hello again.

Dear Etsy,

In the past year we've been through a lot together. Last year you got me through Christmas while I was planning my trip out to Portland, Oregon. It took a lot of work, some projects taking off (!) while others floundered. Ups and downs were pretty drastic those last few months of having my shop open, when you were my only form of income, though I learned quite a bit about myself through those hard times.

After the move we fell out of touch for a while... I was preoccupied with my new nephews and finding my way here in a new city. You, for your part, were on Martha Stewart like a zillion times, got a new president of the company, and now when I mention "Etsy" to people- sometimes folks actually know what I'm talking about! Look at you go! I was delighted to hear you're even underwriting in NPR as I was on my way to work last week! It got me thinking of how much I've missed you.

Thank goodness I had the presence of mind to carefully pack my Etsy supplies with priority during the move. I was nervous opening those boxes again... would I still like the work?... I'm grateful for my friends cheering me on through all those nervous moments of reassessing what it is to have an online business.

I just wanted to let you know how incredible it is to be with you again. Both of us have been through a lot of changes and seem to be so much the better for it. Its amazing to me that here we are again, meeting up almost exactly a year later, looking forward to another holiday season together. The moment I listed my first item again all those loving feelings came flooding back, the excitement of putting neat little doodles out into the world, and especially the comfort of being a part of this community.

All my love,
Laurie

Monkey Makes Friends

At long last those Little Monkey gift tags finally have company! I may have already said that I have some larger Gocco projects on the burner, until I can get those together it was really satisfying to have time (and tags) to do a large run of smaller images.

Here is the Gocco printer while I was taking a break between print runs. This latest screen has a whopping total of 5 designs on it (!!!) as well as fancy new labels for the Moleskines and large cards. It was really exciting to try out some of the treasure trove of new colors, I had to really hold myself back from possibly wrecking a screen by switching colors around between sets.

This image is already a note card set, laser printed, in the shop and one of my favorite recent designs. I couldn't wait to see it with some delicious ink. I was so happy with this deep forest green on the white tags, that I printed a few Moleskines, too! There are some Gocco printed cards as well, but they are not in the shop yet.

These two were drawn in hopes to get into the shop for Christmas, but were lost in my stack of papers and never got scanned. Stumbling on them the other day when the Gocco screens came in, I excitedly went about photocopying until they were sized right then making minor changes to their clothes and hair.

Our Gocco is the bigger model, so though it can give you beautiful fine lines you must be careful with blocks of color being too thick. I tried the pink and avocado green inks, perfect compliments to each other, and they look so good on the white card stock of these large tags. The pink ink has a surprisingly pearlescent quality, increasing my curiosity about the other new colors! I haven't figured out what else to do with these two, but for now I am giddily enamored by the results of this latest printmaking project.

Last, I am still in the very beginning of this one, but a great way to kick off the New Year would be to pick up a copy of Michael Pollan's new book In Defense of Food. I was luckily home last week for this interview with Pollan by Marty Moss-Coane of Radio Times, and was stuck to the radio until it ended. Celeste also heard the interview, and picked up the book the other night.

Take some time and give his interview a listen (if my link won't work, here: http://www.whyy.org/tv12/radiotimestv.html)
It really was a very comforting perspective around food and eating in the midst of such issues as obesity, diabetes, and even poverty regarding the Western diet. The interview is terrific, and now that I am reading the book, I am transfixed and delighted page after page.