Six years ago, I started this Printmaking Workshop for Kids - here at Atlas Park in our hometown - Queens, NY. It was supposed to be three months, and then I was going to focus on developing stationery products for kids (sketchbooks, stickers, notecards, etc). That was six (6) years ago.
Pre-covid (our first 2-1/2 years), we struggled to cover overhead. During Covid, I don't even want to talk about that - but we scrapped & clawed to keep this place open. Post-covid (or whatever we’re calling this) it feels like we are just starting to manage overhead - so I’m finally trying to push myself to develop a new product.
Bubble Letter Name Cards sparked an idea
For every workshop and birthday party we run, Mike, Kevin and I hand-letter these bubble-letter name cards for all the kids attending. They color-in and decorate their name cards with markers and both the Kids (and adults) absolutely love customizing their cards. So many parents tell me I should create pages for kids to color - but what they hey are they gonna do with a bunch of coloring pages?
But then I got this idea - what if I hand-letter a sketchbook cover that the kids can decorate themselves - and even better - what if it’s a Daily Doodle Book. So, I started creating a few hand-lettered covers and showed it to kids & parents - and they all said ‘yes, do it - make it a product - we’ll buy it’.
Those conversations started about 4 months ago - and I lulled over it for days which turned to weeks which turned to months - and then I just grabbed a blank cover, drew it out - gave it to Mike - he scanned it & fussed with it in Photoshop - then I printed about 25 of them and here we are. I am typing this blog post on 4 hours of sleep -two cappuccinos on the Thursday afternoon of mid-winter recess. Luke & Lochlan are in the back yard playing catch and I am determined to get this website started. Sometimes you just gotta start and let things fall into place. I have always been bad at that -but no more. Here we go. Our first blog post for the My Daily Doodle Book website - and I wrote it in about 15-20 minutes. More to come. Hope you will come along for the ride.
We’ll be posting on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter - and I am going to post up on YouTube (not sure if I will use Little Pulp or create a new YouTube channel). Still lulling that over but will make a decision quick.
Send me an email and give me some encouragement - I always need it!
