hi what's up hello

hi internet. i feel like no one reads blogs anymore… or at least i know i don’t. but here i am. writing to the abyss!

it’s been almost a year since i shared anything on this little page of my website. i’ve been busy!

after the stationery show in 2018, i did a lot of local pop up markets to try to offload inventory and get my art out there. out where? anywhere! out of my house. my business continues to grow (slowly! but it is growing each quarter!), and i had my first dream die in the form of paper source abruptly dropping my “miss ewe” card from their line after a year of steady reorders of hundreds of cards at a time. i was surprised and bummed out about that, because after they talked me down on my wholesale pricing…driving me to order a shit ton of stock to get a better printing price to improve my margins…they stopped reordering with no warning and then had the fucking audacity to email me (and lots of other small businesses in similar situations) in december, apparently not realizing that i wasn’t a current artist with them anymore, and ask me for $250 for them as a credit to open new stores. if you’re asking yourself “wait…what?”… all i can say is, yeah. i don’t know either. it’s fucked up. go big, but SHOP SMALL. always learning, i guess! the worst thing is, because i am an idiot, i have a couple hundred of this fucking card i’ll never go through unless my business really takes off in ways i do not anticipate. i won’t give up, but, it is definitely a bummer.

to be totally transparent with you, abyss, i cannot really afford to go do the stationery show in nyc this year…which starts sunday. i have FOMO because i have met some really wonderful people and had some wonderful opportunities come up through that event, but i am also glad to take a little time to reflect and continue to create. i would love to go back to the trade show next year… after three times exhibiting, each year better than the last, i still have not made back the money it costs to be there. i can’t tell if my shit sucks or my audience just hasn’t seen me. i hope it’s the latter.

so, this year, instead of the trade show, i’m planning to try to keep a leaner inventory to avoid the paper source style loss, and put more energy into some tangible communications with stores which will hopefully result in finding my people. <3 if that brought you here, hi!

i’ve also been really into pattern making in recent years, so i’m planning to launch some more patterns on my spoonflower page. i wonder how people get into designing patterns for, like, legit fabric companies. ahhhh the spark of a new ambition!

i just finished 9 new greeting card designs to launch with NSS/NYNOW. with this release, i’m mainly exploring some new pattern/floral designs, living my dragonfruit dreams, and filling in some gaps to try to give the people what they want (i didn't really have any "congratulations" cards before, aside from "you did a thing" which has been a great seller, and i think covers every accomplishment, but variety is the spice of life or whatever so now there are more options). oh also… at local markets, people are always turning my cards around to see the back…maybe looking for a price? but i’ve also started printing patterns on the backs to give people something to look at. because, why the hell not? all the same pattern for now, but it’s exciting and fun and i love it and i hope you do too. can’t wait to sell all the old stuff i have on hand and reorder it so i can reorder with the new patterns!

anyway, here are my new card designs!! <3 they’ll be in my online shop and ready for retail/wholesale this sunday, on feb 3! <3

sale!

i'm starting to think really hard about new products i want to make next year, and designs i thought were awesome but need to cut because they didn't resonate with the masses the way i hoped. i wonder if it's because i failed to get them in front of the right audience, or if they're just not as relatable to people who buy & send cards? probably a third thing, like i'm just so ahead of my time? my very sweet father told me that last week. i do believe it in some ways.

anyway! all this to say i put some stuff on SAAAAAAALE in my shop because, as much as i love it and am proud of it, i am either planning to rework it because i have a better visual for the message, or it's just going to disappear. think of it as...limited edition, collector's stationery. once it's gone it's gone. it's hard to say goodbye but i have some other great ideas i need to get out there and i just can't keep this shit in stock anymore.

one of my secret projects is soon to be no longer a secret! ...and i'm kinda freaking out!

well! i mailed a really cool lenticular card i designed out to retailers this week and i am anxious to see if anyone is as amused by it as i am! it's been really hard for me not to post about my process and all the design iterations i've gone through with this project. i just feel like i'm on the cusp of something no one else in the greeting card circles i find myself in is doing. i think it's the most badass thing ever. i hope you agree!

since i decided to make stationery, i have been asking myself: what can i do that isn't letterpress? what can i do that isn't gold, holographic, or glitter foil? what can i do that isn't just painting pretty flowers on everything? i have been wondering how to set myself apart from other brands and have more of myself come through in my designs, and i really feel like i'm on the right track with all my new designs and products for NSS 2017!

the inspiration for the lenticular card came when we were driving from the montrose airport to telluride a couple of months ago on our ski trip. i was staring at one of silence's toys, a little phone that has a panda on it. i bought it for her because i handed it to her just to occupy her while i checked out, but then she wouldn't let me put it back without a huge fuss (how could i not see that coming???), so i figured whatever, it's cheap, happy to find something that makes her happy. the panda moves and says hi and bye depending on the viewing angle.

