week eleven - 2025

What a week. I had a nasty head cold and was in slow motion. Or maybe the world was just moving faster than usual. Either way, I was a mess. Thankfully, I was feeling mostly better by Friday and I'm almost 100% as I write this. 

I didn’t trust myself to print or cut. Come Wednesday I had a Chicago Stationery Fest (CSF) deadline so I medicated with lots Advil and Airbourne and hopped on press. I donated these limited edition color combo Stationery with an E pennants for VIP bags. I have a few dozen left, those will be for sale at CSF next weekend.

Speaking of CSF, I printed two cute CSF custom cards. I'm loving the color combo. The bright orange and dark green are my new obsession. Especially on the cream colored card stock. I'm excited to see the tags once they've been die cut. I also packaged a whole lot of pencil sets, especially Chicago Dog sets, they're our number one seller and I want to make sure I don't sell out. Another top seller at shows are our monogram sets. I enlisted the help of fellow letterpress printer, Liz to help me knock them out this week. It was a huge help. She'll also be with me at CSF assisting with our tabletop press so guests can letterpress print a keepsake.

I started working on a Blues Brothers inspired pencil set about five years ago. I could never fit all the snippets on only eight pencils. This year, I decided to get a quote on two sided printing for a couple pencils. It costs more but decided it's worth it. I chose black pencils and light blue, metallic foil. They arrived Saturday, now I'm gonna watch the movie again just to make sure they’re in the right order. They'll be debuting at CSF and I've received lots of great feedback about them.

I stopped by our new candle collaborators and pals, The Scent Queens Candle Co.. I reached out to Curtis about a month ago and asked if they'd like to revamp my No. 2 pencil candle and if he could offer different vessels. I liked the mercury glass we used previously but they broke too easily. I can't wait to show you our new vessels! They're gorgeous and the revised No. 2 Pencil Candle is perfect. I'll be hustling to get labels on them so they too can debut at CSF. We still have some of the mercury glass candles in the shop and on the website get 'em while you can. 

Mr. Favorite and I went to an estate sale and he found an entire box of cool USPS uniforms. I went through them and found four to purchase. However, when I went to check out, I asked how much for them all. I don't know what possessed me but I wanted them. I'm guessing I will be selling all but the original four I'd chosen. We have a giant neighborhood garage sale in the Spring or maybe I'll bring them to CSF. I'm washing them now and excited to try some on.

Random Randomness...
-We celebrated my friend Adam's birthday with dinner and a some premium beers and dinner at Hopleaf on Saturday night. It was delicious as always but the company was the absolute best! I got to spend the entire evening with five of my favorite humans.
-I finished Parable of the Sower and enjoyed it so much, I immediately tried to listen to the second book, Parable of the Talents only to find out Spotify Premium only allows so many hours of audiobooks per month with your subscription. Who knew? I'll have to wait a couple weeks to listen since Chicago Public Library has a 14 week wait list on Libby.
-I also listened to Heartburn by Nora Ephron (on Libby), it was fun and a quick listen. I liked it. 
-I'm all caught up on Severance and will gladly talk to anyone and everyone about it. In fact, I've watched each episode of this season twice. I'm a little disappointed next week is the finale, I just want the story to keep unfolding. It's that good.

Welp. That's it for week eleven. This coming week is a biggie! I hope to see some of you at Chicago Stationery Fest. I'll be sharing all the highlights next week.