HI (What's Up?)

What a perfectly appropriate title for today's blog post. I feel like it's been forever since I've been able to put any effort into this blog, and I apologize for that.

But up until this past Friday, the husband has been working in Australia. Except for about a week in September when he had a quick trip home, he's been gone for three months. I've been running myself into the ground trying to raise an infant, exercise and love a needy dog, design and print a whole bunch of new letterpress goods, start up and/or run four (yes, FOUR) different shops, and then do some freelance editing on top of it all (because I was SO stupid when I said yes to that project). Most days have extended to midnight or 1 AM, and at the end of that I just haven't had the brain power to blog.

But the husband is back now, and although I still haven't caught up on my sleep (somehow he always beats me to the couch for a nap) at least he has been around for a few days to occupy the two gremlins so I can start tying up some loose ends.

Here's one loose end that is getting tied up today: A new line of letterpress greeting cards.

It'll be part of a bigger post on another day, but for now let's just say that this past May I quietly opened up a new shop on Etsy (no, not i heart letterpress. A different shop). It's a little something I figured I'd try because I could easily do it at my kitchen counter while keeping an eye on Lachlan. And it has actually turned out to be somewhat successful. Quite successful, actually. In fact, except for my orders for birth announcements and sales generated through Heartsy, it is outperforming my letterpress shop.

And that got me thinking. It got me thinking that even though I have a whole room FULL of letterpress cards, I often find myself going to the store and (cringe) buying a card for someone for a particular occasion because 98% of my cards are generic flat cards for generic notes to someone. And these days, not a lot of people have the time to write generic notes. I know I don't.

So I've come up with a new line of greeting cards. They are two-color folded cards and they are for particular occasions, even if that occasion is just to let your friend know that you're still alive and thinking about them and wondering what they are up to these days.

I'm calling it my parenthetical collection. I've printed the first three cards, and this morning I ordered the plate for another 5 cards. They aren't anything over-the-top crazy in the design department. They get straight to the point. And these days, I'm all about straight to the point.

Here's the first one. So, yeah. Hi. What's up?