Regardless of what role COVID-19 plays in your life this Fall, there are still so many reason to celebrate; Halloween, Thanksgiving, maybe a baby shower or two, retirements, weddings, birthdays I’m sure. In whatever capacity that it is safe to gather and celebrate this Fall, create a keepsake while you’re there. It’s definitely going to be a memorable Fall season 😉
Pumpkins
Are you welcoming a little pumpkin to the family this Fall? Or do you have small Fall wedding planned? There’s a variety of pumpkin-themed designs waiting for you. Have guests add a fingerprint and sign their name as leaves on these trees or pumpkin vine. Then frame it for a keepsake!
Gender Reveal
Pumpkin Patch
Fall Wedding
Baby Shower or Birthday
Turkeys
Commemorate everyone at your Thanksgiving gathering, or celebrate your “little turkey” joining the family this Fall! Turkey-themed designs are available now!
Gobble, Gobble
Thanksgiving Baby Shower
Give Thanks
Welcome Your Little Turkey
Sunflowers
Arguably and all season flower, sunflowers around town are definitely at their peak during the Fall! These Sunflowers Designs can be used to celebrate a birthday, baby shower, or retirement. Add fingerprints in any color to make it your own!
Folks, this is the last weekly edition of Freebie Friday! Do you know what that means? Yes, business is starting to pick up at MeganHStudio! Why not end it on a fun note…
¿Como te llamas?
Get it? …llamas? ¿Como te LLAMAS? I know, it’s great! And it’s ready for you to download and print now!
Fun Facts About Llamas:
They are related to camels
They are social animals
They DO spit!
When used as pack animals, they can carry up to one third of their body weight!
They don’t like to wear orange sunglasses. Actually, who knows, they might…
Go get yours! And thanks for tagging along with me on this Freebie Friday ride as we all wait and watch for the pandemic to dissipate–it has been fun!
In March of 2020 things changed for a lot of people. For MeganHStudio, things came to a grinding halt *queue screeching brakes* as restrictions on gatherings and celebrations became part of daily life.
My stats fell off a cliff: A Visual:
Most of my art work is used to celebrate special life events: baby showers, birthdays, retirement parties, etc. And now that a lot of those celebrations aren’t happening in the same way, I find myself with a bit of extra time on my hands.
Up until now, I’ve used my website as a resource for people looking for party ideas and to ensure customers have another way to contact and connect with me. Well, it’s time to pivot now that I’m trying to figure out a way to retro-fit my printer in a parachute so that I don’t crash land.
I’m an artist selling my work on Etsy and Amazon Handmade. I specialize in fingerprint trees and guestbook alternatives for people to use at their special events. Guests add their fingerprint and sign their name as leaves on a tree, balloons on a string, or petals on a flower. Then the picture can be framed as a keepsake. I have art prints and invitations too, of course.
These last few weeks, I find myself with some time on my hands as my orders have flatlined. It’s not all bad. Like many of you, a lot of my time is filled with attempting to home school a kindergartener and a second grader, while also entertaining a one-year-old. But I’m spending my remaining free time working on new things; checking a few things off the to-do list that has done nothing but grow the last few years.
It’s Officially Freebie Friday!
While we work on ending this pandemic, my website will include free downloads for you for a limited time! While things are slow, every Friday you can come here to see a free download–maybe an art print, a fingerprint tree, or maybe even a coloring page or two! We’ll see where this adventure takes us! You can start here with the first Freebie Friday.
[NOTE: As business has started to pick up, Freebie Friday has been discontinued for the time being!]
I’ll Be Here
And when you’re ready to celebrate all those things that so deserve to be celebrated—the new babies, the birthdays, the weddings and anniversaries, the teachers and coaches—I’ll be here. And I’ll have a bunch of new stuff ready for you to choose from, too 🙂 Shop Now
It happens, right? Your sister decided it’d be cute to let your 2-year-old niece attempt to sign her own name on the fingerprint tree that will be hanging in your home forever. Or Uncle Frank didn’t quite get the whole fingerprint tree thing and decided to put a giant thumbprint off to the side somewhere. Or Sally smudged her fingerprint by accident. Or somebody spilled wine everywhere. If you have a sense of humor, it gets framed and hangs on the wall anyway.
