#postcardempire

Dear 28,
First of all. Apparently August wasn't packed to the "gunwalls" (like the inside of a gun) but should have been packed to the "gunwales" (a nautical term I guess.) Easy mistake if you ask me.

Onto the biggest news of the year. It's really the biggest news of my year, to-date. I printed the postcards. Finally. All it took was a meeting down at Universal Printing, a few egg rolls, 37 handwritten lists, Sara's speedy print skills and talking about doing this for nearly 5 years.

And as a bonus, they were printed in time for this project: 2011ArtVend. I haven't seen the vending machine yet, but I'll share it when I do. If you're up in Ames next week- check out the project at Wheatsfield Cooperative Grocery.

I sold a bunch of cards wholesale the day they were printed to my dear friends at Ephemera and darling Emily of Francy Pants and I was feeling pretty great actually, until I realized I still had about 450 postcards on my hands. I even updated my Etsy site. Then, in a moment of potential insanity, sitting outside Aimee with Chels watching the world class athletes of the HyVee Triathlon race by, we plotted my teeny table at the East Village Bazaar.

With lots of help*, a super great drawer from Francy Pants, and a little bit of courage (it's scary to sell your wares at a table. what if people don't like them), I set up my card table Sunday morning hoping for the best. Some people commented on the lovely flowers, or the weather, or the fact that my freckled-fair-skin should retreat from the sun immediately, but so many others said "oh these are cute" or giggled while reading them or even (gasp) bought one. Even strangers purchased postcards! 55 cards and 4 hours later I closed up shop. Bigtime success.

 

After about 20 years of drawing greetings, I still can't believe I sat on East 5th Street selling them. I'm giving it a go again this Sunday-- stop by and ask me about the weather.

xo-LP

*Thanks for the push to print, the help getting my sales tax id, for telling me the drawings are cute, for telling me when things really are only funny in my head and not in a drawing, for sending the cards to your moms, for reminding me I can actually do this, for color-correcting, for telling me no one but me really cares about card-stock-quality, for letting me talk about it constantly, for buying them when I try to give you them for free, and most of all- believing in me. Thank you to all of you.