It’s time to clear out some room in the store at CUDigitals for new items so there is a huge retirement sale going on through July 24. There are over 800 commercial use digital scrapbooking tools and resources on clearance for a whopping 70% off. Obviously prices this low can’t stay around forever so make sure you jump in and grab the goods before they are are removed from our product catalog forever. There are tons of excellent things from which to choose as you build your design stash and plan for future projects. Click the ad below to go directly to the retiring items category.
Looking for your favorite designer’s items in the sale? There’s a drop down at the top of the category to sort by designer!
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This is the second week of our designer feature with eqrAveziur. Be sure to look at last week’s post to learn more about Eva and see her great free CU download that is available in the store (through July 3 only)
And don’t miss out on this great sale!
Here are some more product picks from Eva’s line -
And these are new in the store this week -
Next, you can enter this Rafflecopter drawing for a chance to win a $10 coupon code for anything in Eva’s store at CUDigitals. It’s super easy – and you can get multiple entries too!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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We are pleased to announce that it’s time for another featured designer series where you can learn more about one of the fabulous CUDigitals designers, get some fantastic deals, and grab a free CU/Commercial Use free download. Next week, there will be a chance to win your choice of $10 in free product from this special design too!
Let’s meet eqrAveziur!
1. What is your real name if different than your design name?
My Real name is Eva Quevedo Ruiz and known as Aveziur.
2. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family.
I'm from Spain. A Spanish "rare" since I'm petite and blonde :) I love the sun, the sea and the mountains and I have the good fortune to live near the capital, with all its benefits without its problems. Torrejón de Ardoz is a small town, but with all needs met, and all by hand. You do not need a car to live, there is very good public transport (train, metro buses...) and very fast. I live with my husband Juanjo (gunner of the Spanish Army) during the last 15 years and our son Carlos, an intelligent and hyperactive boy of 11 years, the focus of my love, concerns and work. Also with Goldby, a small dwarf Griffon, which looks like a circus dog.
3. How long have you been designing CU products and how did you get started?
I've been working in a multinational company, and during the summer of 2006, without much work, I decided it was a good time to learn Photoshop, and looking for tutorials I was confronted with digital scrapbooking, and since then I have not stopped. At first I had problems because my English skills, but through the years, this work has also helped me to learn English without big problems. I started my first designs in 2007 and at the end of the year, I had my first sales. HERE ARE SOME OF EVA’S BEST-SELLING PRODUCTS
4. Do you design PU products as well?
Yes, I do. But CU products take me the most of the time. Most of my products are extractions of my photos. I must confess I'm not a very good photographer, so in most cases I have to work a bit more than necessary to make the perfect products.
5. What programs do you use to design your products?
Photoshop and Illustrator CS6. Sometimes Perfect Effects 8 and Repper Pro.
6. What is your favorite time of the day to design?
Early in the morning. If I start early, I work spreads far and confuses me less. Although as a night person, not always manage to get up early.
7. Can you give us a great tip for using one of your products to create digital scrapbooking kits?
Most of my products don't have a defined style, so they are very easy to use as ornaments. A tip that I use in my PU kits, is to choose one of these real elements and use it like a brush, changing the color and blending mode.
8. What are a few of your favorite products that you’ve made?
Definitely my favorite product is my Ornamental Pumpkins. I planted them, watered them, I saw how they grew, plucked from the bush and shoot them incredibly well.
10. Do you have plans for your next set of CU products?
I have a lot of material to extract, but extracting is so boring lol
11. What do you love to do when you are not working?
I'm a computer addict, so checking other pages as Pinteres, Facebook, watching videos of dancing, or sometimes learning English as well. I have to tell you that my mobility is not very good, so I had to leave my travels and my trips to the mountains.
12. What is your favorite beverage?
"Tinto de Verano", red wine (mine is without alcohol) with sweet soda and a lot of ice blocks. Typically Spanish beverage!
13. If you could learn anything what would it be?
I have left many things without tapping on the list of my life: dancing, skating, painting, growing 10 centimeters more lol, but now I'm learning manual scrapbooking. And even if you will not believe, I find it easier.
Eva is having a big sale in her store for the next two weeks. Now is the time to grab some of her carefully constructed designs for your next project. Here are a few owner picks:
Along with this sale, you can also get this wonderful free digital scrapbooking download in the store – Commercial Use OK!!
Be sure to stop back next week to enter for a chance to win a $10 shopping spree in Eva’s store.
