:: how to have a happy memorial day weekend ::

on this lovely memorial day weekend, my kids would like to remind you (and me, who happens to be working in the attic while my family is outside playing in the sunshine, but who also happens to have plans for major relaxation in a certain newly-put-up hammock later this afternoon) of a few things:






(1) nothing, and i mean nothing short of maybe apple pie, smells better than sunscreen.

(2) hydrate (for easy breezy beautiful ice pops, pour regular-ol' juice into dixie cups. freeze for about 40 minutes. insert sticks or plastic spoons or whatever, then freeze another hour or so. warm the pop in your hand for a moment to remove from the dixie cup. eat several -- they're small. we made ours with cranberry juice, orange juice, tropical orange V8 juice, and strawberry-banana V8 juice, and we haven't had a bad one yet.)

(3) lie in the grass

(4) grab your toes - it feels good and it's good for you

(5) surround yourself with colors, smells, and sounds that make you happy

(6) smile

:: or not to outsource. that is the answer. (with apologies to shakespeare for bastardizing hamlet.) ::

( this is a quick snapshot taken in my unevenly lit attic stairwell and not edited in photoshop. look at that freaking amazing color. and the saturation! i can't. stop. looking. )

i’m only a small business. a small business run by a small girl living in a small city. but despite this (or actually, probably because of it), i’ve often been told that eventually, i’ll have to outsource all of my production.

when target comes knocking, begging me to stock their aisles with all my up up creative goodness, it’s not like i’m going to be able to make all the millions and millions of items they’re going to want to buy from me.

so the story goes.

of course there’s no reason that when target comes a’knockin’, i can’t just become my own production company. no reason i can’t buy more equipment and hire more people.

and the thing is, i actually really love that idea.

growing up there was a company with world headquarters down the road from where i lived – terry bicycles, which if you ride you’ve surely heard of – and i have always always just loved that their entire terry world existed right there in macedon, ny (even their catalogs used local models, mostly terry corporate employees, actually).

and then they went and got bought. by a company in vermont if i recall. and i was supremely sad, not really for political reasons or anything, but for emotional ones. i liked knowing that i lived near terry, and whenever i saw terry seats on people’s bikes or whenever i saw terry clothing in bike shops around the country, i felt something akin to pride.

so there’s that. i like to think of some girl living down the street growing up so proud to live near up up creative’s world headquarters, the place where it all happens.

plus there’s the fact that i started this whole business because i wanted to make things. with my hands.

so as i’ve been grappling with all kinds of questions about the direction my little company will take, the outsourcing question has been one of the biggest and toughest for me, a leggy question with so many elements to it:

• issues of quality (would outsourced products be of higher or lower quality?)
• issues of time (time saved not printing versus time spent going to the printer’s offices, etc.)
• compatibility of outsourced printing with my current creative process (test prints are crucial to my process, and colors matter – how can i get the same kind of immediate feedback if my home printer isn’t also the end-product printer?)
• issues of cost (outsourcing my printing, to be cost effective, requires large orders, which means more initial cash layout and more inventory sitting here at my house; upgrading my home equipment brings with it increased costs in machines, ink, and paper)

in the end it sort of came down to my gut instinct: i want. to make. my own stuff. for as long as i can. i want to have my hands on the paper. i want to learn the ins and outs of my printers. in the last two years i’ve learned so much about making my own stationery, printing my own goods. i love it that i’ve learned how to make such vivid prints from my $200 inkjet. and i don’t want to turn that over.

so i bought a fancy new printer. and it rocks. i kind of want to make out with it i love it so much. and it opens up so many new opportunities for me. the print quality is amazing and i can print on so many new formats (poster sized paper, canvas, cotton rag…).

i have this new little fantasy now in which i become a little home print shop for other indie designers who do want to outsource their printing to someone who is 100% committed to minimizing waste, maximizing quality, and using the best eco-friendly materials.

not at the expense of doing my own creative work, of course. but maybe right alongside?

:: okay, maybe manipulation isn't quite the right word... ::

(i'll spare you the pictures that accompany this post...)

i had no idea just how much i would purposefully manipulate my children's emotions. if you'd asked me before i had kids -- even if you'd asked me a year ago -- i'd have said you were crazy.

but here i am with a son who's almost 3 and i'll tell ya: i manipulate the heck out of that kid's emotions.

because he's still learning.

the way i see it, things like excitement, nervousness, anxiety, suspense, and fear, they tend to feel the same, physiologically speaking. they're like fraternal quintuplets, all borne of the same womb. so how do we know which one we're feeling at any given time?

yesterday, the kids and i were in a car accident. a scarybad car accident that we all walked away from relatively unscathed. the car may or may not be totaled, and i did have a little dashboard-to-knee action that has turned me tender and twingy, but both kids are 100% a-ok, which of course is the miracle of the day.

