Forest Park, Oak Park | kimberly ah

Jul 24 2018

Forest Park, Forest Park, Oak Park, GalaxieSafari, Oak Park, Office Supplies, snail mail, some stuff about me, vintage

Galaxie Safari in the News

If you haven’t seen my tweets and Instagrams from last week, I have exciting news! My tiny card business was featured in the local papers last week! You can read the article online here. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Nona Tepper, the reporter for the Forest Park Review, and we chatted about letter writing and card making and sending mail. It was a delightful conversation. A couple weeks later, they sent photographer Alexa Rogals to my home for a photo shoot, which was the most nerve-wracking part, at least before Alexa got there. (She’s a true professional who made me feel very comfortable.) Thankfully I was able to get my desk cleaned up in time for the photo shoot. It was neat to have my actual workspace featured in the article, though it’s never that clean when I’m actually making cards! (Today it’s a chaotic mix of personal mail, prep for my show this weekend, books, and newspapers!)

I’m so grateful to my local newspaper, The Review, for doing the article about me and other small businesses in our community. Just like it’s nice to open your mailbox and find a letter amongst the bills, it’s nice to open a newspaper and read some light articles amongst the politics and crime. We all need a little break now and then, right?

Tagged diy, forest park, mail art, office supplies, snail mail, vintage

Jul 22 2018

Upcoming Craft Shows

I have a couple of craft shows coming up…it will be my first time showing outside, so I’m hoping for good weather and not too much of a breeze! Both are smaller events so I can see if outdoor craft life is something I can handle. To be honest, it makes me really nervous because water and paper don’t mix and I have limited supplies of so many of my vintage stamps. But, outdoor craft shows are a part of selling things so if I want to be successful, I feel like I have to at least try it.

The first event is Riverfest on Saturday, July 28th in Riverside, our neighbor to the south. It’s a small, local festival with music and food and drinks and Tropical Snow!! The gates open at 4pm and the craft sellers will be selling their wares until 9. I’m excited. This week I’ll be busy making some new cards and refilling ones that have sold out. I’m trying to add a sympathy card and a wedding card to my line, if I can find stamps that will cooperate. Also, I’m going to sell packs of vintage postage so my customers can add some vintage flair to their envelopes to go with their vintage cards. And, on August 7th from 2-9pm, I’ll be at Art Dans la Rue in Oak Park. This is, as you may have guessed, a French themed street fair and I’ll be debuting a couple of cards with vintage French postage and French phrases. There will be a poodle parade and can can dancers and amazing French food, so I’m pretty much counting on Naoto to man my booth for a bit so I can enjoy some wine and puppies.

I’m keeping a running list of upcoming shows over on the Shop page if you’re interested in seeing what’s coming up.

Tagged adventures, crafts, mail art, office supplies, snail mail, summer, vintage

Jan 11 2018

Petite Boutique 2017

In November, I did my second Petite Boutique and my fifth craft show ever! Petite Boutique is so well organized and popular in Oak Park. We were in the sunroom again, the same spot as last year, which was perfect. This is the sunroom from the outside. Isn’t it gorgeous?
I didn’t really change a ton on my booth set-up. I re-used my Kimberly AH banner since that’s what I used last year, but I need to consider a new banner with Galaxie Safari. I’d like something to go above my booth so you can see it when people are standing in front of my table. Something to work on this winter… I rigged a little bar to hold my “Comparison is the thief of joy” letterpress print and got a felt board for pricing. I really resisted the felt board since it’s so trendy, but really, you can’t beat its convenience and simplicity. I still love my card rack. It’s not big enough for all of my designs now (yay for new products) so I highlighted holiday cards, best sellers, and newer designs in the rack. The other designs were in a wooden box. I feel like last year, my holiday designs sold best. But this year, it was a nice mix of things since I had so many other (birthday, love, thank you, friendship, etc) styles to choose from.
I added a ton of framed quotes, so I no longer had space for my typewriter. The framed quotes sold really well, which was so exciting. This particular saying sold the best. I actually came home after the show Friday night and made more to sell on Saturday. I’ll be adding a greeting card to my shop next week, too. (As a side note, I’m so excited for the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote. I think we need to throw a huge party.) Naoto was a great sales assistant. He wore his Mr. Zip t-shirt “uniform” and manned the booth while I ate lunch and walked around and assisted with bagging and answering questions. It’s so nice to have a partner who is so supportive of this! This winter I’m trying to research and apply to more shows. They have been really good and really fun for me. I am, at my core, a last minute person so planning six months to a year ahead of time is mind-boggling, but necessary. I’ve already signed up for two shows in Berwyn this year at Friendly’s Tap. (I’ll be there April 21 and November 17!) And I’m applying to a few more thanks to friends I’ve met along the craft market way. If you’re local and know of any good shows, I’d love to hear from you!

