Deciding whether to start your shop on Etsy or your own website really comes down to answering one question: Are you starting this business to A) establish a brand & scale a business, or B) sell something for fun and see where it goes?Investing in your own website has TONS of pros— it's fully...

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I don't have much to say about the epidemic (follow my Flipboard magazine for interesting reads about it, though! (Why yes, I did just start a job there this week ;)) that hasn't already been said, but I know this crazy time has affected everyone in some way and, on top of that, I know how blesse...

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2.5 months (and a whole different world...) ago, I asked a question on insta-stories: "2 weeks ago, I released a new pin, 1 week ago, I released personal stationery, and this week, I released sticker sheets. Is it annoying when I release products 1 by 1, week by week?" In Pickles history, I p...

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It’s really hard for me to have a definite date of the beginning of A Jar of Pickles. My Etsy was a random thing I started in college because I was making fliers/logos etc for student groups on campus, and my roommates suggested I should put stuff up for fun. It was a very passive project; I’d just design things every couple of months when I felt like it.

Because of this, I never had a “launch date” but the start of Pickles can be marked by a few significant milestones:

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I have been thinking about making letterpress cards for YEARS. Inspired after I went to a letterpress workshop, I reached out to a bunch of letterpress printers in 2015.

Every year I consider it, and every year I chicken out. I am very risk adverse and rarely will take any kind of financial risks with Pickles, even if it's not technically a risk (for example, it took me 5 years to buy a $200 label printer.. lol). 

But while I spend lots of time on Pickles in my current job-less state, I am so, so close to taking the leap!

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Office:
A) Sideboard: product packaging materials: boxed sets, unfolded cards, envelopes, product packaging stickers, etc
Bought used
B) Cabinet: mailers, samples from vendors, old designs for references, etc 
From Ikea
C) Shelf: all products, (mostly) ready to ship. Card boxes can hold ~200 cards, I fit about 2 SKU's per box. I have to refill those boxes too often and the shelf is getting very crowded with so many new products! 
Shelves from Ikea, card boxes from Amazon, most other boxes from Ikea
D) Desk: I thought I'd work and stare into the backyard here a lot, but I don't. So it's 100% packaging orders 
From Ikea

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Last week in San Diego, I tried to sit down and finally tackle gift wrap, something that's been on my list for years! The goal was to convert our very popular holiday card, Fleece Navidad, onto gift wrap.The easiest option was to tile the card design, which I knew wouldn't look great but I just w...

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Pulled up data to compare this year and last year's sales: 2018 sale was 5 days, 30% off everything 2019 sale was 7 days, with a tiered discount:15% off all custom 25% off all pins, notepads, prints, totes etc35% off all cards General numbers comparing 2019 to 2018 (normalized over 7 days):  A...

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