(the accident was not, thankfully, my fault. we were broadsided (and pushed across four lanes of traffic, up a 6" stone curb, and fully onto the tree lawn) by a 79-year-old man who seems not to have had his wits about him. after he struck us he continued driving, turned onto a side road and then up onto the lawn and came head-on at us again. i had to yell stop as he came at us to get him to actually stop. very scary.)

anyway, it was scary. the kids were both crying. i was shaking. witnesses and neighbors were accumulating and sirens could be heard in the distance. then the kids and i sat on the ground while at least ten adults stood around us taking turns asking questions.

and thus commenced at least an hour of me trying my best to mold and manipulate my son's emotions. there was some encouragement: "it's okay to cry, evan. it was scary. that's okay. i feel like crying, too." there was also some diversion: "whoa, look, that's the biggest tear i've ever seen." there was minimization: "yes, we had a car accident, but look, it's all over and everyone is okay and just our car is a little bit broken." there was redirection: "i know you're sad right now, buddy, but can you help me out by making sure your sister doesn't try to eat the grass? can you be a good big brother and help protect her?"

but the most important manipulations have happened in the 36 hours since the accident. when he asks me to retell the story, i retell it. but i leave it flat. there are no details. i add no suspense. there are facts and they are brief and they satisfy his need to know without bringing up any of the physiological feelings from the event itself.

i so want him to know that what happened was scary, but that it's not scary now. it was overwhelming when it happened, but today it is merely inconvenient.

maybe i think about this stuff so much because of the way my own brain struggles to connect the right physiology with the right emotion. i have flight-or-flight responses to things that should be completely innocuous. i feel fear and anxiety keenly without any stimulus but a memory. the way i get through my moments of irrational fear is to manipulate my own responses -- to teach my body how to (and how not to) respond to stimuli.

i don't know how things will turn out with evan and whether he'll suffer the random anxiety that i sometimes suffer since my first bout with postpartum depression. but i can tell you this: he's dealt exceptionally well with the accident. maybe it's my attempts to help him deal with the emotions or maybe it's his own coping ability or maybe it's just plain old dumb luck.

but i have to say, i'm proud of him. i could learn a thing or two from this boy.

:: summer saturdays ::

so they begin.

:: eco weakness ::

i'm being interviewed by liz from cosa verde (i'll post when it goes live so you can run on over there and read it) and so i've got eco-friendliness on the brain right now. all that thinking brought up a strange question:

what's my eco-weakness?

for sure mine's the peanut butter jar. yes, it's recyclable. yes, it's empty. yes, i could wash it and recycle it. but i hate the smell of wet peanut butter. so i throw it away. i recycle every other bit of stuff that's allowed in the curbside recycling bin. i save electronics for the town's electronic recycling day. i stockpile bottles and cans and return them to the grocery store when there are just enough to fill up my entire station wagon. but the peanut butter jar gets tossed.

with the amount of water it takes to properly clean a peanut butter jar i might actually be doing the more ecologically responsible thing anyway. but that's an issue for someone else to sort out.

but now i'm curious:

what's your eco-weakness?

:: work in progress ::

so many things are starting to fall into place, it's crazy. i'm interviewing a nanny this week, got my first internship applicant last night, ordered and set up a sweet new printer over the weekend. i've got 7 to 11 new wedding designs almost ready for their june release (set to line up with my own fifth wedding anniversary, commence your awwwws now) and a very exciting new take on my crazy love cards well on its way to a limited summer release and a full fall release.

all of that is both helped and hindered by the fact that i'm also setting up my attic studio/office. nanny, intern, kids, printers... it's finally time to set up a home base that isn't, well, in my living room.

we spent the second half of date night on saturday night buying some new furniture to get everything organized up there (it took my father-in-law's jeep and trips through two different targets). (and please, don't worry about us - the first half of date night was spent at this excellent restaurant we just discovered - mussels for an appetizer, sea scallops and ribs for dinner, sweet potato fries, fresh veggies. and all in this beautifully renovated old-school fire station (complete with fire pole)).

i can't wait to reveal the finished product, but for now here are a few iphone snaps from this morning, including one of my little helper evan, the firefighting zookeeper, who spent the morning feeding the animals in his attic zoo and then going off on rescues in his office-chair-firetruck.

:: what? i have a blog? ::

[ photo : "raspberry hill" by ara133photography on etsy ]

my unintentional "holy crap my life is hectic... what? i have a blog?" blog break has me thinking a bit about this here blog and what it's doing here and what i want it to be doing. and so now i just want to ask you:

what do you like about this little space? what brings you back for more?

because me? i kind of see it as serving a few functions:

(1) it helps me stay sane and "normal"
(2) it has provided opportunities for me to connect with people in this new solitary life i'm living (staying home with the kids, working for myself, long hours at the computer and the paper cutter...)
(3) it allows me to explore what it means to run an indie business
(4) it lets me try things out on you - to gauge your interest in new designs and projects and ideas
(5) it helps me document my life as it speeds right on by me...

but i'd also sort of like to see it do some other things, like:
(1) help promote other people who are out there busting their asses like i am, trying to be seen and heard and appreciated
(2) collect inspiration
(3) foster dialogue more

does that seem like insanity? is it too much? would it annoy you if i started having weekly features or columns to help keep myself (and my blog? perhaps...) a little bit more organized?