i'm an artist who happens to also be an engineer. i like making things. i like seeing how things work. i like when my brain hurts thinking about how things work. lenticular technology is so freakin' cool... once i finally did enough googling describing my daughter's toy phone image and learned the term "lenticular", i was completely set on making something with it for my card line. on our vacation i brainstormed tons of ideas for lenticular cards and researched places to print the cards for me. since then i've painted a handful of designs, i've received samples from several US manufacturers, and i've got more samples on the way! i'm really pumped to share something i hope you'll think is awesome, and although the technology is nothing new, i hope you will find it to be as new and refreshing of an idea for this indie stationery niche as it was for me!

zach & abby

i recently had the privilege of designing a wedding invitation for another dear friend! my husband matt's long time BFFAELYLASWTFBBQ, zach, moved to LA a while back. he's been pursuing a career in film and has since fallen in love with an astrophysicist named abby (um, hello?! how badass!). they're both super into their cats and floated a "cats in space" themed wedding invite... YAAAASSS!! the cats are based on zach & abby's cats, and one is showing off a pulsar flag on its space suit. i swear, i wikipedia'd pretty hard and i still don't understand what it means, but i'll try to take comfort in the fact that i'm good at other stuff. the most crappy thing about this is that silence got her first fever/virus the weekend of the wedding and matt had to change his plans to go at literally the very last minute. i wish we all could've been there to celebrate with them.

anyway... i had so much fun designing and painting this! i hope you enjoy it! just thinking back to those sunny april afternoons stealing an hour or so to paint while someone else watched the baby! mmmh! more like that, please! i have this amaaaazing idea that when silence starts sleeping more through the night i'll actually start to be able to get more creative things done again. i hope that's true.

pop up market

i did my first pop up market last saturday at my favourite local coffee shop, sola. it was pretty fun & about 10,000 times less stressful than NSS! i reeeally need some kind of display shelves for such markets, but that's going to have to be a project for another time. there's another pop up market today at the same coffee shop and i'll be in attendance with the same display. wish me luck!

ETSY STORE IS GO! I REPEAT, ETSY STORE IS GO!

well! my etsy store exists! creating it was a bit more time consuming than i anticipated, and i'm not thrilled with how i set everything up (need more tags, details, etc...)... but i'm thrilled that the shop is live and i'm excited to tweak it and improve it in the weeks to come!!

some other cool things happened this week... i shipped almost all of my orders from NSS, i reordered a bunch of cards to restock after aforementioned order-shipping, i had a phone conference with a company about licensing some of my work (i'll let you know if that becomes a real thing), oh and i caught up on some of my work at my real job and i don't feel as much like i'm completely behind and will never catch up!! so yeah! GREEEAAAAT!!

buy some cute cards, please! --> https://www.etsy.com/shop/tylre

NSS setup day 1!

i should start by noting that day 0 involved a 13h travel day from raleigh, NC to NYC to unload the van, and then to doylsetown, PA to stay the night with my cousin and his family. they fed us a great home-cooked meal and we had a fun miniature jam session around midnight before craaaashing. anyway, that was a lost day. it's behind us now.

FRIDAY! friday really was day 1. we woke up in PA and enjoyed an extraordinary homemade cappuccino before heading down to fred's breakfast club for some grub. guys. fred's breakfast club. i wish i could adequately describe how fun it was... or just how nice our few hours spent in PA were. it was just the lull we needed between stressful packing, driving, unpacking, and setup!

after breakfast, we took the NJT from trenton, NJ to penn station in NYC and dropped our stuff off at our hotel, then it was off to the javits! we got a couple of coats of paint on my walls, assembled our ikea "table" and i blocked out the mural i'm putting on my back wall to lure people into my booth. we got all of our friday setup goals accomplished in a reasonable amount of time so we rewarded ourselves with lots of sushi & sake! CELEBRAAAAATE!

everything hits at once

this past weekend i worked reeeally hard to get every painting finished, scanned, dust and cat fur removed (oh. my. god.), and uploaded to the printer! a marathon painting and scanning day sunday, an entire monday spent in a coffee shop overhearing terrible conversations, a sore wrist from attempting to use the mouse pad instead of an actual mouse for the first dozen cards, and one (ok, three) minor meltdown later... everything has been uploaded! the lady at the print shop said i should be able to review proofs as early as thursday this week! i am so anxious to see the final product you guys. YOUGUYS.

in the meantime, after i get home from long days at my real job (you know, the one that pays me?), i'll be resizing images for a catalog to take to NSS and an online store (launching in june)! here's what that looks like:

analog lyfe is hard / happy accident!

