The Plaza's Season of Lights

Did You Know?

The Country Club Plaza uses more than 80 miles of glimmering holiday lights in its annual winter display? ! (That's about 280,000 bulbs!)

The Country Club Plaza is one of Kansas City's famous entertainment and shopping districts, with more than 150 shops and restaurants.

During the winter months the lights have become a Kansas City winter trademark. The 80 miles of light accentuate every dome, tower and window of the Plaza, and it definitely puts you in the Christmas spirit when taking a night stroll through the busy streets.

Here are some fun facts about the Plaza Light Tradition.

Hallmark Creative Summer Internship Program

You can now apply for our 2010 Summer Creative Internship Program! Deadline to apply is March 1, 2010. Get going! We can't wait to see what sort of talent we'll have this summer!
(The image above mentions attached PDFs. Don't worry. All the info is available on our careers website.)

Star Wars: In Concert Recap

My fiancé Eric is a true Star Wars super-fan... almost to the point that I am scared to go through his boxes when he moves in, fearing that in his belongings I might find an adult-sized Chewbacca costume or perhaps some hand-built models of the Millennium Falcon. I am a true lover of the symphony, the orchestra, and of movie soundtracks (my favorite XM station is the soundtrack station)... aren't we a match made in heaven!?

When I saw that Star Wars: In Concert was coming to The Sprint Center, it seemed the best of both worlds: Eric would love it because it was Star Wars (and he would tolerate the symphony part) and I would love the symphony (and would tolerate the Star Wars part). So, I got tickets -- Merry Christmas Eric! We went to the concert on Wednesday night at Sprint Center, and the unthinkable happened.....

We both LOVED it--and enjoyed every aspect of it (including the parts that I had guessed we would tolerate)! It was simply amazing. The live symphony and choir was fantastic and was so closely matched with the HD movie clips that we sometimes forgot there was a live symphony playing the music. The HD movie clips were set to not only live music, but intense laser light shows, smoke, and fire!

Anthony Daniels, who played C-3PO in the original movie was the narrator of the Star Wars tale, and did an excellent job of taking the audience through the entire story from start to finish -- Honestly, it was the first time I had ever actually understood was what happening in the movies, which actually made me interested in watching all 6 movies...

All in all, it was a great experience for us both--and we even got to take pictures with all of the characters from the original movies.

For more on Star Wars: In Concert, check out this video--pretty cool!

FOUR FOODIES

I've added a new link in the Hallmarkers Who Blog list on the right. Four Foodies is a blog that will make your mouth water. Two Hallmarkers, a former Hallmarker, and a non-Hallmarker make up the Four Foodies. I'm placing a video of theirs in this post because I think it showcases the Kansas City farmers' market quite nicely. If you love food (who doesn't?!) check out the Four Foodies. They even include their recipes! Yum!

Mayor's Christmas Tree

Did You Know?

The Mayor’s Christmas Tree in Crown Center is taller than the famous trees at the White House and Rockefeller Center in New York City? The Tree is 100 feet tall, making it one of the nation's tallest Christmas trees.

I sure did not know that! - Also after the holidays, the tree is cut into commemorative ornaments and sold to benefit the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Fund, which assists the city’s less fortunate.

Here is a fun FAQ about the tree.

Why I love my job #2,987,501

Why do I love my job? Because I am surrounded by extremely talented people every single day who create amazing artwork that is then given away.

A group of Hallmark illustrators (called the Blink Studio) painted cardboard tubes for a holiday display in the building. When the display comes down, they are going to raffle away opportunities to pick out a tube to keep as your very own. You know my name will be in that hat for the drawing! Pick me! Pick me!

WICKED!

Broadway Across America : Wicked

Ah! Yesterday was the last performance of Wicked, it had been playing at the Music Hall downtown since November 11th.

I was lucky enough to enter the Wicked Lottery, it happens 2 1/2 hours before each show. Basically, you enter in the lottery and if your name is drawn you can get really good orchestra seats for 25 dollars! My friend and I went to the 2pm showing (They only pick 10 pairs per show), we sat on the second row and I had an amazing time!!



This was my second musical in Kansas City. I highly recommend the lottery!

Here's a link to future shows.

Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.

— Albert Einstein

Holidays by Design 2009

This year I was honored to participate in the Kansas City DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) event on 11/21.

The annual event raises money to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Kansas City area by auctioning off holiday wreaths created by local designers and artists.

It was a beautiful event! Check my Flickr page for more photos.

National World War I Muesum

Veteran's Day is this Wednesday November 11th, and I just found out through The Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association's (VisitKC) Twitter page, that the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial will be offering free admission to the public on this day of honor.

