August 2010 Newsletter
Another crazy jam packed month has slipped by… I’ve completed two new design collections, finished unit 6, and totally rebuilt my shopping cart system! Do I sleep? Well, sort of…
New Shopping Cart System!
The new shopping cart system lays the ground work for being able to offer individual designs and makes it easier to access free designs. The old cart did not allow free products nor could I have multiple downloads per product making it easier to download just the formats you want. If you had trouble downloading the free designs in the past, now’s the time to get the ones you missed because the monthly designs will soon be posted for one month only.
The new shopping cart will also let me expand into affiliate programs. What’s that? It means you can link to my products from your website and get a commission on every item sold from that link! In other words, you can support your habit and mine at the same time! If you are a dealer, this is great news because you don’t have to stock anything, just create a web page promo and add a link. Most of the products are downloadable so there is nothing for you to do except generate interest and collect checks. What could be easier?
The one downside of the new shopping cart is that if you have ordered from the old cart, the new cart does not have your information in it and you’ll need to create a new account. Even if I transferred your information, I don’t have access to your password.
The old cart is still available until 9/30/2010 so if you need to redownload anything, just link from your invoice. If you have a problem after that time, just let me know and we’ll get you fixed up. The new cart also features unlimited download time. So as long as you maintain your account, you can have access to your products.
This cart is also prettier and programmable (old one was not) and over time, I will be changing the look of the website to match this cart. And, hey, I didn’t even pull too much hair out during the rewrite. (Too bad it’s not easy to just pull out just the gray ones!)
New Design Collections!
I mentioned 2 new collections. One is Bluework Winter Teddies, a collection of 10 bear designs for 100×100 mm hoops. This passed the “Mom test” (my mother liked them…) and I hope you will too. Save $10 through the end of the month!
The second is another addition to the Building Blocks group and is a collection of 20 monogram frames and borders. Monograms are hot these days and there are plenty of embroidery programs that will turn TrueType letters into monograms. Do a little reshaping or enveloping and Voila! a monogram. These frames are designed to coordinate. Some are traditional and some more fancy. Some are also set up as appliques to make it easy to add a fancy font to a plush towel. Of course, you can always skip the applique step and use as a regular embroidery design. These also make great frames for embroidered scrap booking. Exchange your applique fabric for fabric printed photo or message. These, too, are $10 off through the end of the month.
Both collections are instant;y downloadable and available in multi-formats and Generations—MNG for the Frames and GEN for the bears. If you have Generations Plus, drop the frames folder into your Super Tech\Generations\Backgrounds folder and you’ll be able to access them via Insert Monogram.
Bluework Winter Teddies – save 25% now only 29.95
Monogram Frames and Borders – save 25% now only 29.95
The monogram sample shown here is a combination of one design duplicated and mirrored. Letters are not included and were added in software.
Unit 6: Creating with Manual Punch Tools
Unit 6 in the 8 unit Learn to Digitize training series is now shipping and you can save $10 by ordering it before the end of the month. After completing this unit, you will have covered just about everything there is in Generations and will be 3/4 of the way through this college level class learning both Generations while applying professional digitizing theory. Units 7 and 8 will then apply those skills by covering fur, feathers, & foliage; manually digitized letters; working from photographs; and specialty techniques. Unit 6 is 160 pages of jam-packed content and 2.5 hours of video. As with the last unit, I point out little “gotchas” in the program you need to be aware of and how to work around them.
Unit 6: Creating with Manual Punch Tools – $10 off & free shipping
More About the Course
Because Generations is the #1 selling digitizing program in Australia, and there was a previous course for it, I get a lot of questions from down under on how Learn to Digitize compares to Digitise Wise. The main differences are:
- Learn to Digitize was written by a professional digiizer with over 15 years of industry experience running a production digitizing company (Cactus Punch) and training both in-house digitizers and other embroiderers and digitizers.
- Learn to Digitize course units are longer, more thorough, better organized, and not only teach Generations, they incorporate professional theory. In other words, the “whys.” You want to learn more than which sequence of buttons to push to create, say, a rainbow or a flower in a pot.
- Learn to Digitize course units include videos. You can watch me demonstrate in Generations what is covered in the unit and then read about. It’s as close as you can come to a private lesson with me.
- Free, live webinars are hosted regularly at embroidery.com to boost your Generations skills.
If you want more specific details, I’ve added free sample downloads of the tables of contents for each completed unit in Education > Samples in the shopping cart. Oh, yeah, and that’s another difference. Each unit comes with a hot-linked table of contents to make it easy to find things in each unit.
Are You Interested in Digitizing? Trial Program Soon!
In conjunction with my good friends over at embroidery.com, we’ll be putting together a digitizing trial. I don’t have all the details yet, but you’ll have access to a fully functional version of Generations for a timed period for a ridiculously small amount of money—less than what you’d pay for the training we are including. James Lyman and I will be providing exclusive webinar based training for participants to get you up and running and creating your own designs right away. You’ll have some incredible bonuses from James and I as well and the opportunity to get a great deal on a fantastic bundle if you so choose. We’ll definitely have details for EC Treat attendees.
Embroidery Extravaganza in Columbia, SC Sept 9-11
Time is running out to sign up for the 3-day Embroidery Extravaganze sponsored by Creative Sewing Machine Center in Columbia, SC. Peggy has an incredible line-up of sewing celebrities and teachers for both hands on and lecture/demo style classes. For more details, visit her website or view the PDF flyer. I will be speaking on Saturday morning and will be there for the entire event (and hope to be able to sneak into some of the other classes). I will also have samples and product there that you can check out. Things always look better in real life than on the web!
Embroidery Central Retreat in Salt Lake City, UT 9/17 & 9/18
Pick one of these dates to join James Lyman and I along with the team from embroidery.com for this day long embroidery focused retreat (EC Treat). We’ll continue into the evening with a bonus hands-on digitizing class for those who are interested. The focus during the day is embroidery—hooping, stabilizers, thread, tensions, and anatomy of a design. Between the two of us, James and I have over30 years in the embroidery industry and we plan to share our best tips with you.
More information and registration sign-up.
Digitizing Retreats in Australia in November with Echidna & Leanne Church
The ball is rolling for three 3-day hands on digitizing retreats to be held in Melbourne (11/15-17), Sydney (11/19-20), and Brisbane (11/23-25). My next task after this newsletter is to work up the class outline. At this point, I can tell you we will be working in Generations and if you don’t have the program, you can get a trial that you’ll have access to for 30 days before the course. This class is designed to teach you manual skills while leveraging the built in tools in Generations. Since digitizing involves sewing, we will have machines available to test and analyze your designs as well. This course is designed for someone who has completed Unit 1 and has a basic familiarity with the program and can autodigitize a design. For more information, contact Leanne Church, who will be assisting me at generations@echidnaclub.com.au or contact Echidna on 1800 000 360.
Share This Newsletter!
Please don’t share the free designs but you can share the links and this newsletter.
Until next time – happy embroidering and may the stitch be with you!
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