As is custom in our culture, piñatas will be stuffed with liver sausage!
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Blog Post Meridiem
Nighttime is just like daytime but with fewer socks and more Professor Blastoff.
Who is Professor Blastoff??
Professor Blastoff is a podcast/my gateway to dreamland. Not because it’s boring! Shut your pretty mouth. But because these three comedians lull me me to sleep with their soothing silliness. How can silliness be soothing?? Just listen to it and quit judging me.
Speaking of professors, a(n) (assistant) professor (Alicia Erian) at Northeastern University (Department of English and Tomfoolery) took such a shine to Zeichen Press that she is our new (virtual) intern! Responsibilities include (but aren’t limited to): Telling me how awesome I am.
She didn’t love this next card but I still love her.
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How two women spun straw into gold at the No Coast Craft-o-Rama
In this story, the ‘straw’ is paper-and-ink and the ‘gold’ is a cash box full of cash.
If only mortgage companies and grocery stores accepted hugs and back rubs in exchange for their products and services! Alas, they do not, and so we are forced to peddle our wares.
Normally, shops around the WORLD (that’s right) peddle our goods for us, but once a year, we come out of hiding, and on horseback, to peddle our own goods at the beloved No Coast Craft-o-Rama.Is it because we love laughter and the spirit of the Holiday Season? Or is it because we love money?
Oh, the reformed Scrooge inside of me says it’s not about the money. IT’S NOT.
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See You There!
Where?
AT THE MIDTOWN GLOBAL MARKET FOR THE NO COAST CRAFT-O-RAMA!!
Directions:
1) Put on all of your clothes and coats.
2) Hitch sled-dogs to sled.
3) MUSH!!
4) Do ALL of your Holiday shopping. And eating.
Is there a better way to embrace the Holiday season??
NO.
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Halls (Of The Midtown Global Market) Will Be Decked With Such Goodness
There is always SO MUCH TO DO this time of year! Jen has to print and fold about a million cards and I have to sit still so my daughter can do my nails.
Yes, those are adorable pandas. And yes, that is stigmata.The No Coast Craft-o-Rama has an amazing line up this year (as usual), there is Miss Amy Jo, Adam Turman, glass|wares, Cosmo’s Collars, Moss Love Terrariums, Oh Dier, Soup Hunter Guitars, and… so… much… MORE!!
SO, bring your money and your eyeballs and get ready to check everyone off your Christmas list! AND send a belated Chanukah card (is that a thing??)
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Eight Days of Thanksgiving
Postable asked me to create a card that celebrates a very rare occurrence: Thanksgiving and Hanukkah falling on the same day. I don’t know much about the Jewish Faith but I think that means eight days of leftovers.
This mash-up won’t happen again for another 77,000 years.It’s true.
In other news… Jen and I will celebrate Thanksgiving the way we always do: in period costume. Twist: Jen will be dunked in the dunking chair until she confesses to being a witch.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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All Apologies
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a single greeting card that could wrap up your feelings of culpability completely? Sometimes saying your sorry just doesn’t seem like enough. Sure, you could show the offended party your remorse, but that can take up a lot of time (and energy!). I’ve put a sizable amount of thought into this issue and believe I’ve come up with a solution that will satisfy both parties.
I give you, The Apology Card:
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CRIKEY
At my ballroom dancing school, I was a hesitant, awkward girl. I wore glasses and oversized t-shirts.
My papa, and my entire Spanish gypsy family, were skilled in the ways of dance but it was hard for me to incorporate my roots into ballroom dancing.
How did I do it? As luck would have it, the handsome star of our dance school agreed to start practicing with me. Pretty soon he was wearing a matador jacket and I didn’t even need my glasses.
Speaking of Australia! Zeichen Press just got an Australian distributor!
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Clichés and Slogans
Are non-Western cultures conversations peppered with trite, colloquial sayings?
Like, in Kapushi, Zambia (population: 26 people per mile) — does one friend say to another (in Kaonde) upon receiving news that their baby was trampled by antelope, “Everything happens for a reason”?
These condensed and optimistic phrases are woven into our chats and unless you are a hermit or deaf, we are all guaranteed to hear at least one per day.
