My cards express all of the feelings for Mother’s Day.
Done.







The weather is (finally) nice and that means the shop is open!
Like, LITERALLY, open.
I observed Jen scurrying about (just like the mice we had to poison last year) while I took photos of The New Cards. Here’s a teaser:
I won’t even speak of the weather BECAUSE IT’S UNSPEAKABLE.
You can’t break me, Weather.
You’ll never break me.
Everyone knows that the only cure for the cold is wood type. And alcohol. 
Jen and I have been having a debate about the next birthday card. And by debate, I mean she is, like, “I don’t care.” Doesn’t she know the dangers of Not Caring??
ANYWAY, here’s the card. BTW, that’s a vulture, waiting for you to die.

Whew! This birthday was a doozy!
Yes, we played 221B Baker Street.
YES, we ate ham & swiss sandwiches.
Here’s a new birthday card… that girl and pig look familiar…
Oh, another Spring is here!
Should I have photographically documented the first card printed for our Spring Release?
Probably.
But I was pretty busy having a Nurse Jackie marathon.
I DID write/design these:
See how I give and give and give??
Growing up one block South of Lake Calhoun in the 1970’s meant two things:
1) Over-charging for watered-down Kool-Aid on the boulevard
2) Wearing a neighbor’s pilly-bottomed blue leotard for a swimsuit
Like little ducklings, we’d follow my mom down the block for a day at Thomas Beach; she’d stand ankle-deep in the water, hands on hips, plotting. And staring at the only skyscraper in the Minneapolis skyline.
Thank you, Religion News Service, for appreciating the ho-ho-Holiday-humdrum-hole-filling.
And thank you, Dinah the Cat, for understanding the true meaning of Christmas.
And you’re right, you should be in the new Christmas card.
The No Coast Craft-O-Rama is TODAY and tomorrow (December 4th and 5th) and Jen has been feverishly printing in preparation.
She must have been too busy to notice my new woodpile!
Come see all of the Holiday Goodies at the Midtown Global Market today Jen will be giving out free hugs with every purchase!
Once Upon A Time, my sister got the stomach flu so bad. Poor thing… up in the middle of the night… every bit of food evacuating her body post-haste. Who knew the colon could churn and transform loose stool into clear liquid? Well, my brother found out when he sleep-stumbled into the bathroom and slipped and skated on the translucent trots that never made it into the toilet-bowl.
See? Analogy. Our gratitude just pours out of us! It’s almost like a medical condition.
To “give back”, we are hosting Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade!
Tune in!
**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: