get a full list of any mobile usability issues on your website with the Mobile Usability Report.

Remember the date is April 21, 2015 you need to have your site in compliance or risk losing your ranking on Google.

DIY – How to Create a New Email Account…

February 23, 2015 2 Comments

Never Fear! Now you can add email addresses to your hosting account easily!

Here’s a quick tutorial right from cPanel Documentation to add an email address to your hosting account. This will only work if you have cPanel based hosting (A2 Hosting, Host Gator, etc.)

To add a new email address, follow these steps: Read more “DIY – How to Create a New Email Account in Cpanel” →

How to Add Users to Google Webmaster Tools

February 19, 2015 Leave a Comment

You can add users to your Google Webmaster Tools account after you’ve set it up and verified it. I went over in a previous post How to Set Up a Google Webmaster Tools Account –> https://www.designeditstudio.com/how-to-set-up-google-webmaster-tools/.

How to Add a user to Google Webmaster Tools:

On the Webmaster Tools home page, click the site you want.
Click the gear icon , and then click Users & Site Owners.
Click Add a new user.
Type the email address of the user you want to add, and select the permission level you want. More information about user permissions.
Click Add.

If you’re wondering why you would add a user, this is a very important step if you have a developer or someone who is knowledgeable on how to fix the errors and read the reports in webmaster tools (like me). If you’re cool with fixing any errors in your webmaster tools account yourself. You will need to have access to be able to do 301 redirects on your site and change or modify your robots.txt file, preferably, ftp access.

Need someone to fix your errors on your website? Contact Me and I will set up a time to discuss what needs to be done on your site and help you fix it.

How to Set Up Google Webmaster Tools

February 19, 2015 Leave a Comment

Okay, so you have a new website or even an older one. Do know how Google is seeing your website? With Google Webmasters tools you can check the health of your website and keep your site from major errors with Google Search.

The most important part of having a webmaster tools account is to make sure your robots.txt file is searchable by Google and view any crawl errors and 404 errors. Those can be fixed easily by your developer who is knowledgeable in redirects and how to fix those errors in webmaster tools (like me).

How To Set Up a Google Webmaster Tools Account

Where to Sign Up for Google Webmaster Tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/. You need a Google account to do this.
After you sign in, click on add a site.
Verify that you’re the owner of the site by doing one of the following: (this step is where I have my clients send me the file to upload to their server).
1. Upload a file to your server
2. Add a meta tag to your website’s HTML
3. Add a new DNS record
4. Use your Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager account

Once you’ve done this, you can start to manage and monitor your website!