Friday, April 23, 2010


I feel like I've been missing out on life this week*. Since November I have been working exclusively on the Taylor Swift card line in my real world job. Personally, I'm not a Taylor fan, but her card line is fun and different and I really enjoy working on it since I get to do all my own illustration and lettering. However, due to various reasons, we've also been working with shorter than usual deadlines for most of the programs and sometimes (like this week) things get a little insane. Basically I spent the past week working on Taylor cards in my cubicle during the day, and then going home and continuing to work on them there until I went to sleep. Exhaustion is the only word that comes to mind. So now that I am mostly finished with everything I'm breathing again and thinking about the possibilities of the weekend. I altered the little graphic above from one of my Taylor cards to make a cheerful little to-do list for myself.

- Devour one of the following books (assuming they have been delivered to my porch when I get home): Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Places, or The Illustrated Quick Cook: Easy Entertaining, After-Work Recipes, Cheap Eats.
- Attempt a hodge podge chili recipe for dinner.
- Ride the bike. Outdoors if weather permits.
- Re-pot my fast growing herb sprouts.
- Start some preliminary sketches for various Three Bears jobs. 
- Watch more Star Trek Next Generation with Andrew. 
- Morning yoga (one of my favorite weekend activities).
- Get around to adjusting the length of the skirt that I got from the thrift store a month or so ago. 
- Finalize my tracklist for the Mix Exchange and get to work on some crafty packaging. 
- Soak in some newly purchased Khaki King and Volcano Choir albums. 

*With the exception of Tuesday which included Guys Pizza, haircuts, Phoenix Coffee, and LOST. 


3 comments :

  1. interesting..so much work for cards that say what is hard for people to say themselves, or to give them an opening to voice their own thoughts. One never realizes how much work goes into cards when you see them en masse on the shelves, but so much thought and emotion goes into many of them.

    Also can you say anything about how much if any actual input Ms. Swift has in her cards, or is it just basically her name for sales?

    Thanks for your blog, I'm glad I found it its very enjoyable and interesting.

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  2. There is so much that happens behind the scenes in the greeting card world that still surprises me after several years of working there. There is a lot of thought and research that goes into each card product we put out there.

    As for Taylor, she does actually have a lot of input into her cards. Obviously she isn't here working beside us every day, but the style and emotion of the programs all come from her. She sees everything we produce for her line and gives it her stamp of approval before it reaches the store.

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  3. thanks for answering! I'm glad that ms Swift does give input even though I'm sure she is very busy, and doesnt just use her name to make money. Apparently she cares about what her name and image mean still, and I hope Hollywood doesn't take that away eventually as it does with most stars of her stature.

    Thanks again for your blog and for the cards you put your heart into. I often stop in the card Aisle and just read various cards, even ones that can have no actual connection to me; it gives me a diffferent perspective sometimes of something I should appreciate more. Life is like that, one has to be open to what's around them in order to get the most out of it.

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