Join our Mailing List and Win $300

From now through January 31st we are running our "Subscribe-A-Thon" where we are inviting new friends to sign up for our e-mail blast subscription service. It's easy to join, just go to http://www.ranchhousedesigns.com/ and then at the very bottom of the page, enter your email address in the "Join Our Mailing List" box. You can also sign up on our facebook page by clicking on the "Join My List" tab at the top of our page.

On February 1st, we will take all of the people who have subscribed in January 2011 and randomly draw one name out of the hat for a $300 gift certificate with RHD! And since our pricing is so affordable....that $300 can go a LONG way! That can get you any combination of services like 2 free print ads, a free print ad and a set of business cards, a 1 page web site design, a 4x8 banner, or lots more!

So sign up today! Watch for our winner to be announced Feb 1st.

Baby Shower Invitations

Looking at these really gets me in the mood for having a baby shower!!! Or, that I lived a double life as an event planner and got to pick out cute invitations for all kinds of parties as my day job. Since me and Brandon's baby shower is coming up later in the spring, I have been stalking our Tiny Prints catalog for Unique Baby Shower Invitations and I'll admit you can spend hours on there!

Here are a few of my favorites....

Vintage Woodcut

Dark Gray Baby Girl

And, I can't help but saying this. I'm pregnant now, and I certainly don't look like the lady on this card. How does she keep her legs so skinny!!! And really, who has a name like Charlotte Buckingham.

"Fashion Forward"

Horsley Brothers

In our continuing efforts to give back to an industry and community that has been so supportive of Ranch House Designs, we recently donated a web site to Black Hawk College for a fund raising endeavor.


Horsley Brothers purchased the donated web site and we are excited to share this new site.

A family run operation located in northwest Illinois, Bob and Jim Horsley started showing, breeding and selling cattle in the late 1970’s.

Today Horsley Brothers consist of 180 Angus and Chiangus cows. For the past 40 years they have bred cattle to be the “cowman’s kind“ - sound functional cattle that have power, body and a superior look. There have been changes over the years and Horsley Brothers focuses on what the customer wants and needs. Their efforts offer proven results with continual success at the local, state and national show levels. Horsley Brothers has built a solid foundation in their herd and are confident in the quality of cattle they offer for sale.

Join them for their annual Eastern Exposure sale Saturday, February 5, in Ohio. Included in the sale will be bulls, bred heifers, and cows. They also sell heifer calves private treaty off the farm.

Visit their web site today or give them a call to learn more about their operation.

Heritage Equipment

With spring just around the corner (at least we hope it is!), now is a good time to inventory your farm and agriculture equipment. Our latest ag equipment site, Heritage Equipment, can help you get your planting equipment ready for a busy and productive season. Or if you’re looking to upgrade to a new tractor, tiller or other piece of machinery, give them a call.

Heritage Equipment is an authorized Case IH and Case Construction dealer located in north Texas with convenient locations in Amarillo, Lubbock and Plainview.

Family owned and operated by Dave and Sue Braune, Heritage Equipment has been serving north and west Texans with quality equipment, parts and service for over 20 years.

Their mission is to provide their customers with quality equipment and efficient product support before and after the sale.

Whether you are looking for construction or agriculture equipment, Heritage Equipment wants to help with your equipment needs.

Shower and Party Invitations

Lately at the RHD office we've been in the real party mood. Wait, I wouldn't say that is "lately", I'd say it's been since we got our new office. We're always looking for a reason to have a party. Last month we had an office baby shower for Carole.  In January, we're all looking forward to Kinleigh's 1st birthday party, and later in the spring a baby shower for me (Rachel).

Okay so if you're into parties, stuff like this can get you pretty wrapped up in creating a fun invitation. It seems like the possibilities for these invitations are endless. For Kinleigh's party, we created a custom birthday card invitation. But, here are a few 1st birthday party invitations from our catalog of Tiny Prints, and I couldn't help but post some favorites.

"The Big ONE"

Photo Year: Begonia

And this one is a little more spendy but just the cutest thing ever......

