Hi everybody, it’s Cass here!
It’s been a busy few months here at the studio and I wanted to write a post to let you all know what’s going on behind the scenes at The Hello Bureau. As some of you may or may not know, like many creative small businesses, I run this whole ship solo. My goal is to make studio-designed stationery accessible to everyone, but time and energy are usually my biggest obstacles. That said, I’ve actually managed to cross a few big to-do items off my list lately, so I wanted to share some updates with you.
Shop Expansion: US and Canada
When I first converted my shop from physical to digital items in May last year, my focus was on getting my designs recreated into templates. Each template is manually created by me and is honestly quite tedious considering every page size needs its own individual template. After creating roughly 1,500 templates in metric sizes, I held off on creating templates for US sizes because I just didn’t have the capacity to build my shop and create another 1,500 templates.
Fast forward to April this year and with my online shop finally built and looking the way I want it to, I was able to create the US-sized templates (lots of late nights fuelled by caffeine). The North America region was officially launched mid-June, so all my lovely customers in the US and Canada now have a place to go and find templates in standard US paper sizes.
Templates Pivoting to Canva
Following on from my first update, the second one is that I will be pivoting my templates from Templett onto Canva. Yes, all 3,000 of them will now need to be recreated singlehandedly, which is a very Cass thing to do. 🫠It was a decision I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I wanted to make sure I got it right before I continue building new collections and items.
I’ve been creating and selling templates on Templett since 2018 and it’s been a great platform overall. However, after hearing feedback from customers and friends, the general consensus was that they prefer editing on Canva simply because they don’t need to learn another platform and already have an account.
Creating on Canva is a whole new learning curve for me and the pivot will require me to recreate each template, recreate the photos and shop listings, work out a foolproof delivery method, and do it all without burning out. It’s going to be a massive task, but I believe it will be worth it, and hopefully easier for you guys too.
So what does that mean for the shop?
To put it bluntly, my shop will be a hot mess for the next few months. Here are some things that I expect to happen:
Templates in collections may be split between Canva and Templett. For example, the seating chart for the Solace Collection may be in Canva but the place cards are in Templett. I will attempt to build and migrate in an orderly way, but there will still be some mismatched items.
Whole collections might disappear. In the design industry, font licensing is a big thing, and I take it seriously. I only ever sell templates that come with licences that allow use on editable templates. Some of the fonts I’m currently using in Templett were exclusively purchased from them, which means when I recreate a design in Canva, I’ll need to pick a substitute font since the original won’t be available there. The beloved Marais Collection is one that will be affected, as the main calligraphy font is Templett only. It’s sad to let that collection go but IP law is a bigger priority to me.
Some items and designs will be discontinued. Not all my designs will be carried over to Canva. I’ll be sifting through my analytics to see which collections you guys love and which are just collecting dust.
Etsy Shop Revived
Last month I revived my Etsy shop, and in doing so discovered it’s actually been around for 13 years. It seems I’ve been selling on Etsy on and off for that long. I sold a handful of physical stationery and digital templates on there in the early years, but after 2023, all my focus went into setting up my own Shopify store. I had put my Etsy shop on vacation mode and that ended up being 3.5 years.
There are only a small number of products in my Etsy shop at the moment, mainly because listing items is another small bullet point on my growing list of things to do. But the reception so far has been great, and I’ve had a few favourites and sales, so thank you to the customers who have helped in the shop’s revival.
Free PDF Tools
The last update I’d like to include is the new Free Online Tools page on this website. I’m currently paying for an Adobe subscription, but Acrobat seems to lack the two functions that I need the most. The first being the ability to cut a PDF page directly in half, and the second being the ability to impose multiple pages onto a single sheet to save paper when printing (like table numbers). I found a few online tools that could do it, but wasn’t sure about having my documents uploaded onto an unknown server.
I took some time out of my normal tasks to research and create my own tools that didn’t require any file uploads. I was really excited when I discovered a way to have the tools work entirely through your browser, meaning nothing gets uploaded anywhere and your file stays on your own device the whole time. It uses a bit of Javascript to run the task. I decided to share it with you guys, since it’s hosted on my website domain anyway.
So, if you need to cut your PDF in half or print multiple pages on a single sheet, feel free to use the tools.
Signing Off
Alright, so those are the main updates for July 2026. I’d really like to post updates each month and keep you guys in the loop with what’s going on in the studio, so I’ll try to keep this up (my socials might disagree, but we’ll see). Thank you for your continued support!
Until the next update, stay creative 😊
x Cass
