**An Open Letter to Alexis Stewart:
Dear Alexis Stewart,
If you want to be friends with me, just ask. You don’t need to buy all of your Christmas and birthday AND Mother’s Day cards from me.
Friends Forever,
Fran
—
Whew! I’m glad I got that out of the way! Thanks to Mail Chimp, our email-blast campaign was full of success.
Wanna know what Mother’s Day card Martha Stewart is getting in 2016???
I’LL NEVER TELL!!!
Does my IQ have to be higher to understand Sci-Fi films?? 
As the credits rolled for Interstellar, I whispered, to myself, “whaaat???” Maybe I should have taken 100 classes to prep me? All of that technlogy and time-talk made me wish I was working on the new Zeichen Press catalog that Jen so agressively marked-up.
I’LL GET TO IT. As soon as I finish rewatching Mad Men.
And while I’m (not) doing that, The Intern
is gallivanting about in Italy like some sort of hippie. Well, let’s just see if you have a studio to come home to. (OMG, I’M KIDDING. Please come home. And bring us souvenirs.)
“WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??”
~Fran Shea
These cards stopped me right in my (dog) poop-covered tracks:
Let’s be friends, Emily McDowell.
Too needy?
Dinah always makes such a big deal about choosing paper and envelope color for a new release.
First, she has Jen print a card:
And then she does this:
She is such a taskmaster.
Greeting cards would be better if they were huge. And I could wipe my feet on them.
And what better way to spread the Good Word of Zeichen Press than by emblazoning it upon the doormat of every doorstep for every home throughout the land?
High Cotton makes lots of things, for lots of people. And now they will make doormats for us. I mean, for you. They’ll make doormats for you. Designed by us.
…El Nińo. I know I’m supposed to be cursing Climate Change… I KNOW.
But how can I curse when meteorologists are predicting a warmer-than-usual winter??
I must embrace the phenomenon the way a mother embraces her wayward son.
IN OTHER NEWS, Jen and I chose 12 cards for the next release using darts, a cardboard cutout of Steve Buscemi, and our first-aid kit.
Here’s a teaser:
And because I always plan ahead, here’s a new Father’s Day card:
Mawage.
Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam…
According to TMZ, Kanye and Kim just got engaged. (Awww). Kanye rented out a baseball stadium, hired an orchestra to play Kim’s favorite song, got on one knee and presented her with a 15 carat diamond ring.
Is that all?
I think the space shuttle is rentable. So is Lana Del Ray. And so are all of the South African diamond mine workers.
I expect more from Kanye.
I’ll send him this card.
There has been much debate and fury over genetically modified food.
But what about genetically modified children?
WHAT ABOUT THAT??
PS: I wrote this blog post on my iPhone because I despise easy things.
So says Minnesota Monthly.
And my mom.
Jen and I went to the Best Of 2013 party and dazzled the crowd with our Double Dream Hands routine.
Best Greeting Cards?
More like, Best Moves.
When Minnesota Monthly added Zeichen Press to their Best of the Twin Cities list, Jen and I finally polished our tiaras.
And had our likenesses sculpted out of butter.
Delicious.
I think that box was checked on my elementary school progress reports… But who could be bothered with such details??
Not me. NOT ME. And that’s why I secured a blank progress report, checked the best boxes, and brought it to my parents.
See? I wasn’t that easily distracted.
°°
I am busy taking photographs of the new cards
but not too busy to document some pretty fascinating activity:
Aren’t you glad you watched that??
I know I’m supposed to be doing something… Oh, that’s right, putting hungry vegetables on a card.
No??
It’ll come to me after I stare out the window and pet that cat.
His conscience was clear and his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work; when, to his great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table.
Elves!
(Sorry about the spoiler if you haven’t read that Fairy Tale.)
I went to a neurologist and he discovered elves in my occipital lobe and that explains everything!
Every night, I go peaceably to bed, leave all my cares to Heaven, and soon fall asleep but not before I aggressively ruminate on an idea for a new card. While I sleep, the elves get to work and when I wake up, the new card is done!
Thank the elves for this new card:
THANK THEM.
In the spirit of AMC’s award winning dramas, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, comes something written by the devil himself.
With a script scrawled on toilet paper, using a fountain pen filled with raw sewage, Pencil Pusher weaves a tale so dark, so depressing, viewers are advised to swallow two Xanax before viewing.
Meet Ernie Frost: One cog in a massive corporate wheel, one man in one cubicle surrounded by countless other cubicles… Floor upon floor of fabric-covered partitions spread like open prairie.
Deadly open prairie…
Gone are the days of positive incentives and opening the kimono, these are days of the Corporate Gulag.
But Ernie Frost has a plan to end the nightmare…
°°
Phew! Now I won’t have to throw a brick at my t.v. after the last episode of Breaking Bad.
Foraging for low-tide treasure is my third favorite thing to do.
But what are your top two favorite things to do?
Nerf Ping Pong
and smashing pińatas.
What about your top TEN?
Glad you asked.
Cat midwifery,
cracking glow sticks, raising tadpoles, Belgian beer, letterpress printing, Breaking Bad,
and yoga (just kidding). Number ten is turtle-hunting.
I know what you’re thinking.
What a lady!
Whoa. WHOA. Hands off the merchandise.
Remember when I was talking about low-tide?
Here’s a card that features one of my favorite low-tide critters.
Wouldn’t you love to get this card with a nice bottle of wine??
And by “you”, I mean “I”.
Everyone knows that St. Helena has The Best Fall Festival, this side of the Mississippi.
I did hear that Nativity in St. Paul has a snake pit and a freak-show…
But Saint Helena has rides and games and prizes prizes like t-shirts that Jen and I made for the Duck Shoot!
Yeehaw!!
Give a kid a cork gun, step back (STEP BACK), and watch the magic!
Jen is DUCKing.
After spending $80,000 on climbing gear and an entourage of Sherpas in Nepal,
I’m sure it was glorious.
The relief, the pride, the joy!
BUT, she forgot one teeny-tiny thing: enough oxygen for her descent. With temperatures hovering around -30° and an altitude of 22,000 ft., she laid her body down on the side of the mountain.
And died.
Lesson??
Never trust a Sherpa.
Zeichen Press reached a summit too! We’ve been climbing Mount Greeting Card for a looong time and we finally reached the tippity-top: Urban Outfitters.
…But now I’ll have to set a new goal… Suggestions?
Urban Outfitters bought this card but just to be fancy, it will be printed with a bright blue ink:
Let’s do this, indeed.