Today we worked a bit on the follow up press release. We also sent out the book end press release to most of the contacts we have at various newspapers/stations. Including Greenwich Time, Greenwich Free Press, Greenwich Patch, Daily Voice, News 12, Greenwich Magazine, Stamford Advocate, Stamford Magazine, News Break, Darien Times, and Greenwich Moms.

We also heard back from Kim over at OBP.  She was excited to hear about our fundraising success ($622 raised!) and was open to the idea of us donating the remaining decks to OBP for their own fundraising efforts.  Most likely, they will be available at the upcoming Suessical production this August.  The production will be taking place at Greenwich Country Day School.  

We included some of this info in our "book-end" press release.  They call it that because it is like a book-end- the thing you put on the shelves that stops the books from falling over.  This release comes at the end of our project- we sent one BEFORE the fundraiser, then RAISED the funds, then AFTERwards, we update the public on how we did.  Hopefully we get some of the publications listed above to print our article.

Thank you to everyone who made this possible, and bought a deck of cards.  This week's photo shows us with our FRONT PAGE article in Greenwich Time, so thanks as well to Annelise Hanshaw and Tyler Sizemoer! -AJInk

Today we come baring good news!

So far, we have raised over 600$ in the first month of this fundraiser! The Cards for a Cause Broadway Deck has finished its first portion of fundraising and is moving on to the next. Haven't gotten your deck yet? Buy them in person at the Off Beat Players' production of Suessical this August.

The GoFundMe is also still available at gofundme.com/obpcards.

As of today, AJ Ink has been published in Greenwich Sentinel, Greenwich Free Press, and Greenwich Time for our efforts!

More to come in upcoming weeks about the future of this project and what is to come in the future of AJ Ink.

Today we got interviewed by reporters from the Greenwich Time!  Specifically, Annelise (reporter) and Tyler (photographer) came by to ask questions about AJ Ink.  We talked about our previous projects, and the OBP cards.


We talked about how AJ Ink started (Angie told a story that had never been heard, involving a trampoline in the backyard, the same trampoline that our brother was injured on), why we started it, and some of our past projects.

First, we talked about the Star Wars calendar, and the creative and thoughtful process behind it.  The purpose of the calendars was to give funding to Abilis, a local non-profit organization that helps adults with special needs. 

Next, we talked about the Women in Science conference, why they needed the funding, and how we helped them.  Since their funding got caught by the original sponsor, through raising money with custom items, and raising awareness through videos, the conference actually took place.

For this current "Cards for a Cause" project, we first talked about how we got the idea to help OBP (Off Beat Players) over other causes.  Angie's friends worked with OBP on a past production, and explained how they could use monetary help.  This would fund current and future productions, buying props, equipment, etc.

Aside from talking about the business aspect, we also talked about random stuff like our dogs, and Annelise shared a story about how her dog (like ours) likes breaking through doors!  Also, after the interview part of it, Tyler asked us to sit for some photos.  Instead of just having us pose for a bunch of photos, he made it more natural when asking us to explain our cards and designs.

Thank you again Annelise and Tyler of Greenwich Time, (not plural, as in New York TimeS), for a life-changing experience.  To all our readers:  Go get your cards (link here) if you haven't already!  www.AJInkDesigns.com/store.

Today we not only wrote and sent out a updated press release, but we wrote an elevator pitch for this project! An elevator pitch is a 30 second spiel that is meant to catch people's attention and promote your product.

The draft of our pitch is as follows:
Angela:


We wanted to tell you about AJK Ink's newest passion project:  Cards for a Cause, benefitting a local theater community called Off Beat Players, or OBP for short. AJ Ink’s Cards for a Cause project follows our vision of helping local non-profits in need.

Jackie:

Our original deck of cards titled The Broadway Deck, will be helpful because OBP needs the money to help fund productions.  In our blog at AJInkDesigns.com/blog, we show our creative process of specific things that we have considered, like greeting cards and framed prints.  We also talkabout why we decided against these options, in favor of functional playing cards.

Angela:

I started theater tech years ago, in middle school.  Ever since then, I have wanted to share the joy I get from it with others.  These cards are meant to provide others with the same joy theater has brought me.  Even if you don;t enjoy thewater, our decks can be fun for anyone who likes to play cards while supporting a good cause.

Jackie 
Our mission is to help several causes with Art and Design, ands our broadway decks local theater company, Off Beat Players are doing just that.  We wanted to support OBP because they provide theater opportunities to kids and young adults with special needs, like our brother.

Angela:
Get your own deck at AJInkDesigns.com/store!

Hello All, today we worked on recording the president video with a ghost. It was definitely all true gameplay, and we definitely did not stage any parts of the game. Next time, we are going to record the audio and put it together and record the footage and maybe audio of gin rummy. The video ended up as 22 minutes of raw footage.  That's going to be a fun time for Phil to edit! We also finalized some of the finishing details of the press release. We chose 5 pictures from the 10 we had, added 1 missing caption, and put them in numerical order. 


The video of the first 2 games, war and spit, was revealed to Angie and I after the editing was done. Watch the video on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foqpaVVJ8ys or watch below!

The cards have arrived!

A huge thanks to Nicole Singson and USPC. Without her, we would not have been able to make this amazing deck.

Another shout out to David Goldvug at Minute Man press, even though we ended up going through USPC, he was amazing with giving price quotes and pointing us in the right direction! Minute Man Press has been a longtime supporter of AJ Ink and there generosity does not go unnoticed.