Tagged adventures, crafts, forest park, holidays, mail art, office supplies, shopping, snail mail, vintage

Nov 10 2017

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adventures, Christmas, crafty adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, GalaxieSafari, holidays, In My Neighborhood, Merry & Bright, Oak Park, Office Supplies, snail mail, vintage

Petite Boutique

Sorry for the radio silence around here. I’ve been typing and cutting and pasting new cards for Petite Boutique this weekend. If you’re in the area, stop by Pleasant Home in Oak Park tonight and tomorrow to shop handmade. It’s a really great show and I always love seeing friendly faces.

This is one of the new Christmas cards, inspired by the (wonderfully terrible!) Hallmark Christmas movies I’ve already started watching. I’ll share some more next week! Until then, have a great weekend!

Tagged adventures, Christmas, crafts, forest park, holidays, mail art, office supplies, shopping, snail mail, vintage

Sep 25 2017

5 Comments

Forest Park, Oak Park, GalaxieSafari, Oak Park, vintage

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. GalaxieSafari, Abe Lincoln, Honest Abe, Oak Park, Illinois, Oak Park Vistor's Center 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!

Tagged adventures, crafts, forest park, snail mail, vintage

Nov 18 2016

7 Comments

adventures, Christmas, crafty adventures, Forest Park, Forest Park, Oak Park, holidays, In My Mailbox, Oak Park, snail mail, some stuff about me, vintage

Petite Boutique 2016

Ahhh…we survived our first craft show!

Petite Boutique was last weekend and I think for the first show, we did pretty well! People were generally really nice about my cards and I loved talking to everyone about old postage stamps and typewriters! I felt “in my element” for the first time in quite awhile. I loved telling people about the first USPS Christmas stamp and listening to customer’s stories about learning to type on a typewriter. (I, too, learned to type on a typewriter.)All of the artists showing at Petite Boutique were spread throughout the home. Shoppers went from room to room looking at each little “shop.” We lucked out and got the sunroom, which ended up being really beautiful, both on Friday night and sunny Saturday. The windows look out on Mills Park and some great fall leaf and people watching. I had such a good time planning my merchandising. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but I think it’s a good start for future shows. I made a simple banner out of airmail envelopes and twine and added my name with some chipboard stickers that I found at Michaels. I pinned the banner on my (very wrinkly) tablecloth. The banner held up well, though sometimes it got disturbed by shoppers. Ideally, it would be hanging high behind me so shoppers could see it, even if my booth was busy.

I displayed my “artist statement” on one of my typewriters. (I didn’t actually type it on the typewriter because I thought the type might be too small.) Only a few people read it, but it was nice to have out there so people could learn a little bit about how my cards are made. I displayed all of my holiday cards (boxes and singles) in old wooden boxes from my dad’s basement. I liked that they gave some height to the display. Single non-holiday cards were all in another wooden box in the center of the table. I don’t really have enough card categories to require dividers. But if I keep doing craft shows, I’ll probably invest in a tabletop spinner or try to think of a better way to display these. Customers didn’t seem to mind sifting through them, but for a busier show, I think better visibility would make it easier. I had two options each of letter sets and sticker sets. And I offered the Japanese New Year cards like the ones I sent out for 2016. I made a sample so people could see that they could add a creative touch to the cards, or just write a new year message. The letter sets did not sell at all, but the stickers and postcards were pretty popular. I also had a small display of framed and unframed quotes adorned with postage stamps. These sold really well, so I’m looking forward to adding some more to my shop soon. one whale, craft show table, Petite Boutique, Pleasant Home Oak Park, 2016 And last but not least, I had a wooden whale holding white and silver gel pens for sale. I sold a few cards with dark envelopes, so it was a good way to give people an easy option for addressing those envelopes. Naoto was an amazing help! He learned the details about my cards (he loved telling people about the unique encyclopedia page envelope liners!) so he could talk to people while I was finishing up with another customer or chatting with friends. I know lots of people do craft shows alone, but it was perfect to have moral support and help for my first show. (I secretly think Naoto enjoyed it as much as I did, too!)

Thanks to everyone who shared their craft show advice in the comments, in letters, and in person (Sean!) And I have to send out a heartfelt thanks to friends near and far who came to say hi and to support the show. You all made my day and I loved being surprised when I saw your faces in the crowd. And a huge thanks to our shoppers who all seemed genuinely excited about buying handmade and to Pleasant Home for organizing the event. THANK YOU!!

P.S. I’ve begun listing my greeting cards in my Etsy shop and will continue to add more over the weekend. (All of my greeting cards are listed, but I’d like to add boxed options and mix & match savings.) Stay tuned.

Tagged adventures, Christmas, crafts, diy, forest park, holidays, office supplies, snail mail, vintage

Oct 12 2016

11 Comments

adventures, Christmas, crafty adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, holidays, In My Mailbox, snail mail, some stuff about me, vintage

I’m Doing a Craft Show!

It’s exciting! (And slightly terrifying…)

For the past few months, I’ve been making greeting cards using my Royal Safari typewriter and featuring vintage cancelled postage stamps from my collection. I recently got my act together to open a little shop and I applied for a local juried craft show at Pleasant Home. And, I got in! So over the next month, I’ll be busy typing at my typewriter and sifting through my stamp collection and cutting envelope liners out of Karen’s grandparents’ encyclopedia collection. (Thanks, Karen!) I am very excited and nervous. What if no one buys anything? What if I forget how to count money? What if I run out of products? (None of these scenarios are likely. I’m very good at math. But seriously…how do you even know how much to make?) Thankfully Naoto has agreed to be my customer service associate so he can help me manage small talk and sales.

