Galaxie Safari News

A couple weeks ago, I got some really exciting news. In August I applied to be featured as a local artist in the Oak Park Visitor’s Center shop. Oak Park has a great tourism industry. People from all over the world come to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home & Studio, Unity Temple, and other homes. Oak Park is also the childhood home of Ernest Hemingway (and Betty White!) and there are all sorts of quaint shops, cafes, and restaurants in town. The visitor’s center gift shop is fantastic, filled with Chicago and Oak Park themed items, and many things that are made by local artists.

And now…a few Galaxie Safari cards will be in the shop! I submitted three Oak Park and Illinois specific designs and they accepted them! I will also be featuring some boxed holiday cards for the season.Since I won’t be standing in the shop telling people that my cards are all typed on vintage typewriters and that I use real cancelled postage stamps and line the envelopes with pages from old encyclopedias, I’m having a stamp made for the back of the cards to explain those details. Most of the cards at the shop are mass printed, so I’m hoping some locals and visitors will appreciate something that’s made entirely by hand.

I feel like I’ve been in a bit of a lull with my shop this summer, but I have been sourcing some new stamps to work with and I have a bunch of new cards (including Halloween and holiday) that will be ready soon. I’ll share more soon and I’ll be back later this week with my promised origami tutorial!

First-Day-Of-School Pencil Pack

Karen started a new job last week teaching a class at University of Illinois at Chicago. We wanted to give Professor Karen (I’m sure her students call her something more formal.) a little good luck gift to send her off on her first day.Like me, Karen loves Frixion pens, so I pulled a .05 from the “Japanese vault” and added it with a couple of pencils from C.W. Pencils. The Editor looked like a perfect pencil for grading and planning. (Are papers still graded on…paper?) And the Graphite/Highlighter combo seemed perfect for planning and note taking.  I folded a little origami pencil holder for them out of my new favorite pencil paper. I’ll post a quick tutorial for the pencil holder next week. It’s so easy and they have so many uses! (They’re actually chopstick holders!)

P.S. Thinking of our friends (and family!) in Florida and the Carolinas this weekend as another hurricane heads for the US. The devastation on the islands in the Atlantic is just heartbreaking. And still thinking of our friends in Texas who are cleaning up after last month’s hurricane.

Chalk-Full of School Supplies

I think my husband’s punning is rubbing off on me…

I have a little chalk theme going on today. I am old enough to remember chalkboards. Our school transitioned to white boards during my high school years. Mrs. Petersen kept her blackboard though. I always appreciated that about her. I always found the marker to be so slippery on the white board. It didn’t have the same feeling as writing with chalk. And the sound! Normally, chalk sounds so pleasing scraping across the board. But then there’s always that one moment when the chalk makes that horrid high-pitched squeak that catches everyone in the room off-guard. I wonder if that sound is why white boards were invented. I ordered this Hester & Cook “Midtown” white pencil because I’m always looking for a new way to write on dark papers, especially this time of year as I gear up for Halloween mail. I was pretty skeptical about it because colored pencils usually don’t show up well on dark papers (in my experience.) But the pencil was really good! I thought it looked very chalk-like and it writes sort of like a cross between a crayon and a colored pencil. It was a little waxy, but it wrote smoothly, and like I said, covered the dark green paper well. (I smeared it a little bit…) I plan to use the pencil to decorate the table and black place cards for our next Phantom Flight Night. Though I really like the classic green chalkboard look, too. I picked up this Nihon Rikagaku black chalkboard tape set at bunbougu cafe last year. (The green tape in the top picture is also Nihon Rikagaku. I found that at the Paper Source Warehouse Sale, though it is not carried at Paper Source.) Nihon Rikagaku is another old Japanese company. They’ve been making chalk since 1937 and since 1960 they’ve hired adults with cognitive disabilities to work in their factories. (I didn’t know this at the time of my purchase, but it makes me want to look for more Nihon Rikagaku products on our next trip. You can find their basic chalk on Amazon!) The tape is made from Japanese washi paper and it’s coated so chalk can be erased easily. I’ve only used this on gifts (like it shows on the tiny package label) so far, but I think it would be a fun way to label things in our pantry.

 

Happy Birthday, P!

This sweet face has been with us for eleven years! We’re celebrating with breakfast, a good brushing, and a long nap in the window.

P.S. Happy Labor Day to those in the US! Hope you’re able to have a relaxing day!

P.P.S. Presley’s story is here. Her 10th birthday celebration is here. Her Instagram is @pahifc.