Liberty Memorial is a short walk away from Hallmark, and has beautiful views of downtown Kansas City and Union Station (as you saw on my Autumn post). I've always wanted to climb up to the top of the memorial, I'm thinking of going over on Wednesday!

KC Massacre

Hey Folks,
I know I have been gone for a while, but I'm not gone for good (not yet). Things have been absolutely insane with all the cool new products that Hallmark has been working on, but that's another blog for another time. For now, I just wanted to show you some of the cool stuff that was going on at T2, a video production company in the Crossroads of KC. Enjoy their horror movie inspired First Friday massacre...



I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween (and sent lots of Halloween cards).

love,
Josh

Beautiful!

Moving from Florida to Kansas City and experiencing autumn for the second time has been really wonderful. Most of the trees in the city are changing, so yesterday I took the time during my lunch break to appreciate the colors and take a few photos. Some I took right outside our buildings, and the others I took at Liberty Memorial. Enjoy!

Ripple Glass

Keeping with the theme of Jeanee's recent post on climate change, I'm excited to post about a new Kansas City company that is impacting local recycling efforts in a big way. Under what is being called "the nation’s first self-contained metropolitan recycling system," Ripple Glass, which launches starting on November 1st, will help shatter the reluctance of Kansas City residents to recycle glass containers.

The Kansas City metro area has a pretty solid curbside recycling program, but that program no longer includes the pick of glass bottles and jars (pickup of bottles and jars in ended in 2003 due to the hazards of sorting broken glass and the problems of separating broken glass from other recyclables). When curbside pickup of glass ended, there were very few locations to recycle glass, so accessibility became an issue, and participation in glass recycling dropped drastically -- KC residents currently recycle only 5% of their glass, compared to the US average of over 28% -- eeeek!

That's where Stacia Stelk, Mike Utz, John McDonald and Jeff Krum, who also work for Boulevard Brewery, came up with a plan. Mike and John actually came to Hallmark about a year ago to present the Ripple Glass idea to Hallmark's Eco Team, an internal interest group focused on Hallmark's green initiatives. I was fortunate to see them present at that time. Their plan was simple: KC metro residents would be able to recycle their household glass (bottles, jars, etc.) at multiple area locations, the glass would then be picked up by a local company, taken to two local companies (Owens Corning and CertainTeed Corp), and recycled into fiberglass insulation and other products. They had me at hello, so to speak.

It took a little time, but they've now got all the logistics figured out, financing (by several local businesses) secured, and are ready to launch! I'm very excited that Hallmark has agreed to participate in the Ripple Glass efforts by having a glass drop-off bin right outside out building!

Read the full Ripple Glass story here, and if you're a KC local, support this program! With over 60 glass drop-off locations, 95% of metro residents will have less than a 5-minute drive to a drop-off location -- you have not reason not to support Ripple Glass! Thanks to Stacia, Mike, John and Jeff for seeing an opportunity to making a difference -- and to taking it!

Blog Action Day: climate change

Blog Action Day is today, October 15, 2009. Thousands of bloggers will unite to blog about a particular issue that is affecting our world on a grand scale. This year the topic is climate change.



Today I blogged on my blog about the connections between climate and food.

I talked about purchasing sustainable local food. Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities.

At Hallmark we just completed the summer of a community supported agriculture program. Every Wednesday we picked up a bag of food from local Kanas City Farmers through Hen House. It was fun to get vegetables I'd never buy in the store. But next summer I need to be more adventurous and try to make more recipes. I threw some of the scary squashes away :(

Also, here are some local Kansas City spots that are supporting local farming.
In Kansas City, Bad Seed Farm Market is a local, natural & sustainable food producer marketing to nearby, conscientious consumers. Their farmer's market is open every Friday night, 4:30 - 9p (May thru Nov. 20th). They have a winter farmer's market also.

And... The Farmhouse in Kansas City has bi-weekly farm-to-table-dinners. Four courses meticulously planned for your enjoyment using only the most fresh ingredients available from the farms that week.

Buy local. Eat local.

Have you been to our careers website lately?

Our careers website has been revamped (by our in-house Marketing Design Studio) and is a great place to explore what it's like to work at Hallmark. There are videos, answers to the most asked questions, fun stuff about our Hallmark culture, info on Kansas City, etc. Search jobs, find out about internships, or just wander through it and be entertained.

www.hallmark.com/careers <----check it out!

ARTIST TRADING CARDS

September's Artist Trading Card (ATC) trade was our three year anniversary and me passing the reins onto Steph and Gayle! The theme for the at Hallmark was whatever we wanted.