do you think anna bond ever drops her paintbrush and ruins her paintings, or is that just me?

i was painting and talking to my mom on the phone the other day, trying to multitask, and i dropped my freaking paintbrush... it rolled out of my hand and over my paper and got paint eeeeevvverywhere essentially ruining this thing i'd been working on little by little for two days. i was so annoyed with myself for being so clumsy, but i have absolutely no time to dwell or grieve with my NSS prep work! MUST. KEEP. MOVING.

i immediately started re-painting it, and you know what? it looked so much better. i fell more in love with the design. i even cranked out a few more similar designs to fill out my line for the stationery show! so, yeah...! for the next few days i'll be finishing my last few paintings, getting things scanned, and uploading files for my very first proofs! AAAAHHHH!!!

the dream becomes the nightmare

WELP! last night i had my first NSS nightmare... i got to the javits to set up my booth and my walls were already built, but my back wall was the wall of a house instead of wood. in the middle of my rear wall there was a huge fireplace. the floor was extremely old hard  wood and was sloping downward toward the fireplace. i stepped on the floor to test its stability and the beams sagged and separated and gave way under my feet.

we complained about this to our across the aisle neighbors, but they wanted no part in voicing or resolving the problem... jerks... we tried moving my booth forward a little into the aisle to get the drooping floor behind us, but it didn't work. and then i woke up. problem not solved.

greetings from colorado!

i'm in colorado with my family this week and my heart is already aching knowing that i have to eventually leave this beautiful place. last night, while everyone else went out to check out what's newly legal, i stayed in and began the process of converting some airplane sketches into paintings. you likey? this morning started with a delicious homemade cappuccino (thanks, cousin darrell!) and i convinced my mom and husband to follow me down a black diamond trail! beer & hot tub time, SEE YA!

NSS 2015

well guys i applied for NSS 2015 and i got accepted! BOOTH 1867! so. eek! i had 65 copies of my first finished design printed to use as this year's christmas card. it's so cute! in fact, i anticipate that some of the recipients may find themselves here because of that card... so hi, if that's you!

so here's my plan! complete at least 50 card designs by the end of april.

wish me luck! THIS IS HAPPENING!

in the beginning

IN THE BEGINNING, there were ideas transferred from back of lunch receipt to sketchbook... from sketchbook to Dedicated Idea Notebook... from misplaced Dedicated Idea Notebook to For Real This Time Dedicated Idea Notebook... and finally from For Real This Time Dedicated Idea Notebook to fancy, slightly expensive watercolour paper i bought specifically for this project.

so! i've officially started a card line! only you won't see it for a while (whoever you are?)... this post is like one of those pregnancy apps that tells you your baby is the size of a small dollop of paint.

i'm really torn between wanting to share all my status updates and pictures of my progress here and feeling like i need to be sure i pick the right time and forum to share my ideas. so that's where i am! enjoying coffee on a rainy day, 'volcano' candle by capri blue making my house smell awesome, painting SECRET THINGS.

wedding invitations

well, i received the wedding invitation i designed for my friends in the mail this week so i guess i'm officially done with that project. it was such a huge honour! 

we put a lot of thought and care into this design to make it super unique and fitting.

remi and nu are both ultramarathoners. we're talking running 10+ miles on their lunch break from work and often competing in races and relays of insane (to me) distances. for example, last time they were in town it was so remi could participate in a 100 mile race...which he finished in about 18h.

they both also happen to be optoelectronic engineers (which is how they met, awwww). the equation on the back of the invitation is the equation to graph a heart. and as my fellow engineer (NERD!!) coworker pointed out, the fraction isn't reduced... but that was on purpose, of course... august 24 is remi and nu's wedding date! :)

nu's family is vietnamese and remi's family is french, and i knew that several of these invites were going to be mailed abroad, so i really wanted to do something with the multiple languages. we decided to do a tri-fold card with one panel in each language (vietnamese, english, french).

so those are the details... a couple of super adorable, super active nerds are making it legal this august in san francisco. i'll be lucky enough to witness their joyous union in person!! i really can't wait.

NSS - paper party!

this evening after NSS, we attended the oh so beautiful paper paper party! holy crap. sam had a couple of dreams come true there... i stared at anna bond from afar and made googly eyes at her (SO. PRETTY.)... and we escaped relatively unscathed (aside from that $32 whiskey) and headed to shake shack for burgers and fries before bedtime. i enjoyed an extremely delicious mushroom burger on the sidewalk while toting around the most lovely flower arrangements leftover from the party... i'm ready to go dream about how awesome it is that i get to hug my husband tomorrow!