:: best app ever ::

iphone = awesome.
iphone pictures = so so.
iphone pictures that have been polaroided using my new favorite app shakeitphoto = awesome awesome awesome.

this is by far one of the favorite ways i've ever spent 99 cents. in my life. all day i've been taking "polaroids" and shaking my camera to get them to develop faster (yes that's a real feature of the app and not just something i just came up with), just like when i was a kid.

so now when you get another one of those iblog posts like the one from last week, it will be all full of polaroidy goodness.

yum.

:: etsy gift guides ::

(image courtesy of my shop. you can find this gift set here.)

shopping for gifts on etsy the other day it occurred to me: unless you know what you're looking for, a simple search these days (with, what, a billion and six sellers now?) can make shopping etsy an extremely frustrating, time consuming, not entirely fruitful process. if i hadn't been committed to the idea of buying handmade, i would definitely have abandoned ship for someplace a little easier to shop. (and truthfully, for two of my recipients, i'm still searching. pretty soon i'm going to have to go elsewhere or else i'll miss the birthdays...)

and now that etsy has gotten rid of their curated gift guides, it's even harder.

so here's what i want to do. i want to create my own version of the gift guides. eventually i'll add more categories but for now i want to start with one: i want you to send me shops you know that offer nice, professional-looking gift sets. i'll take your suggestions and put together a guide (but note that i may not include everything that's sent to me).

you can make your suggestions by leaving a comment here on this post or by emailing me using the link at right.

:: how to please your wife ::

so the weird thing about being a mom to two young kids is that try as you might, you don't get to take nearly enough pictures of all the wonderful things your husband and aforementioned small children are doing for you for mother's day.



i was giving emily her bottle and putting her to bed, for example, when the prep work for this amazing sushi was being done, and while i so so so wanted a picture of all the bits and bites spread out for sushi-rolling time - the plates of mango, cucumber, tuna, salmon, shrimp, cucumber, avocado, and bean sprouts. the thin sheets of nori. the baking sheet piled with sticky rice - i just couldn't get to my camera in time.



good thing it was just my own dinner that had to be delayed to capture these shots.

i hope your mother's day was as wonderful as mine was. i got a lot of work done, had some quiet time just for me while brian took the kiddos to buy sashimi-grade fish for dinner, had brunch with mom and sis and lunch with mom-in-law. it was a pretty darn good day.

if only tomorrow weren't monday. but alas.



oh, and here's evan's sushi. shrimp with cucumber. unfortunately, he wasn't a fan of the sticky rice.

:: iBlog ::

well, i suppose it had to come to this: blogging from my iPhone with a picture taken with my iPhone because i just don't have the time lately to put together a proper blog post. but then in a way i kinda like the idea. i miss connecting with you, friends, and iblogging is in a way kind of extra-intimate. it's like the difference between inviting you over for a dinner party and having you over for grilled cheese. mine is a grilled cheese kind of world and it seems a little bit a propos that my blog be a grilled cheese kind of blog, at least sometimes.

anyway, here's just the quickest sneak peek at one of the things that has been keeping me so busy: one of several new wedding suite designs. they're really lovely. can't wait to give them a proper introduction.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

:: capital c creative, capital b business ::

you know what? i know i’m not supposed to admit that i sit here on a saturday night thinking about money, but i do.

i know the whole reason i ditched the ph.d. gig and started this shop and created this life and all was that i needed a creative outlet.

but creative outlet i’ve got. and so yeah, now i’m trying to figure out how to make this creative outlet a more lucrative outlet. to make it support my family so that we can be more creative together. to make it possible for my husband – if he wants to – to choose his own path.

and furthermore: there’s something extremely creative about growing a brand. if it were just a love for money that drove businesses then there would be an awful lot of super successful businesses out there. i’ve got to admit, there’s something exciting and thrilling about the whole business side of running a creative business.

and yes, i sit here on saturday night thinking about that side of it.

but what’s fun about running my own creative business is that i’m 100% allowed to consider my gut. as financial data sends me in one direction and i feel myself resisting, i’m totally allowed to say, “but i want to do it a different way, even if that’s not the cheapest way.” and that’s okay. that’s just another challenge. a business challenge and a creative one.

all my thinkiness lately is about the business side of things. i want to be more creative business-ly, and in order to do that i want to feel like my work is more coherent. i’m happy with so much of the work i do – pleased with how it has turned out and also pleased by the act of creating it – that i really feel like there are a good number of possible routes to take.



i sit here on saturday night trying to figure out which route feels right, which one is going to take me where i want to go, and which one is the most exciting for other people. i sit here trying to decide which route is the most sustainable and allows me to have the healthiest life. i try to figure out which one is going to give me the most creative bang for my buck.

and then i doodle. and lie on the couch on my belly with my chin propped on my hubby’s thigh while he types. and eat chocolate chip cookies. and then, only sometimes, i blog about it all.

happy saturday night, all.