Anthology

for the grads

This weekend kicks off graduation season - UW graduation is followed in a month or so by the area high school graduations.  This year I happen to have an invitation to a college graduation party and am expecting one for a high school graduation party, so I'm especially spending time thinking back on those moments in my own life.  Also, in the case of the high school graduation, feeling slightly panicky about the quick passage of time (that high school grad remains 4 years-old in my mind... which means that the current 4 year-old Lily will be graduating from high school any minute now.  Well, more than a decade from now, but I bet it will go fast).

 

I installed the window on Sunday evening - a little less lead-up time than usual, but there was Mother's Day to contend with.  The overall theme centers around the "Midwest is Best" t-shirt, with an assortment of vintage travel images from around the Midwest, our t-shirts and other prints, mixed in with graduation and going-away cards and sentiments.

I was also at another store recently and overheard a conversation of a customer looking for a graduation present.  It just made me fall back on my usual product brainstorming, and in case anyone else needs suggestions, here's our list:

1. a card (perhaps with some cash?  I imagine in the high school and college student world, cash is still king).

 

2. Journals and books.  Specifically, ones to carry with them, or carry them into, the next phase of life.  We like Taschen's 36 hours with its great sampling of places to go and things to do on this continent.  We also have a great collection of blank, or nearly blank, journals, including many repurposed book journals.  We always like to hear people find titles they remember from their childhood.  Today a new batch of journals arrived with really lovely decorated interior pages.  I personally am always stumped by a totally blank white page, so I feel like these would be more fun to start writing in.

 

on a related note, in the line of things to carry with them: passport cases & business card holders (repurposed from old maps) and cases for iPads (cleverly repurposed from flannel shirts).

 

 

3. Words of wisdom.  We have several, mostly in print form.  The Holstee Manifesto, I think, is really awesome.  I came into those wisdoms on my own (perhaps that's the way everyone has to do it), but it seems to be that it would be nice if I had those words to think upon.  We also have prints with other inspiring words; the "keep calm" series continues to be popular but we also like the letterpress and linocuts made by indie artists.  We also have great earrings with inspiring words.  The Curly Girl cards also have great messages: "She packed up her potential and all she had learned, grabbed a cute pair of shoes and headed out to change a few things," and the popular, "I am fairly certain that given a cape and a nice tiara, I could save the world."

4. Mementos.  Just a little something to remind the people who are leaving that home (and you) are always here, or a token reminder of good times spent in Madison.  We have an assortment of Madison and Wisconsin prints, necklaces of bamboo or silver in the shape of the state with a cut-out heart by Madison, coasters with Madison maps, the popular Midwest is Best t-shirt (as well as the "WIse, WItty, WIld" Wisconsin and "Easy, Breezy, Beerzy, Cheesy.")  Sachi made a batch of Madison photo snippets and I just discovered a stash of my own snippets in the cupboard (so I knocked that chore off my list this week).

I've been working on a Blurb book for the high school graduation present, reviewing quotations and wisdoms that I found useful in the years between then and now.  I managed to find a letter that I wrote to the grad about ten years ago, with memories of times we'd spent together, so I'm using that for a springboard, as well as looking on Pinterest for words of inspiration.

I think my current favorite is: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman

Badger/Weasel Recall Walker print

Oh, how exciting!  I have to tell you that my control over what other people do is rather limited. Specifically, when I tell an artist that perhaps we could use more of a particular item, I am met with mixed results. To be fair, when I tell myself that I need to make more of a particular item, I am also met with mixed results.

So I am especially pleased that my request was answered so quickly.  Twice this week, customers called up asking for our Badger/Weasel print.  Unfortunately we sold out of this a while ago.  However.... ta da!  More just arrived today!

Holstee Manifesto and other new arrivals

Whew... This month has been off to a busy start.  Generally, May marks the pick-up of the retail busy season: Mother's Day, Graduation, wedding season, tourist season.  The school year is coming to an end (= teacher's gifts), the weather is warming up (= more people walking on State Street).  Not to mention matters electoral ( = a quick trip to the copy shop to make buttons following the results of Tuesday's election.  Yay for Barrett!).

That said, particularly with March's warm weather, it wasn't exactly a quiet late winter/early spring.  Luckily we have a new part-timer so I'm starting to feel less overwhelmed.

