week twelve - 2025

What a whirlwind. I'm exhausted and have so much to share but don't have enough energy to take photos and am so tired, I'm having problems forming sentences. So let's make this short and sweet this week.

Patty Wetli and Nicole Cardos with WTTW stopped by to interview me about the "upswing in interest for all things stationery". We had a lovely conversation and somehow spent two hours talking and photographing stationery. It'll be a digital article with video for their website and social media. I'll let y'all know when it's live, most likely in mid April. 

The rest of the week, I was prepping for Chicago Stationery Fest. I prefer to have all my projects wrapped up early on show weeks but every single thing felt last minute for me this show. Which is just as stressful as it sounds. The entire week I was printing, cutting, scoring and gathering, hours later than my usual end of day. On Thursday I was designing labels for our new candle vessels. Friday, the day of CSF set up, I was diecutting our limited edition CSF tags and designing our new Blue Brothers Pencil Set labels. Not ideal. But that's what happened. It was a lot. 

I set up for CSF on Friday, all went well and I was excited to be next to my most favorite letterpress artist, Jen Farrell of Starshaped Press. If you don't know Jen's work, look it up. She's been creating letterpress magic for 25 years. She works with original wood and metal type. She worked her magic creating the cover for CSF guide and limited edition print, she brought the form to the fest so people could see what goes into her work. It's very detailed oriented work, she's a true craftwoman, taking old printer's ornaments, frames and glyphs and re-imagines them from their original purpose to create art. You can see this on the print, how she used ornaments to create a fountain pen. I tell you, it's magic! If you love her work as much as I do, or even just a fraction as much, you should join her Print Club. Every month you get a bundle of letterpress greatness. I love it and think you will too! 

The fest was crazy busy on Saturday until about 4pm. I was so impressed with the customers. People were there to shop. It was nonstop and the best two day show I've ever had. I brought my Kelsey tabletop press and had guests letterpress print a lil keepsake. We pulled hundreds of prints this weekend. I'm so thankful for Liz who was my letterpress printer for the weekend. Jen, Liz and I, had a great time being booth neighbors at the fest. I haven't had a proper hang out with Jen in a long time, our Chicago Stationery Fest weekend made up for it. I also got to meet several Stationery friends who I've only messaged with online. It was so nice to put the name with the face and get to know them a little in person. Also, I shopped! Like a lot. The vendors and products were great. Since I did my shopping on Sunday, I think I'll save my treasures to show you next week. I really enjoyed Chicago Stationery Fest! I'm hoping next year is even bigger and better. I'm thankful Paper + Pencil asked us to be a part of it. They hosted an epic event, built community and brought lots of stationery lovers and makers to our beautiful city. Keep an eye out, I'll pass along CSF updates when I get them. 

Random, Randomness...
-Freak & Skeeks finished our Skeeball season in 8th place. We just made the cut off for playoffs, we played the 1st place team and lost. Womp, womp. It was a fun season, as always. The big finale was Sunday. I, of course, was at CSF but my teammates joined the festivities.
-I listened to Octavia E. Butler's Kindred, it was heartbreaking and I loved it, then hated it, then loved it again. 

That's all I got. Thanks for following along!