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The store at CUDigitals is your place for a very large selection of high-quality CU / Commercial Use digital scrapbooking supplies. CLICK HERE to find something fabulous to jumpstart your next design project
Every Wednesday on this blog, you can get a list of useful articles to help you increase your skills and knowledge in important and interesting areas of your online business. Our store offers useful designer tools and high quality CU / Commercial Use Digital Scrapbooking supplies every day plus weekly articles and resources so you can always depend on us the things you need to bring your designing to the next level.
Here are this week’s hand-picked links. I scour the internet for the good stuff so you don’t have to! PHOTOSHOP 10 Quick & Easy Photoshop Tutorials (good stuff for YOU and to share with your readers, too!) d! Konstruct- I know a shortcut! Photoshop Crop Tool - Its Not Just For Cropping
Over the past three years of owning CUDigitals, I have heard some pretty sad and dramatic stories about catastrophic data loss. The usual scenario is this: the customer had only ONE copy of their entire digi stash (personal use and commercial use) and the hard drive failed - on their computer or on an external hard drive.
Can you imagine the hassle of going back through all your PayPal receipts and contacting store owners to ask for download resets on everything you've purchased? In some cases, this involves the unpleasant realization that some of the ordered items are discontinued or the store is gone ... and so is your chance to download again.
I have been in this situation myself and the horrible feeling in my stomach last for several days. I SHOULD have had a backup copy on my External Hard Drive when my computer hard drive failed but I discovered too late that I had neglected to change the sync password for the EHD when I changed my login password for my computer so it had not been doing its nightly backup as I had thought. My collateral damage was three months of photographs including three of our daughter's birthdays and some other events. I was able to recover some of my downloads from stores but not all.
After that painful lesson, I set up automatic online backup in addition to reconfiguring my external hard drive backup software. The price of annual online backup is quite minimal and I believe it is 100% worth it for peace of mind and reduction of hassles later when your computer fails. I don't even say IF your computer fails anymore. That big data loss I experienced involved a new laptop - not even 4 months old. The drive just FAILED. Data recovery from a failed HD starts in the $200-300 range just to diagnose whether anything can be salvaged and goes up from there to get anything off the drive! Online backup is just good insurance!
I have been using BackBlaze for several years now. I chose it because it will backup attached external drives. For me, that means I can backup my entire 1TB laptop drive AND an additional 1TB and 500gB drive that I have attached to it. I regularly purge my files of duplicates and old stuff that I now longer need so I have less data than a lot of people but I still have room for 2 copies of something and sometimes three if the files are really important.
I know there are other backup services out there but I recommend BackBlaze because I have experience with it. In addition to backing up external drives, they also give you options for recovery such as having everything delivered to you on an external drive or flash drive. I have needed to recover smaller batches of files a few times and the process was extremely simple. They also have a pretty cool feature to help you locate your computer if it were to be stolen!
You can get a month of backup free and you can also earn extra months of service by telling your friends about it. Check it all out HERE.
Disclosure: I receive an additional month of free backup service when people who visit the link above sign up. I was not paid for this post in any other way and I have an active, paid BackBlaze account. Opinions in this post are my own.)
top image credit: freedigitalphotos.net
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Have you shied away from offering a newsletter to your customers? There are a lot of compelling reasons for digital scrapbook designers to maintain a customer list. Here are my top five.
1. Stores close. I saw the announcement of 3 stores closing in May. Maintaining your own customer list separately from the stores in which you sell allows you to take your customers with you when you move.
2. Ability to create subscriber-only special offers. Reward your fans with coupons and offers that are not available anywhere else. This not only increases loyalty but can also increase your sales.
3. Data loss/store crash. In the case of a site going down and losing large amounts of data, having a separate list of your customers and fans is a great safeguard. This applies to whether you own your own store or not.
4. Promote your products on your own timetable. With your own mailings, you can decide which products you are featuring and lessen the likelihood that your ads and new release announcements are getting pushed off the "front page" by a large rush of other new things from other designers in the stores where you sell.
5. Better exposure and open rate than social media. Facebook deliverability and engagement rate is at an all-time low as the site moves to a bigger push to sell ad space. You get much better results (opens and click throughs) with a good email targeted to your customers.
Getting started is very easy and there are some wonderful email providers who deliver for free. CUDigitals has been using Mailchimp since 2011. I have used this mail service for other businesses, too. You can send to up to 2500 subscribers once a week for free with responsive templates that can be customized. You can spend a lot of time of the design or simply make an announcement that you have a new blog post if you want. It's up to you!
Do you have a designer newsletter? What are your additional reasons for maintaining it? Share in the comments below - we love to hear from you.