I've been away from my house, cat-sitting and also out at Valley Ridge, so the result is that I've been a little off-routine.  And my house really needs cleaning.  Not to mention the various projects that have been on hold for a few weeks.  Let's just say that snippets of blue skies and cats do not mix (I didn't even bother bringing them over to the house; Why do cats always have to sit in the middle of whatever you are working on?).  And the new project ideas that are buzzing around in my head courtest of Valley Ridge.

Meanwhile, at the shop, the new arrivals continue to come in.  I've been enjoying the response to the Mother's Day print that I made. I'm pretty excited to have the Holstee Manifesto in letterpress poster form.  I've been inspired lately to see all the ways that young people are taking on the world.  There's a lot of creativity and motivation, and energy... and I feel a great sense of optimism for people making mindful choices of how they are going to make their way in the world.

I could have used these words five years ago, but I did have them in other forms - inspiring quotations that I've collected over the years, the words of Brian Andreas.. .  Which brings me to the latest idea that just occurred to me last night.  I learned a few days ago that I'll be invited to a high school graduation party and have since been racking my brain for a present.  I know, cash is king, right?  Except I am a stuff person, and I also have a few treasures from my graduation....  Is it too much to want to give someone a treasure?  Well, that might be setting the bar rather high but at least I can wrap up a little token and, yes, put some cash in there too.  So I'm thinking about a personalized Blurb book, a combination of quotations and text, inspirations, memories, photographs and space for journaling.  I used to babysit this young woman and her brother - and they remain perpetually 2- and 4- years-old in my mind.  Sigh. So I will distract myself from the slight sadness of time going quickly with a project that has to be finished in two weeks if I'm going to get it printed in time for the party.  Nothing like a new project AND a deadline.

Meanwhile, at the shop, the unpacking continues.  The Midwest is Best shirt remains a popular present, and we also have "easy breezy beerzy cheesy" for those who need a reminder.  We also have restocked the i {heart} Madison prints, and the bamboo necklaces in the shape of Wisconsin are on their way  (If you really want to keep up to date on new arrivals, it might be best to connect with us on Facebook - I tend to post pictures there more regularly, though eventually they find their way to a blog post here).

Besides the new Barrett buttons, we now have the CD from the Solidarity Sing-a-long.

 And the rubber stamp drawers have been restocked with new images and text.

 

 

And I know this seems like a rather trivial thing, but we got a new card spinner.  All of our other card spinners have been hand-me-downs so I was balking at spending money, even though it is a very small price which easily pays for itself in increased visibility and sales of cards. Anyway, it's nice to be able to display our collection a little more.

We also received more lovely enamels from Duluth.  I love these pieces so much.  I always go overbudget - and this only represents about 10% of what she sends us to pick from.  Still, I'm looking forward to making some new earrings and necklaces. 

window for our Mothers

I can't believe we are coming up on Mother's Day of 2012 and I am feeling like the battles being fought are from decades ago.  It's rather aggravating, to say the least.

But GOP politicians are not the only culprits.  I was reading something recently about the "mommy wars," as well as a blog of a teacher with a "mean girls" situation in her classroom, and also revisiting my own post about the customer who yelled at me, and thinking about the times that I make (or at least think) snide things about other women.  I think much of it comes from our insecurities and pains and angers, examples yet again of how we misdirect our energies.

But particularly in light of the current political climate, it seems like women should not be consumed with petty grievances and judgments over who is a better parent, which is a better career choice - I doubt we ever fully know the choices that a person has to make, the things they give up, the things they keep - isn't it enough that we just make our way in the world with our own idea of success?  We need a little more solidarity, I'm thinking.  All right, I know, that's easier said than done, because a part of me is still judging that customer who yelled at me, but anyway, it's something to work towards.

With that in mind, I made my Mother's day print - first just as a sign for the window, but now printed in quantity for purchase.  I could have spent another week agonizing over word choice, looking things up in the dictionary and thesaurus and even though I basically wrote it in a day, I decided that it really did say what I wanted it to say, and there is such a thing as overthinking, so I quickly sent it off to the printer before I could change my mind.