I’ll share more as I get into a good production groove around here. If you’ve ever done a craft show -big or small- I’d love to hear your advice!

Tagged adventures, Christmas, crafts, diy, forest park, holidays, mail art, office supplies, snail mail, vintage

Jun 13 2016

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adventures, Forest Park, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening

Plot #6 for 2016

In between jet lag naps and unwrapping all of my stationery from Japan, I started our garden for the summer! I planted almost everything mid-May and then added a couple of things last week. So far, so good, but I really do need to cut back my chive plant before it takes over! I clearly didn’t learn my tomato jungle lesson from last year…I planted six tomato plants! I just kept seeing new varieties I wanted to try! I planted both pink and red Brandywines, a Juliet, a Golden Girl, a Cherokee Purple, and a Mr. Stripey. The Juliet already has a couple of tomatoes growing! In between the tomatoes, I planted peas, lima beans, edamame, bush beans, Japanese scallions, lettuce, parsley, thyme, and basil all from seed. And then on impulse, I added a rosemary plant and a sweet banana pepper plant. I wanted to try a couple of cutting flowers from seed, but I haven’t gotten my act together, so those might have to wait until next year. As it is, things are looking pretty full. All of the seeds are coming up and it really is just a matter of time before the tomatoes are taking over.

I love this time of year when everything is all tidy in its place. (At least in the garden it is…my apartment is a whole different story!)

How is your garden growing?

Tagged adventures, food, forest park, garden, gardening, summer

Jan 20 2016

2 Comments

cocktails, Forest Park, Oak Park, Our Pleasant Home Book Club

A Moveable Feast & Hemingway’s Daiquiri

For book club this month, we read A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway grew up in Oak Park and our book group originated in Oak Park. Would you believe we’ve never read him? I added A Moveable Feast to our list over a year ago and no one seemed into it. When the Paris attacks happened and all of Paris turned to the old Hemingway title for comfort, I suggested we finally read it. I think (almost) everyone is glad we did.

I appreciate the book as a peek into an artist’s life in 1920s Paris. I love the interactions between the famous writers. I love the descriptions of the food and the cafes and the seasons in Paris. It is insane to imagine how much they were drinking at the time. And I know we have to take it all with a grain of salt, as the book is a memoir, written years later from Hemingway’s notebooks and published posthumously by his fourth wife, but that doesn’t change the enjoyment I got from the book as a piece of work.

Here are some of my favorite passages.

On eating and drinking (also longest sentence ever!) :

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

Regarding his writing process:

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry, You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

The seasons in Paris:

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen.

Regarding Katherine Mansfield:

I had been told Katherine Mansfield was a good short-story writer, even a great short-story writer, but trying to read her after Chekhov was like hearing the carefully artificial tales of a young old-maid compared to those of an articulate and knowing physician who was a good and simple writer. Mansfield was like near-beer. It was better to drink water.

And, the saddest line of the book…about his first wife:

When I saw my wife again standing by the tracks as the train came in by the piled logs at the station, I wished I had died before I ever loved anyone but her.

After I read the book I celebrated with a Hemingway Daiquiri. I love this cocktail and the fact that it’s about as far away from the daiquiris I enjoyed in college that you could get.

Hemingway Daiquiri

2 oz light rum

1/2 oz freshly squeezed grapefruit juice

3/4 oz freshly squeezed lime juice

1/2 oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur

Add all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake until fully chilled and pour into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Toast to all of those drunk writers, to Paris in the 1920s, and to Paris today.

Tagged adventures, cocktails, forest park

Oct 13 2015

7 Comments

adventures, Forest Park, Oak Park, gardening, Halloween

Plot #6: PUMPKINS!

Things are slowing down in our garden plot. On Saturday, I spent some time cutting down our broccoli “tree” (seriously, that thing was so tall and its root was enormous!), tearing out a tomato plant (the Cherry 1000 was not producing anything), and harvesting more than a pound of Brandywines and Juliets. I still have five more tomato plants that are flowering and producing, so I’m hoping to have a few more tiny crops before it frosts. And our loofah plant has two babies, but I don’t think they’re going to grow enough before the winter. I’m also swimming in parsley and thyme, but I’ll share more about that soon!

In the spring, Laura and I planted pumpkin and loofah seeds on the hill in the community garden. Sadly, no loofahs made it (I think the dirt was too heavy for them) but the pumpkins grew like gangbusters! Naoto and I picked our pumpkins last week, a tall one and a tiny one. They are on the lanai now with the mums and the waning summer plants. I need to get out there and take down the party lights and get rid of the sad summer annuals, but every time I think about it, the weather warms back up and we are able to sit outside and eat dinner!

Is your garden done for the year? Are you already making plans for next year? (I am!)

Tagged adventures, forest park, garden, gardening