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Man Up
Sometimes a man’s manliness must be recognized. Manly is a term often reserved for a lumberjack, firefighter, or bounty-hunter. A narrow and unfortunate caricature. Why not a goatherd? Or glass-blower? Or gemologist?
Anyman* that strides confidently into their chosen arena (office, field, arcade, classroom, rubber raft, bowling alley, butcher shop, grist mill) and owns it is, in my opinion, a beast.
Give them this small token: (They will grunt, nod, excuse themselves, and go into the bathroom to shed a single tear.)
*Did I make that up?
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I Don’t Understand You
I’m talking about leap day. Don’t even bother trying to explain it to me, I don’t actually care. The important thing is that I milked one more day out of this prudish month.
Zeichen Press would be nothing without self-imposed deadlines (and cake) and our card-release was set for March 1.
It was a real pressure-cooker situation around here — and because I don’t have enough intensity in my life, I locked myself in the linen closet and reenacted Apollo 13’s return journey. Just me, my laptop, both cats, and toilet paper tubes. We got home safely, God Bless America.
Anyway, we can thank the ground crew (Kim & Fred) for jury-rigging up product photos:
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Mister Eat All The Things OR Three Acres And A Cow
There once was a Frenchman that could, and would, eat large objects. He ate them bit by bit and was able to digest bicycles, televisions, shopping carts, chandeliers, and even an airplane. This took patience and, reportedly, gallons of mineral oil.
Bit by bit.
This wasn’t some sort of performance art piece — he never meant for it to be a metaphor.
But he ate a plane.
Such deliberateness! I like to imagine that he carefully considered each piece as he pried it off and swallowed it.
Mister Eat All The Things (Monsieur Mangetout) could be an inspiring mascot for an economic philosophy.
I’ve been told that a printing press in the shop is just as good as three acres and a cow. We’ll see. WE’LL SEE.
Anyway, I made this card for the president of The Society of Distributism because he has a fancy book signing coming up — 150 lucky people will receive the card. Oh, and a signed book.
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Using Big Words
The Epilepsy Foundation needed a new look for their fleet of trucks and The Carney Group contacted me (via telepathy) to see if my brain was available to think of ideas. I’m not just a brain. Geez.
I rescheduled my ice-pick lobotomy and put on my thinking cap.
What if the trucks were bright red and had big white letters with a line like, THIS TRUCK CONTAINS TWO TONS OF HOPE??
Yes?
Okay.
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American Psychiatric Association Adds Clown Phobia to list of Disorders: Clown Uprising Imminent
Do I have to write the script myself? The script that tells the tale of an experiment gone horribly wrong — a pharmaceutical company hot on the heals of developing a drug that ends all pain and suffering forever??
The drug, nicknamed “Bozo” does so well in animal testing… So well, in fact, it is released to the general population of prison inmates.
Death row no longer feels like a death sentence, cold concrete cells feel like a day spa, “relationships” feel special.
Until… The unexpected “side effects” begin to develop… Oh, it’s too sick. Just imagine a zombie movie but replace the zombies with clowns.
Here’s a birthday card:
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When Good Kittens Go Bad
Some kittens are sociopathic — everyone knows that. Do not be fooled by their charm! Beneath that furry, purring coat lies a circuit board of complex manipulation.
I’ve heard some successful rehabilitation stories but if you, or someone you know, lives with one of these creatures, it might be better to abandon it on the side of a highway.
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Mawkish
[maw-kish] adjective sentimental in a feeble or sickly way • archaic having a faint sickly flavor : the mawkish smell of warm beer
I don’t think I understand the definition. Or, maybe I do. Aren’t a lot of greeting cards mawkish?
Who would give that card? Wait, who made that card? Probably a very nice person. A person who loves hearts and roses and rhymes and sparkles.
I tried to make a mawkish card.
That’s Hugh Beaumont, the kindly father from Leave it to Beaver.
Hugh hated that he was typecast and later opened a Christmas tree farm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. I don’t think he opened the Christmas tree farm because he hated that he was typecast. But I don’t know – he was obviously a complicated man.