Here are couple of the cards from the trade.



It's so fun to be able to get together and work and do creative stuff!

You can see more at the ATC blog.

Hallmark 100th anniversary

We're doing a cool project here at Hallmark. For the 100th anniversary celebration there are 500 crowns for designers to design on. We can do whatever we want!

Here are the blank white crowns waiting for us to have our way with.

They will be displayed here in the Hallmark art gallery in January 2010. Cool huh?

something something something... voiceovers for Disney...something something... Bret Iwan....

Previous blog post to return at a later date... I'm such a tease.

Exciting News!

Hallmark Among “Best Places to Work”

on Latest Corporate Equality Index

I am a member of the Hallmark Employee Resource group called HERE: Hallmark Employees Reaching Equality, and in our meeting today we celebrated a great accomplishment in our company history! As of yesterday Hallmark became one of the 305 major U.S. businesses to achieve a perfect 100 score in the annual Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) survey.

Organizations receiving a score of 100 are recognized as one of the "Best Places to Work" for and support of equality for GLBT employees.

So congratulations to everyone who made this possible! Woohoo!!! News like this makes me proud to work here.

You can read the official press release
Also...Hallmark was featured in the GLBT News Magazine Advocate.

The Drifting Creatives

Last week, we had the pleasure of touring the Drifting Creatives around Hallmark!

If you are not familiar, these 2 guys, Martin and Gavin, are recent design graduates from Texas A&M University. Rather than sit around and be jobless after their May graduation into this tough economy, they hit the road. Now they're "designing their way across the country:" living in their cars, showering at car washes, picking up design projects here and there, and rubbing elbows with some of the nation's top designers and creatives.

They spent last Monday-Thursday in KC getting to know some of our local design firms such as Willoughby, Barkley, and Reactor. Keep and eye on their blog as they are sure to talk about their visit to Kansas City soon (though, we hear that when one lives in their car for months on end, the internet connection is spotty at best).

In the meantime, you can read about all of their adventures by visiting their blog.

Thanks to Martin and Gavin for visiting Hallmark! We wish you guys the best of luck (and are kinda jealous of your spontaneity and admire your sense of adventure!)

The Edge of Motherhood

Recently, Hallmark launched a line of greeting cards called The Edge of Motherhood. The line is designed to help moms connect with other moms to show them support, give them a good laugh, and let them know "hey, I've been there." The line is hilarious (and I'm not even a mom!) and has been getting great reviews, like this one from our new blog-friend Angela:

"These cards were so much fun! They have wonderful messages for moms and the children that they love. So many times we as moms need encouragement while we are doing the day to day task of raising our families. We need to hear that it’s okay that the laundry is piled up sometimes and that others know and care the hard work we are putting into the most important job in the world! These cards do just that: They are perfect for that mom that you talked to on the phone today that is feeling like a failure or just needs some encouragement. They will bring a smile to someones face who wasn’t expecting a card just because."

You can read Angela's full review and see which card she picked as her favorite by clicking here.

Here are a few that I have sent to my friends who are moms -- so much fun!

Inside: "Welcome to the 'do as I say and not as I did' years."
Inside: "Hope your birthday is free of bad-mommy moments."
Inside: "Also, I'm excited about your baby. But c'mon, those boobs! Dang, girl!" -- Note that this card's cover is editable, so you can put in the name of your friend and mom-to-be!

New on "Hallmarkers Who Blog" List

We just added another fabulous person to the "Hallmarkers Who Blog" list: Teresa L.!

Teresa, from the East Coast, is a senior greetings editor and has been with Hallmark for four years.

Her blog is www.poetprocastinator.blogspot.com. Wait. Procrastinator is misspelled! Teresa says, “that's right. I'm a writer who can't spell, and it's been immortalized in my URL.”

Teresa started her blog in the summer of 2005. The blog is about mostly stuff and also things. “Truthfully, it's just my musings on any given topic. Lately, I've tried to start labeling posts to see if I seem to address certain topics more than others,” Teresa says.

Teresa says she started a blog because all of her friends were doing it. “Seriously, my awareness of blogging (technically as in "web + log" or online journal) coincided with my relocating to a new city for a job opportunity, so I thought it would be a great way to keep my family and friends informed about the goings-on in my life. As irony would have it, my family doesn't read my blog, to my knowledge - they're phone/text people, by and large.”

There is no blog schedule for Teresa. She blogs when she wants and hopes that if a person stumbles across her blog they will enjoy it. “I want people to get from my blog what I get from the blogs I read: the occasional inspiration, something to laugh at, a break from the task at hand, a slice of a life that isn't their own.”