It is partly an external response to the way women's power is being attacked.  In all honesty, not to diminish the severity of recent legislation, but I kind of view this as the death throes of an era - women are earning more money, younger generations think gay marriage is fine, the country is becoming more diverse, there is more interracial mixing... you can't tell me this doesn't terrify certain people.  And their response? To try and legislate or otherwise force the world to stay the way they want it to?  It isn't going to work.  I know for darn sure that I'm never going to be a stay-at-home mom and the apron and pearls are pretty much just for show.  Why should there be a single role for a woman to fill? why can't we have as much say in our own lives as men do in theirs?  (I want to be very clear here that I am not criticizing the choice to be a stay-at-home mom, it is just not my choice.  I think the whole point of the feminist movement is for women to be able to create their own lives and while it is entirely true that I might not make such a choice myself, that doesn't mean it is not as valid.  My only concern for any woman is that she is following the path of her life that is of her choosing, knowing all of her options, and being true more to her own self than to the expectations of others.  But everyone is different so everyone's path will no doubt be different).

But the people who wish that women's lives were the way they were in the 1950s certainly aren't stopping from trying to make that so, are they?  So, the sign is, in part, externally focused, hoping to remind people that, hey, women in their lives are doing great things, they are your equal in as much as any human being is your equal.  Quit behaving as if they need you to direct their life (or supporting, or keeping silent about, other peoples' such behavior).

But this is also meant to be an internal document as well.  A personal reminder of the women that we each have in our lives, of their influence, and an... exhortation... to be as much in return, or to pay as much forward to other women in your life.
And yes, I managed to have some pretty and flowery elements of the window, too.  It is possible that I've never hung the washi paper in the window... but it sure is lovely.  I had specifically ordered some bird and flower prints on antique book pages for the window.  They are from an artist in Texas who recently lost her mother, so it seems especially poignant that they are in the Mother's day window.  The prints looked so lovely against the washi paper that I bypassed my usual jumbled window and just left those two elements together.  I love the way the colors play off each other.  I had this grand idea of some sort of Anthropologie paper extravaganza - but there's a reason those windows always look so great - very time and labor intensive... and I just petered out.  Maybe someday.

I love our assortment of Mother's Day cards.  I'm reminded of our first year in business - we had only been open a few months when Mother's Day came along and we totally ran out of cards.  I was scrounging through my own collection, pulling out flowery and thank you cards that could serve the purpose.  We have more to choose from this year.  Oh, yes, in case you didn't know, Mother's day is May 13th.  It'll be here before you know it.

The other project for the week has been an expansion of our protest bracelets.  We first started making bracelets because customers kept asking about them.  I make them in small batches and keep thinking that sales will start to slow but they really haven't.  And now, with the new emphasis on women's issues, it seemed like a new variation was needed.  Happily, I managed to get Sachi's panty protest pins sized down so she could make a protest bracelet, and I've also added a few such images (as well as "voting is sexy") to a new set of protest bracelets.

And now, I think, it is safe for me to leave town for a few days.  I'll be out at a workshop at Valley Ridge Art Studio so I will be without phone and internet for a little while.  But I can't wait to report back next week with my creations and inspirations!

new arrivals for the week, or thereabouts

We're still waiting on some more octopus ties, but the new arrivals continued with just a few stragglers from the San Francisco Gift show, restocking by our local artists, and some new finds.

From Madison and Wisconsin artists: typewriter onesies, coasters, t-shirts, notecards

 

From indie artists and small workshops around the country: the sarcastic bird magnets, clever and detailed prints from Brooklyn, Madison map coasters on squares of marble

 

 

For artists: more colors of baker's twine and washi tape, journals, mini colored pencils, stickers

 

For the next round of special events (the Film Festival, Mother's Day, Graduation): vintage movie posters, Mother's Day cards, nest necklaces, and a great new book for the women graduating and moving to the City.

new arrivals and other notes

Today's weather feels more like March than March did with its record highs, but we've been enjoying a lovely spring all in all.  The blooming trees and acid green of new leaves is very picturesque.  I've been to the UW Arboretum a few times - and my mind is whirling a bit with ideas of color combinations in different shades of petals and buds.

April 1 has been and gone, which means that most of the orders placed in San Francisco should be on their way.  There are still a few purchase orders left but last week was busy with new arrivals.  These lovely necklaces, and accompanying earrings, are from a small studio in Canada.  We love their simple and elegant shapes.