"Exciting Times"

OH, and there are lots of cute designs for boys too, we just happen to be in a girly mood :)

Employee of the Year Update

Yes, it is official, Jessica Amber Hobbs was voted by you, our fans, as RHD's Employee of the Year for 2010. Problem is, we've been so busy we haven't had an exact opportunity to reward her. :) But, in case you were wondering, yes, Jessica is our winner, and stay tuned for the prize!

Just noticed some new Facebook security settings

A few nights ago I noticed a few security options on Facebook that I didn't know existed until just recently. Not sure if these are new or not, but regardless, I liked them and found them extremely positive security steps for Facebook to take.

If you go under your "Account" tab (upper right hand corner), choose "Account Settings".
Almost to the bottom, there is a setting that is called "Account Security", click on the link that says "Change"

Under this setting, there are several added measures of security protection that Facebook has added.


First, you can get notified by text or email if a new computer or mobile device logs into your account. Mine was set automatically to "off" but you can change it to "on" and then anytime a new computer logs into your facebook account you will get a notification either by text, email, or both.

Below that, you can see your "Account Activity" and it shows the most recent account activity on your account. This is awesome! I could look at the activity, and though it doesn't say a specific name of who accessed my account, it does show the date, time, and location of who accessed my account (including city and state). I wish it said the name of the hacker, but having the city and state is can give you pretty good insight on who might be accessing your account. It also tells what type of device accessed your account, i.e. a cell phone, a computer, etc as well a the user's operating system, i.e. Vista, Blackberry, etc.

So, if you want this added security and peace of mind, go to your facebook account and make a few easy changes, then you can rest easily knowing that you'll get a text & email anytime someone logs into your account, instantly letting you know if you're getting hacked.

Ready to Go, One of a Kind Designs

We are launching a new service line for our web division in 2011: "Ready to Go, One of a Kind Designs" which includes a wide variety of web sites designs that are already designed and ready to be purchased. As with all of our designs, these are totally 100% customized designs, made from scratch by us. The only difference is that these are ready to go right away, instead of having to be placed on our design waiting list.

Here's how the Ready to Go One of a Kind Designs work. We will periodicialy post new designs. If you see one you like, you pick that design and you purchase the exclusive rights to use it. The design will not be available to anyone else.

By choosing one of these ready to go designs, you get a few benefits:

-$100 discount on your design fee
-Bypass the design waiting list, and your site immediately goes into content development

We will make notes on each of the designs about any changes that may be made. For example, if the design features red colors, but you want to change the red to blue, we'll make a note if that is possible.

So, browse around. We'll continually post new designs on our web site and on our Facebook page. To get one of these designs, just e-mail tricia@ranchhousedesigns.com. Let her know what design you want, and we'll send you the service agreement. You tell us what pages you want, and we'll go from there!

Here are a few of the choices we have available so far:

"Black and White Forrest"

This would be a nice site for a farm or ranch. Can be customized to fit any # of pages. Red and black color scheme may be modified to fit the 2 colors of clients choice.

  

"Urban Skyline"

A site that would be good for a client wanting 3 pages with a modern look, perfect for a business in a city or one that caters to an urban clientele. Red color may be changed to any color of the clients choice.
 

"Vintage Western"Designed for a 3 page site, this would be a good design for a steakhouse, western store, or business that caters to the western clientele. Logo at the top (wooden background with stars) may also be purchased for an additional $100.

To see the complete list of currently available 'Ready to Go, One of a Kind" designs, please visit http://ranchhousedesigns.com/readytogooneofakinddesigns.html

Did you get engaged over the holidays?

It's not a suprise that lots of engagements occur over Christmas and New Years! If you're one of the lucky couples who recently got engaged, it's time to start thinking about sending your Save the Dates! January and February are the two biggest months for ordering and mailing Save the Dates.

Through Ranch House Invitations we offer two types of Save the Dates...custom and catalog creations. With our custom creations, we make something especially unique for you. No one else will have anything like it!

