week fourteen - 2025

Welp. We made it through March. April is National Card and Letter Writing Month. Last week, I took advantage of our Letter Writing Meet Up and wrote four letters. It was delightful. We had two of our usual patrons and two new to the meet up guests. It was a nice intimate group and we sent a good amount of warm fuzzies into this world. If you’re looking for a simple way to celebrate Letter Writing Month, we can help! We’ve got lots of cards or letter writing sets in store.

Last week was also filled with custom design work and printing mostly Mother’s Day. I also stressed a lot about tariffs. What a strange time to have a small business in America. It’s starting to feel like our own government is deliberately trying to destroy us by a million little paper cuts. If you aren’t aware, most stationery isn’t made in America and has never been. The majority of paper products come from Japan and China. While many believe products created overseas are a bad thing, let me ask you to take a moment and research where that smartphone you depend on so much came from. Or your computer. Or that pen you’re writing with. Or even all those random parts in your car that is assembled here. The USA isn’t self sufficient. Last I checked we didn’t have coffee farms or fields upon fields of olive trees to create oil or a million other products we use daily. Most modern day countries are not self sufficient. This is why we have trade agreements. We’ll share our soybeans and corn and wheat with you if we can purchase coffee and pens and cars from you without being penalized. There is nothing wrong with relying on your neighbors to create products we don’t have the infrastructure or workforce to create. So yeah, I have rising concerns about my lil business and keeping products affordable. This past week I learned washi tape machinery is gigantic, like tens of thousands of square feet. Where in the states would we use up land for a machine like that? And the bigger question, who would run it?  Someone who would accept minimum wage to work in a windowless building, standing on their feet for eight hours and has the ability to maintain equipment that’s not even made here. Good luck with that. At the moment our little shop is stocked with products printed in Japan, China and Taiwan. As things start selling we may or may not reorder. We’ll just have to see. Tariffs and brokerage fees from shipping companies will be adding 25-60% costs to these items. Sadly, my budget hasn’t magically risen 25-60%. We will of course keep printing our greeting cards and maybe even try to branch out to letter writing sets. In the meantime, if you’ve had your eye on any of our super cute Japanese letter sets, now is the time to buy. 

Personally I had a busy and fun week last week with a Sunday visit to Superdawg, happy hour with friends at our neighborhood bar, date night at Shaw’s Crab House with the Mr. & a cubs game. It was all very fun!

• I finally finished my book Wonder by R.J. Palacio, it was sweet. A quick read with a great overall theme of kindness. If you're in the mood for short and sweet, this is it!
• Listened to Emily Henry’s Happy Place if you know you know… same formula as usual, will they-won't they. It was fun.
• Listened to Indivisible by Daniel Aleman and wow. It’s a YA fiction but has a lot of heartbreaking themes that many kids deal with. Undocumented parents, being a citizen with no real guardian, becoming a caregiver to a sibling when parents are detained. Give it a read or listen, it’s a tough subject but an important and timely one. 

That covers it. I hope you can take a moment and celebrate Letter Writing month, it's amazing how a little note can make someone's day.