Our artists have also been busy.  We got a delivery from Mindy in Oshkosh, from Naomi in Madison, from Lori in Kimberly (WI), from Andrew in Minneapolis, : stamped bracelets, storybook coasters, "WI proud" print, letterpress prints with inspiring messages, yo-yo hair clips...

And more "Midwest is Best" shirts, just in time for the springtime flying of the nest of high school and college graduates. 

The paper department got a nice boost with pocket notebooks from Japan ("Most advanced quality gives best writing features"), silly animal post-it notes, colorful notebooks and sketchbooks, stickers...

We also received more of the popular "Keep Calm" prints.  I like the twist on "keep calm and carry on" - somehow "keep calm and craft on" suits me much better and feels more active.  The "teach on" and "ride on" prints are particularly popular as gifts.

In a few weeks, the Wisconsin Film Festival will be underway.  Sachi installed a film-themed window, but we also had a customer come in and make buttons.  As soon as we saw their ad, we thought about buttons - the circles are almost exactly the right size for buttons.

And, of course, we are still making buttons.  Sachi found a fun old Barrett picture, though we are still on the fence about a specific candidate.  Her series of panty pins have been very popular.  In cleaning out the office, I came across some old Wilton cake decorating books and was inspired to make this set.

The weekend after the film festival is my workshop at Valley Ridge Art Studio so I'm mostly just brainstorming in preparation for that - as usual, gathering many more supplies and ideas and patterns than a person can do in the three days that I'm out there, but the anticipation is always fun.

projects & products

(That's right, the terrarium theme continues.  We couldn't resist these cute mini terrariums, just add your own soil and plants).

Truthfully, this week was a little bit more like a typical March week, which a retail friend calls the "dead month."  Usually, the whole month is pretty quiet - the weather hasn't yet warmed up, we've finished up our year-end tasks and are in limbo awaiting the start of a busier sales season.  So, to be fair, I can't really complain, because our unseasonably warm weather has been really good for sales (we are really really close to meeting last year's March sales, which is a minor miracle considering the thousands of buttons we sold last March).  This week has been a little quieter.  Some schools are on spring break so we're getting our fair share of people who are "just browsing."  Of course, some of that browsing has turned into good sales, so it has been a strange mix of long lulls followed by short bursts of business.  Retail is such a strange creature, really.

But I do love it.  There are any number of projects that I should have been working on.  I do have some restocking of my own work yet to do... but it's more fun to nag other people...  Sachi started a new batch of Madison snippets and I started making some scrap paper packs, which are popular for card-making and collaging. 

The new arrivals have continued, and I have to remind myself that there are several orders with April 1 ship dates so there's still more to come.  Sadly, the box that was delivered today, despite the printing on the outside, was not peanut butter cups.  However, it was filled with fun party favors: reusable felt crowns (which I personally think would be SO fun to embellish with little fabric flowers and whatnots), felt balls to make into garlands and surprise balls.

The other disappointment this week is that when I opened up our box of "Midwest is Best" t-shirts, I was greeted by a bunch of shirts with the state of Missouri on them.  Yeah, not ours.  I had to send them back, but hopefully our horder will arrive soon.  We are continuing to build up our Wisconsin collection.  We received cut-out necklaces in colorful acrylic, bamboo, and also silver.

Our "WI Proud" print should be comnig in shortly but we also added this one to the collection, made here in Madison.

 
Today we received these amazing steampunk tarot cards.  The detail is pretty amazing and I just had to get them.  If you're not ready for a full deck, there are notecards as well as fun paper dolls made by the same artist.

Also ordered in San Francisco, these gorgeous jewelry pieces that are made in Brooklyn.  The detail on them is really exquisite - they are mostly repurposed from vintage beads and other trinkets.


And in other repurposed news, a huge box of these journals arrived, including the very popular, and rare, Nancy Drew journals.  Each journal is mostly blank pages but has a few pages from the original book.  It's always fun to see what book grabs a person and elicits a childhood memory.  (Personally, I was more of a Trixie Belden reader than a Nancy Drew reader).

And then, last but not at all least, today we received more bright fabric hair clips and bows from Michelle in Appleton.  As usual, I sold some as soon as I unpacked them.



The weather might be back closer to March temperatures but the trees are all blooming and the store is filling up with new goodies.  It definitely feels like spring!

arrivals for the week

We're making our way through our list of San Francisco orders and post-Christmas restocking, though there are still a batch set for April 1 ship dates.  And I still need to thorougly review current and potential consignees.  Nonetheless, it has been a fun week with arrivals daily.