Lastly, without OBP and Kim Malara, we would not have this opportunity to support such an amazing cause.

Buy your decks at our store to support OBP!

Thanks all!

Today we had an idea to include "Playbill" covers in an upcoming commercial for OBP Cards for a Cause: Broadway Decks!  We thought it might be good to have the cards come out of a "Playbill" that features each musical.  Then, we can show characters from the musical playing a certain card game: Spit, War, Gin Rummy (new this week), or President.


So, we're going to have Angie and Jackie play the card games, with us each representing a different character from the musical.  At first, we were going to have the cards talk to each other about how to play the card games.  But then, we decided that we could play the actual games on screen, because for some elements, it's better to show them, than just explain.

We thought we could hum music from the respective musical in each card game video.  But instead we thought we could use Angie's synthesizer, which is a mini-keyboard with Sound Effects.  Last week, we wrote rules for most of the games in our blog.  This week, we took those rules and broke them up into dialogue sections.  We were able to record some of the background music, and will do the dialogue next time.

The plan is to use Rizzo & Kenicke from Grease to demonstrate "War," Sophie & Sky from Mamma Mia to demonstrate "Spit," Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson of Guys & Dolls to demonstrate "Gin Rummy," and finally Conrad Birdie and Kim McAfee of "Bye Bye Birdie" to demonstrate President.  We're going to use fun voices, recorded on a Blue Yeti mic!

It's official, you can order a deck of Cards for a Cause Broadway Edition from the AJInk website Ajinkdesgins.com/store. BUT we encountered an issue... shipping. No matter where you ordered the deck from, from Portland to Portland. The shipping cost was the same for our customers... $0 this would result in less profit for OBP. So, we had to get our hands dirty (by using a computer) luckily co-founder of AJInk Angie is a tech wiz! She "had to change the general shipping profile not create a whole new one" (this definitely makes sense). So now it's fixed, feel free to order your deck, it shall arrive on your door stoop by this time next month. Then you will be ready to play your favorite card game with this new custom deck. If you don't know any card games here are some you might enjoy, war, spit, and president.

Easiest WAR

In this game you deal out the entire deck between 2 players. Both players reveal their top card at the exact same time, whoever has the higher card takes the cards and puts them under their deck. If the cards are the same (IE both have 8's) each player puts down 3 cards face down and the 4th card at the same time which is the new war (the higher one off which wins the whole lot) If the war cards are the same repeat until a loser.If someone doesn't have enough cards to do a war they will do however many cards they can with the one still face up. Keep playing until one person has no cards. 

Slightly More Challenging SPIT

Both players sit across the table from each other and the deck is dealt in half. To set up your hand you do 5 piles which include (Sounds more complicated than it is) you do 1 face up, 1 face down 1 face up, 2 face down 1 face up, 3 face down 1 face up, 4 face down 1 face up. Once both players are ready you yell "SPIT" once this is stated both players grab a card from their deck (left over from making the hand) this starts the game in which the suits don't matter only numbers. You can go down or up in numbers and the ace can be played next to a 2 or a king. If both players are stuck you draw a new card from the deck. keep going until your hand is gone, once your hand is you slap the smallest deck of the two and that's the one you take. Once all cards in your possession are gone (hand and deck).

Most Challenging PRESIDENT

For this game you need at least 4 people. Deal out the cards face down as evenly as possible amongst the people. Whoever has the 3 of clubs goes first, the person to their left goes next they try to put a card above or equal to a 3. If it is equal to a 3 it skips the next player. A 2 will clear the hand and let that player start a new one, aces and 4s are skips and will allow you to skip the person to your left. The point of the game is to get rid of all your cards, the first person who gets rid of their cards becomes the "president", the second is the "vice-president", the third is the "vice-loser", and the fourth is the "loser". If there are more than 4 players those in the middle do not get a title (IE. person, civilian, none). The new game starts by dealing out the entire deck again with the loser being dealt first so they get the most cards. Once the deck is dealt the "president" and the "loser" swap 2 cards and the "vice-president" and the "vice-loser" trade 1. The "president" goes first and the game repeats (same rules apply). If the "president" wins 3 times as "president" they get to make a rule (IE. everyone has to talk in a funny voice, whenever a 2 is played you have to say a certain word, etc). (ADVANCED RULE - COMPLETIONS) If you can complete 4 of a kind at any time you may play these cards even if they are out of order.

We hope you have fun playing these games with the OBP Broadway deck. (PS check out the sweet NFT's at opensea.io/ajinkdesigns.

Hi to our many, many readers!

Today we did something very important:  Finalized our order of cards with United Stated Playing Card Company!  Special thanks to our rep there, Nikki, who worked diligently with us every step of the way.

First, we checked out the contract and noticed 3 issues: A name spelling inconsistency, a the pricing was different, and the date of approval was wrong.  Luckily, Nikki fixed it really quickly (thank Nikki!), and we were able to place the official order!  Wow!

Next, we set up our Weebly page so that it could properly take orders. We even got our first order... It was an in house, but who cares!  It still counts!  Also on the "store" page, it links to our NEW GoFundMe page (it got deleted. :( )

Lastly, we updated our press release so that every photo had a great caption, and it als linked to our NEW GoFundMe page (as of yet, not deleted).  We then shared the updated release with OBP Director, Kim.

We finally placed the order after months of preparation!  Now, reader, it's your turn- to BUY!