HOOPS & YOYO DAY AT THE K

Last Sunday was hoops&yoyo day at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals played (and lost) but everyone had fun. How can you not enjoy yourself when this cat and bunny are on the loose!?

You can read more about the fun on the official hoops&yoyo blog. Check it out!

Build Kansas City

In these hard economic times feel great about your local purchases because you are giving back to Kansas City.

Build Kansas City from Standard Social on Vimeo.

~ by buildkansas city.org

week 6: Hallmark Employee Card Challenge

THIS IS THE LAST CHALLENGE!

For this week’s challenge (8/24), the challenge is to “Encourage a kid going back to school.”

Going back to school can be challenging, exciting or even nerve-racking time for kids, whether they’re riding the bus, finding their way around a new school or walking from the dorm. There’s no better time than now to tell the kids in your life how wonderful they are. It may just be the boost of confidence they need.



Send a card. It’s the biggest little thing you can do for kids going back to school!

Even though that the challenge is over... please, keep sending cards!

Breakaway Brands from 2009: Hallmark!

The Hallmark brand is something we talk about a lot around here. I know in recruiting, the Hallmark brand is my friend. People aren't always excited to receive and unsolicited phone call or speak to a random person at a conference, but once you drop the Hallmark name people tend to perk up. It's nice. Really nice, actually.

Hallmark has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Breakaway Brands of 2009. Click here to read the article. Here's what AOL Daily Finance and Landor Associates had to say about Hallmark:

The greeting card company earned a spot on our list by going non-traditional, rolling out a customizable digital e-card studio, a line of earth-friendly greeting cards, and a card series called “Journeys” (a line of encouragement cards focused on fighting cancer, coming out, and battling depression). On the screen, the Hallmark Channel reached out to a younger audience by casting more youthful actors and updating music and advertising to appeal to the under-30 set. The company also dramatically expanded its retail presence in grocery stores, drugstores, and even into Walmart.

week 5: Hallmark Employee Card Challenge

For this week’s challenge (8/17), the challenge is to “Reconnect with a friend.”

Remember, you don't have to mail a physical card. Send an e-card! It's the biggest little thing you can do.

Kansas City designer on "PROJECT RUNWAY"

Ari (say it AIR-ee) Fish, 26-year-old graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, is one of the 16 designers sixth season of “Project Runway.”

Watch Ari Fish's casting session.


Season 6 of "Project Runway" (filmed in L.A.) premieres at 9pm, Aug. 20 it's new network, Lifetime.

More on Ari.
• Kansas City Star
• Lifetime

week 4: Hallmark Employee Card Challenge

This is the fourth week of the Hallmark Employee Card Challenge.

For this week’s challenge (8/10), the challenge is to “Brighten someone's day through humor.”

Send a card! It's the biggest little thing you can do.

Twilight + Hallmark (*insert my 13 year-old girly shriek here*)

People Magazine gave Hallmark's Twilight Greeting Cards front page space this morning online. YAY! I don't know if I'm more excited about Hallmark, Twilight, or People. It's the ultimate trifecta for me. We even have Twilight ecards at hallmark.com! Seriously, could this day get any better?

Check out the article on People.com. I'm off to reread the Twilight series...

ARTIST TRADING CARDS

July's theme for the Artist Trading Card (ATC) trade at Hallmark was "summer fun." Check out the fun!





You can see more at my ATC blog.

week 3: Hallmark Employee Card Challenge

This is the third week of the Hallmark Employee Card Challenge.

For this week’s challenge (8/3), the challenge is to “Support someone who is going a rough time.”

Send a card! It's the biggest little thing you can do.

Ok, ok...

...so call me a sap, but I like a nice "feel good" movie once in awhile.


This Saturday, a new Hallmark Channel Original Movie makes its premiere. Check out the trailer for "Mrs. Washington goes to Smith" here. The cast looks strong, the storyline funny and inspirational, and with some popcorn and red wine (or whatever your weekend drink of choice), could make for a nice girl's night... I think I just might invite some gals over to tune in this weekend!

week 2: Hallmark Employee Card Challenge

Ok, we're in week two of the Hallmark Employee Card Challenge.

For this week’s challenge (7/27), the challenge is to “Connect with a Mom.” Moms juggle jobs, kids, family and friends. They need a little bit of humor, encouragement and empathy to get through the ups and downs and the crazy reality of being a mom. Send a Mom a card this week to tell her you know what it’s like, you’ve got her back, it’s OK to be ‘proudly imperfect’ and that she’s doing great.

You can send a card too! It's the biggest little thing you can do.