Our popular Constellation map wrapping paper is back, along with a new Paris map, and new Chicago and Minnesota maps.  I am most excited about the latter two because I've been pestering the map guy for a Wisconsin and/or Great Lakes sheet of map wrap and I feel optimistic that I'm moving closer to my goal.  Hopefully he will see how popular the MN map is and realize that there is money to be made with Midwesterners.  Well, a girl can hope.

I am gathering an assortment of Midwestern items for our May/June graduation window - for everyone going out into the world, a little piece of home to take with them.  And we're also building up our collection for the summer tourist season - postcards with vintage Wisconsin/Madison images, WI proud (and also standing strong) prints, and Sachi's Madison baby onesie, which we just reprinted.

We've also been restocking and adding to our jewelry collection - some from within Wisconsin, some vintage remixes, some West Coast indie artist works, and some restocking of Sachi's popular bird & nest necklaces.

 

Other arrivals this week include typewriter onesies, with text like "locally grown," and "dude seriously," made in Madison,  lovely satin ribbons with little icons like Eiffel towers and hot air balloons, handmade wrapping paper, our favorite Curly Girl cards, and, yes, I couldn't resist, little Hello Kitty and Totoro charms.

 

keep 'em coming

Seems like spring has sprung in a big way.  The record high temps this week always bring out a lot more people, which makes things feel more like May or June - not just in terms of weather but in terms of sales.  Add to that, the daily influx of boxes from San Francisco and catch-up (restocking from Christmas) orders, and we've been staying busy.

I have to admit that I got totally pulled in to the natural/terrarium look going on at some booths in San Francisco and on Pinterest.  I'm also going back to my geology roots and finding pieces made with raw rock quite appealing.  The jewelry that I really liked was well beyond our price range but I did get some crystal clusters which I think would be nice additions to a terrarium.  Unfortunately, most of these "natural" elements ultimately came from China.  I just couldn't resist the little nests, and some bird cages for the window.  That said, spending time unpacking boxes inside boxes inside boxes was a rather tedious reminder of my former job and made me so thankful that the bulk of our merchandise comes from local artists.  Even independent artists from out of state use much less packaging!  Still, the new arrivals add a sweet spring feeling to the window, and a perfect compliment to our little vintage houses.  I'm kind of obsessed with terrariums but I really do not have a green thumb so I might just end up making myself a paper/fabric terrarium instead.

We're feeling a little sorry for ourselves that we aren't going out the NY Stationery show this year, but we've made up for it with our purchases from San Fran and other sources. 

The new floral papers definitely get me in the mood for spring.

We were pretty excited to get new Nikki McClure prints.  Sometimes it seems like there's a longer lag between the images in the calendar and when they arrive in print form.  We have especially been waiting for her version of a bicycle print.

We've added to our collection of t-shirts, and restocked the popular ones from Christmas (Rise Up! is in store, Midwest is Best is on its way).

 

 

In addition, we've recently received collaged recipe sets, journals, Relax Bear mini foods, French notecards, mini notebooks, wallets made from maps, new rubber stamps with great detail, necklaces, napkins and onesies.  We hope you'll stop in soon to check out what's new!

 

let the fun begin

oh goody.  Here I was, feeling all sorry for myself that I put so many orders on later ship dates.  But then the boxes started arriving. 

Last week it was washi tape, which has me thinking about some sort of collage something-or-other.  I've always thought it would be fun to do an Anthropologie-sort of window (lots of pieces, labor intensive) with a collage on the window itself.  Well, we'll see what actually materializes.  In the meantime, I'm taking some home for my art journaling.  I love all the patterns, and I love the semi-translucency of this tape.

In other tape news, yesterday we get a series of tapes from a company that specializes in vintage imagery.  If I remember the story correctly, the owner stumbled a cross a box of vintage greeting cards, and a collection, and a company, was born.  Now they've taken some of the graphics and put them on tape.  This tape is more like packing tape, shinier plastic than the matte of the washi tape.

And today, a big (by our standards) stack of boxes: vintage Madison and Wisconsin images on postcards and magnets, mini clothespins, Sublime Stitching embroidery patterns, and some lovely covered journals.

And then April 1 will be here before we know it, and the rest of the shipments will be coming in!