Gift Vouchers and what are the standards

[Terri Ficenec]

The fellow called inquiring about commissioning a portrait as a Christmas/Anniversary gift for his wife... this was just a couple of weeks before Christmas. I like to allow a minimum of 2 months turn-around, as I am only able to get in 20 - 30 hours per week painting...and don't feel confident enough to work with a tight 'deadline'. So, with Linda Nelson's gift certificate post fresh in my mind -and as if this was something I did all the time (Ha!), I suggested that I could give him a gift certificate to present to his wife on Christmas. So the 'gift' would still be a surprise and we could arrange the photo shoot after the holidays. I sent him off a blank commission contract, ran all over town trying to find an appropriate looking box, mocked up a gift certificate card and e-mailed him the next day with photos (like those above) of what the gift presentation looked like.

I had a signed contract and initial deposit in hand before getting the actual gift certificate box to him.

I guess I expected to hear from them sometime in the week or two after Christmas. I did start to get a little nervous when they didn't call, so finally around the third week of January, I sent a quick little e-mail asking if his wife was excited about the gift and with suggestions of things they might want to consider with relation to the portrait (indoors or outdoors, formal or more casual, etc.) -- just to open up a dialog. That seemed to do the trick! They had scheduled the actual photo shoot within a week.

We finalized the specific terms of the contract (i.e. half length figures/ and canvas size) at the tail-end of the photo shoot.


Note: I was looking for any appropriate sized box with a lid that opened on a hinge similar to what Linda had shown. Felt lucky to find what I did on such short notice, so I bought several just to have on hand... They were fairly expensive...$20 apiece and apparently they were a new item for the Hallmark shop, so I'm not sure if I'll find them if I go there again. There is information on the bottom of the box about the company that makes them, if that's helpful to anyone I could post it?