In Which I Get Braces and Go on Vacation…

 

Yup, that grinning, braced dork is me. 🙂 Despite how the picture looks, I’m not 12. I’m *cough* thirty *cough* six *cough*. Today, I got braces cemented to my teeth for the second time in my life.  I spent over a decade either without dental insurance or without enough money to pay for what the dental insurance wouldn’t, so a lot of things that needed attention didn’t get it. Now it’s time to correct all of that. 🙂

My winter vacation is about to begin! I put the Etsy shop in vacation mode yesterday after having a fantastic Christmas season. I was averaging 30-40 orders a week and somehow managing to stay on top of them. I got enough orders in that period of time to be able to afford to get a 100-notepad printing on an offset press so I don’t have to print out each sheet. These notepads are beautiful. Just the same quality, down to the same weight of paper, just more compact and a hefty 100 pages instead of the mere 80 I do by hand. 🙂

For the moment, I only have the offset press pads in the WWHBD notepad, but over time I hope to expand that out to also include the other, non-personalized pads. The next one I’m targeting is the DM’s notepad.

Paper Tiger is growing literally by leaps and bounds, and I can’t be happier. I haven’t had much time to get out new products because I’ve been so busy filling orders, so this coming vacation is also going to give me some time to work on a line of Valentine’s Day cards.  I have a couple of previews:

I’m going with mostly black, red and white, with classy red envelopes to go with the cards. I don’t at all like the pinks and violets and other gentle shades often associated with Valentine’s day. These cards should go beautifully with a dozen red roses.

These are just the first two. I plan to do one more re-hash, like the d20 card is above, and a laundry list, including one or two personalizable cards, so you can give your lover a very, very personal card.

I also found a new small card size that I really love. The ‘Mini Baronial’ cards that I have even have tiny stationery boxes in their size.  They look adorable, as you can see here:

I’ve put up twelve packs of each of these, and I’ve been giving away single freebies with greeting card orders. I’ve always had a soft spot for tiny things, so I love making tiny little cards. In fact, I’ve got a whole set of my solar system christmas tree card in a tiny version for all of the gift tags I’m putting on christmas gifts. 🙂

I want to expand on these and add some more, especially for Valentine’s day. I’ve got a set called ‘Horny Little Love Notes’, so I’m going to transfer them into this size (they’re a little smaller, now), as well as give them a few different more Valentine’s Day motif.

In addition to the small cards and the other regular sized v-day cards, I’ll also be adding some more notepads, even some personalized ones meant to go with the cards.

If you’ve got an idea, or you’d like a particular greeting card, leave a comment below!

Paper Tiger should open back up again in the first week of January, with a whole new bunch of fun, geeky gear for gift giving!

Thanks for making this such a fantastic year for me! I’ll be out of town next week and partially buried in work this week, but I might pop my head up for a blog post or two in my spare time. 🙂