New Card Ideas

I have always loved cards. I've been making my own cards since I was a kid. In college I used to make them with small woodblocks printed on multicolor paper and sell them at the student union. I think in those days I sold them for 25 cents each. I sold enough to pay my table fee and to help the grocery and gas bill. They didn't exactly pay the rent.

After college I lived in Manhattan for a few years and during that time I hand drew my cards with pen and ink (remember pen and ink?) and hand colored them with watercolors. They were mostly animals, birds and flowers though sometimes I did custom orders for people. I remember doing a hundred different chairs, both antique and modern for an interior designer. How did the designer find me? I used to take my cards to Central Park, sit on a park bench with my trusty dog at my side and sell them every decent day.

When I came back to the Cape I still made cards. I used to do a drawing, set it up and take it to a printer and have a hundred or so offset. I would have them cut and folded there and felt very professional. Once I got them home I would hand color them.

I've rarely sold my cards in shops, until recently. I used them to send to friends and family and occasionally sold a small amount to someone for invitations or thank you's or holiday cards.

When I had my shop in Mashpee I discovered that scanning my small paintings and printing cards from them was fun and fairly profitable and I have continued to fine tune the process. I bought a really good scanner and printer and have been experimenting with what can be done with all that.

My cards are a standard 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" and come with nice white envelopes. At this point in time I probably have about 50 designs and am working on a catalogue. I have a few stores selling them and I sell them here at my Etsy shop.

Recently I've been toying with the idea of really trying to make a little business out of this. Sort of ironic, I guess since so few people write letters or even notes. But people do still send cards for all sorts of occasions and I think people are happy to have something a little different than what the big chains are offering. The cards shown here were designed with weddings and anniversaries in mind. Most of my cards are blank but people seemed to like the Mother's Day cards with words so I'm adding these to my "line" as well.

What do you think? Do you know anyone who represents card artists? Anyone who distributes? How about any small stores that sell cards in your area that I could/should contact? I will be having a card set giveaway this week so stay tuned!

Comments

[Nicole Catroppo]

The way you've written this post is so nice. Best of luck to you in your journey! Your work is really nice. I live in Baltimore, and there are lots of shops that might be interested in your work in FEDERAL HILL or MOUNT VERNON. You can find contact information for many online, just by typing in the names of those two places. :)

[Cathy]

What a great idea, Mary! You might try Bob Slate's in Cambridge. I expect there are a lot of shops in Boston that do handmade cards. I'll keep my eyes open now for you and let you know when I stumble across them.

[Renee]

mary, thank-you for coming by I added your typepad link.