{new products in the shop!}

I have some fun news! I added a new category of product to my shop.... 5x7 art prints!

I know it sounds like a pretty linear jump to go from greeting cards to art prints, but believe it or not, this addition was a LONG time in the making. I thought that shipping out prints would be nearly the same as greeting cards, when in fact it took quite a bit of planning.

For one thing, I needed to get a new printer. My old HP is perfectly fine for greeting cards, and it does a lovely job printing onto cardstock, but greeting cards are - more or less - disposable, while art prints hang on your wall or in a frame for years. As such, I knew I needed to get a nicer quality printer with nicer quality inks.

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to an Epson. Practically giddy with excitement, I got it configured in my craft room, printed out my very first artwork and.... it looked awful. Like, AWFUL. I was heartbroken and quite a bit upset that this top-of-the-line printer was giving me less than exceptional results.

So I did a little research and realized what my problem was. For quality prints, you need quality paper. The cardstock I was currently using wasn't "Epson approved," as it were. But the more I researched papers, the more I realized it was hard to come by a nice, thick cardstock that also wasn't ridiculously expensive.
After weeks of research, and at the end of my rope, I suddenly stumbled upon some better priced art papers from Red River Press. And lo and behold, they even had a 100% recycled cardstock! This is unheard of in art papers, since they tend to coat them with some kind of special chemical that makes the printer ink more saturated and true to color. Delighted with the find, I ordered some right away, and when it arrived on my doorstep I did a test print and....
It looked AMAZING. HOORAY!

Now back in the game, I had to go about ordering new shipping supplies. Everything I currently use is greeting card size, and I now needed 5x7 plastic sleeves and stay-flat mailers so the prints wouldn't get crushed in the mail.

At long last, I had everything I needed to get the prints up and running... I put together some product photos, made up some listings, and posted them into my Etsy shop yesterday! This is just the start of what I hope will be a large line of prints, but I'm excited about it! I hope you like them, too.

Here's the sneak peak! Check out my shop for more.

You might recognize that bread print from this post (so long ago!)