Now, understand that it’s unreasonable to expect that your fingerprint guestbook will turn out absolutely perfect–that’s part of their charm! Having all the different size fingerprints, different hand writing, and a bit of imperfection is exactly what makes them so worthy of displaying and treasuring!
Still, it can be maddening if things go beyond imperfect and are just plain disastrous. But I have a solution! Not after all the messed up stuff happens to your poor fingerprint tree…sorry about that…BUT I have what you need to prepare for the next event you host with a fingerprint guestbook alternative!
Tips for a Great Fingerprint Guestbook
Help Guide Your Guests
Assign someone to help guests “sign-in” with the fingerprint guestbook. This is especially important for kids, or guests who are…let’s just say… “artistically challenged.”
Your helper can also sign names for kids or suggest a good spot for each guest to add their fingerprints.
Got empty spots? Add extra fingerprints afterwards!
Display and Set Up
At the event, display your fingerprint guestbook in a frame with the glass removed and lay it flat on a table. This will keep it sturdy and also ensure guests don’t fingerprint outside the frameable area. Ikea is my favorite place for frames, but lots of local craft and home stores usually have a good selection!
Have a simple instruction card, pens, and wet wipes handy for guests to use.
Provide guests with a test sheet so they can try out different colors before they commit. This will also allow them to experiment with how much ink they need for a good fingerprint.
Print up a quick sample of a completed fingerprint guestbook that is similar to the style or colors you’re using. Or (better yet!), send everyone a text with a picture of a completed fingerprint tree and threaten them with life and limb if they screw up your treasured keepsake.
All of our kids have fingerprint guestbooks in their rooms from their last few birthdays. My youngest daughter is the only one who had one at her baby shower. It’s hanging in the nursery above her changing table. I don’t have a way to accurately describe the way it makes me feel every time I look at it — and I change A LOT of diapers, so I look at it A LOT. When I do, I think about how much fun the baby shower was. I remember how special it was to be pregnant with her while I drew that tree. I think about how lucky I am to have family and friends who loved her and celebrated her even before she was born. I remember when we decided on her name. I remember how excited her big brother and sister were to bring her into this family. It just makes me smile–and not because the koala bears are so cute–it encapsulates a momentous time in all of our lives. This all goes through my head while I try to pin down a squirmy baby and keep my fingers crossed that I don’t get baby poop on the wall.
But seriously–I hear similar things from customers all the time. Some people cry when they see their fingerprint tree the first time (ok, the pregnancy hormones may actually be to blame for that…). I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’m so glad I get to be a part of it.
My name is Megan. I’m a wife and a mother of 3 kids. I’m here to share a little bit about what happens in this life and behind the scenes of my business, MeganHStudio.
A little about the business
MeganHStudio was born out of a love for my kids and a passion for creativity. It’s been an interesting journey from where it all started (officially) in 2014, although the seed had been planted long before!
Today, when people ask me what I do for work, I usually start out by asking “Do you know what a fingerprint tree is?” and then wait for a confused look.
Fingerprint Tree 101:
That’s actually most of what I sell! They make great keepsakes for baby showers, weddings, birthdays, holidays, retirement parties…just about any event where there are guests to commemorate. And it’s not just trees. There are sunflowers, pumpkin patches, reindeer, hot air balloons, wreaths, and on and on. Basically, you come up with a theme, and I bet I can come up with a fingerprint “tree” to go along with it!
With my own two hands
No matter what it is, you can bet that it was originally hand drawn by me–that’s how I roll.
Of course, I do some digital editing to add text, change colors, and re-arrange things, but at it’s core, my art work comes from my heart and my own two hands (and a billion different colors of Prismacolor colored pencils…you should see my pencil collection!). It’s not because I have anything against digital illustration and drawing–I’m just terrible at it! So I stick with what I do best and go from there…
Plenty more to come about my best shot at being a good mom, wife and business owner!
