Rebranding is just one of the things I worried about for the new name change. I loved my Palm Papers branding but didn’t want to just swap in a new name and move on – I wanted it to be a little different, while still reflecting the clean style of my designs.

Enter Angi of Angelique Ink, and this logo became the bright spot during some pretty down days. I love it and every time I looked at it, I get a little more excited. She is amazingly talented and patient and worked with me down to the letter. There’s just something about calligraphy – obsessed!

I thought about spinning it into a really positive thing, and brushing over the truth, like this is what I wanted to do, but that would be hard to do if I were telling you in person. In person, I might tear up or full out cry, because this is something that I am sad about, so I think I’ll share as I might if we were talking over coffee – but you are spared the tears and tissues. Sorry to those who have not been so lucky.

In the next few weeks, I will be changing my business name.

Let me explain a bit. In January, my husband and trusty COO/CEO/doer of all the work that I ask him to do, began the process of trademarking Palm Papers. I always felt like it was something I needed to do, especially now that it’s my full time salary. We hired a lawyer and got the process started and pretty much immediately hit an extremely huge roadblock. Turns out, there already existed a trademarked business that was in legal trademark world, EXACTLY me. No huge web presence or social media presence, no way for me to have found them on my own, but trademarked in the 80s. Not only could I not trademark my name, but now I knew that this business existed that could one day discover me and send a cease and desist in 2 months? 5 years? Never? It scared me and I didn’t know what to do. After seeking advice from some generous lawyer friends, endless discussions with my husband and a tiny shred of hope that I could hold on to my business name, we decided to reach out to the business and see if we could coexist, which obviously was a failed effort, which makes sense – why was I trademarking myself to begin with… I would have said no as well. I don’t have any ill will towards them at all, just the situation that I ended up in.

I have gone through so many emotions with this news – the biggest one is sadness for the loss of my business name. The other is dread. All the work that it takes to change my name makes my head spin. But I am working on getting over it, and have had a lot of encouragement that in the end, my business name is not my business. I am my business and my designs are my business and that part is not going to change. No one cares what name I am designing under. If you’ve worked with me or follow me on instagram/twitter/facebook, I hope I never alluded to the fact I was a big business. It’s just me. Responding to emails, designing proofs, answering questions, packing up orders – all me. Working one on one with my clients is a huge part of what I sell and I know that in the end, that’s the part that matters and a business name is just a name. So, I think the only natural thing to do is to design under my own name.  In the near future, I will be changing to Lauren Chism Fine Papers. You might already notice the changes on Minted and partially on MyPublisher, but my website, email and facebook page will all be changing over the next few weeks.

I still go through the whole – ‘I wish I had never tried to trademark my business’ – or ‘I wish I had found this out when I chose Palm Papers – why didn’t I trademark it immediately’, but I don’t think there’s any way it could have happened. I named my business before I had any dream of doing it full time… spending $2k to trademark it wasn’t really possible and while it seems like it could be, ignorance is not bliss when you receive a cease-and-desist letter. This way, I have time. Time to make changes, time to figure out the details and slowly transition to the new name.

I have been in quite a rut on the blog lately due to all this and I am ready to come out of it and start sharing stuff again. I already feel like a weight has been lifted as I type this and I think sharing with people just might be the first step to putting all this behind me.  I am hopeful that it will be what is best for me somehow – even though I can’t quite see the benefit as I am working through the details and pains of making the change. Right now, it just sucks!

So there you have it. Honesty. Can someone get me a tissue?

I’ve been not-so-patiently waiting to share these birth announcements that I did for my friend Carrie and her sweet little baby boy, Parker. Even though they don’t have the choice, our husbands are buddies (thank goodness) and share a particular fishing obsession, so I thought that theme was perfect for this future fisherman.

I mixed digital and letterpress printing (by Czar Press) for the first time with these announcements and really loved how they turned out. You can see some more photos and a funny story about the one track mind of my hubby over on OSBP.

Side note: don’t you love the photo props?! They are courtesy of my husband’s tackle box – who knew they would ever be used this way!

First of the new year, is Boca!

The Boca invitation, from the Regal Collection, features simple type with a lovely soft background. Though subtle, the damask background is extremely elegant and chic. Boca was flat printed, but much like my other invitations, was designed to work with letterpress as well.

When it came to inspiration, I again found myself with endless options. Black and white is just so darn elegant and some damask patterns just never go out of style!

Row 1: Christina Szczupak via Ruffled,  Adam Nyholt, Photographer via Style Me Pretty, Leo Patrone Photography via Style Me Pretty
Row 2: Craig & Eva Sanders via Style Me Pretty, Paloma’s Nest via Martha Stewart, via Style Me Pretty, Jose Villa

There are a lot of new babies in my life (none of which are mine – you didn’t miss anything), but that means I am designing a lot of birth announcements! I was certainly in the zone, so having this challenge happening at the same time allowed me to kill two birds with one stone. Below are my submissions: Little Man, Modern Dahlia, Chic Baby, Bowtie, Bows and Arrows, and Baby Bow.

Okay, that’s a little dramatic, but I definitely want it to be perfect and so I started thinking about what I could do for my baby sister, Carley’s, save the dates… oh, like the moment they got engaged. After some pretty big (i.e. expensive to mail) ideas, I came up with an idea that everyone loved… and was completely reasonable to mail to 150+ guests.

The timing of her engagement photos finishing up and finalizing the design coincided with sending holiday cards, so I thought, why not do them both in one? I designed a holiday card and a separate save the date and we tied them together with twine and a tag. It’s like a little present in the mail.

Having had a big year, they sent a little update to family and friends on the back of their holiday card which I liked. Great for friends and family of each to learn more about the other and their life together.

And then of course, the most important piece… the save the date card!

Carley’s photographer, Arielle Doneson Photography, took some amazing photos of Carley and John and we had trouble picking because there were so many gorgeous images. In the end, I think we chose perfectly. I love this one!

On the back, we included their website and some beautiful black and white images.
In the end, I loved everything and most importantly, so did the bride and groom.

And now…. I am in the process of trying to design ‘the best wedding invitations I have ever done’. I know I know, I have a problem!

This year, I planned ahead and had ordered my business holiday cards by Thanksgiving. But my personal holiday cards where another story. I always find it hard to design for myself, but without any professional or particularly amazing photos of my husband and I (turns out we wear sunglasses in pretty much all of our vacation photos), I tried not to stress and just decided to go with something pretty clean with a really bright, eye catching backer.

This is just an instagram photo that someone took for us on or trip to San Francisco, but it’s a favorite.

I thought the best way to start the new year is to show you my business holiday cards. I sent them to clients, designers, vendors and friends and I love love love them! Palm Papers is offering gold foil wedding invitations this year and this is my first foil stamped design. I know this certainly won’t be my last, because it is BE-U-TI-FUL! I printed them on Arturo Stone Grey card stock in a nice small size. I really loved the unique combo of the gold and grey.

I have plenty left over, so if you want to receive one, shoot me an email at lauren@palmpapers.com.
Cheers!