If you prefer to handle things yourself, take a look at our catalog of a great selection of save the dates. Magnets and postcards are really popular. We prefer to use either Wedding Paper Divas/Tiny Prints or eInvite.com for save the dates. Here are two links to help you get started in your search:

Wedding Paper Divas:  Be sure to enter the discount code to get free shipping!

Click here to browse the Tiny Prints Save the Dates

There are also lots of great choices on eInvite. Their magnets start at $0.72 each and save the dates start at As low as $1.08 each.

Of course with both of these two catalogs, you can upload your own pictures, customize your text, etc etc. Or, if you let us design the Save the Dates for you, we can do all kinds of cool stuff like shimmery finishes, cool card shapes, and more.
If you'd like more information on our custom designs, call 979-532-9141 or e-mail staceyf@ranchhousedesigns.com for a quote. Check out http://www.ranchhouseinvitations.com/ for more!

Sorry we've been MIA

You know, it seems like we do real good about blogging a lot, then we hit a dry spell and go for like a month with nothing. It's been one of those months. For those of you who keep emailing me to remind me to put up a new blog....sorry!!

So here's a recap of what's been going on for the past month.

1. Things are a madhouse at work. Which we love, we appreciate, and are so thankful for. We've been busy working on jillions of different things. Right now we have over 100 projects in the works, and we can't say enough how thankful we are for having the work to do!

2. Employee of the Year: Jessica Hobbs officially won the RHD Employee of the Year online contest, thanks to the help of lots of her friends and campaigning. No, she still hasn't gotten her award yet. We don't know what it is going to be. Hmm, that just gave me an idea for a facebook post.

3. Best of the Barns - We randomly came up with this idea at the end of November and had it created, progrmamed and launched for December 1. We thought it would be cool but had no idea it would be so popular. We had over 3,000 votes cast. Watch for the winners to be announced this week. We also got tons of great comments and feedback and I already wish it was NEXT December so we could put up the next "Best of the Barns"

4. The RHD Christmas Party - Woo hoo! As if we are looking for any other reason to have yet another office party, we had our 1st Annual RHD Christmas Party at Stacey Forgason's house including a gift exchange. The first company-wide memo said that the gift exchance was a "MINIMUM" of $25. Minimum...not maximum. Because that's how we roll. Just kidding, after that minor correction we clarified that the price limit was $25 MAX and that led to all kinds of fun gifts....including a couple wrapped in Victorias Secret gift bags. It was a girls only party, which turned out to be a pretty good thing. Topics ranged from pregnancy to boob jobs to just about anything you can imagine.

5. Offering 2 new service: Mobile web sites and livestock pedigree signs.....So far in the past month we've got about 100 different orders for pedigree signs. Who knew there was such a demand for this. This has led to Jessica (employee of the year) picking up a new skill of designing pedigree signs too. The signs are priced from $20 to $30 depending on how many you need. Visit http://www.stockshowsigns.com/ for more.

6. Big expansion of our invitations services. We've been doing invitations for I think 3 years now, but this year we really stepped it up and have been designing anywhere from 3-5 new invitations a week. http://www.ranchhouseinvitations.com/ is our new site dedicated to the invitation services.

What else? Here are just a few highlights of the month.....

• The near death of Liz's computer, our oldest one at the office, purchased in 2003. We're finally replacing it.
• Next computer ready to go..."Bertha" - operated by Stacey Shanks. We're going to give Liz's new one a test run and if everything goes smooth, Stacey's getting a new one too.
• Almost at 2500 fans on our facebook page
• Our fridge is stocked solid with holiday candy, which is a big factor in helping us keep up our momentum during this busy time of year....
• Specifically, our 3:00 p.m. refridgerator raids of the holiday candy are awesome.
• Found out our new landscaping sprinkler system is broken, which we found out thanks to our $200 water bill in one month.
• Getting out our 4th Brahman Review magazine, and busy planning for our upcoming Houston issue which we are equating to the club calf business's state fair issue.

So, that's a recap. I know everyone else is just as busy it seems like during this time of year. I heard a quote the other day which was something along the lines of "if you want something done right and done on time, ask a busy person to do it" --- very fitting for us these days it seems.