Etsy

Once upon a time, Aimée's kitchen smelled really, really bad. "What's that smell?" said Aimée. "I don't know," said Lara, her very tall friend, "but you better come over quick, or it's going to kill you."

So Aimée went to Lara's to escape the putrid odor. Luckily Lara lived on the same street— a sunny little avenue in Chicago's Ukrainian Village— so Aimée hadn't far to go. Once safe in the fresh-smelling spaciousness of Lara's living room, they decided to make cards. They spread all their supplies—paper! glue! scissors! GLITTER!—all over the living room floor.

"This is fun," said Aimée, who has an MFA in painting from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. "Totally," said Lara, who studied graphic design and creative writing at the University of Illinois.

"We should do this every second of every day for the rest of our lives," Aimée and Lara said, at the same time. And then they looked each other in the eye and embraced. Fortune Cookie Crafts was born!

Eventually the source of the smell was identified: a rat trapped in the oven! Aimée had the rodent-corpse removed and the smell went away, but we decided to keep hanging out and making cards.

We're inspired by our favorite movies, TV shows and music, much of which happens to be from the eighties. And though we're not "decade-ists", we will admit that, if this were a brick and mortar store, chances are Heart's 1985 masterpiece Heart would be blaring from our speakers.

When it comes down to it, our cards just make us happy. And we hope they do the same for you. Thanks for stopping by, and come again—we'll put a rat in the oven for you! (Just kidding).