We believe creativity isn't a gift. It's your birthright.
I'm Nicole Fende. I publish games and books at Tesseray Publishing, and I co-host a podcast called Holding Creative Space with the artist Monette Satterfield.
Every week we talk about the things that stop people from making things. Comparison. Imposter syndrome. The half-finished project sitting in the closet making you feel guilty. The voice that says it isn't good enough to show anyone.
Somewhere in those conversations, a line lands. Something you want to keep where you can see it.
That's what this shop is. The lines that landed, and the jokes only other artists get, put on things you'll actually use. A mug for the desk where you don't feel like a real artist yet.
If you've been away from your creative practice for sixty years or six minutes, the space is here for you.
How these are made, in plain language.
Every design comes from one of three actual people: me, Monette, or Tasha, our marketing and brand specialist. Drawn by hand and laid out in Affinity Designer. No stock art, no templates, no AI.
The printing is not done by hand, and I won't pretend it is. My production partner is Printful, and your order is printed to order by machine at one of their own US facilities, in Charlotte, North Carolina or Coppell, Texas, whichever is closer to you. Mugs are sublimation printed, which fuses the ink into the ceramic rather than sitting on top of it, so it won't peel or wash off.
I name them because you deserve to know who handled your order, and because I'd want to know.
Made to order means nothing is printed until you buy it, so there's no shelf of unsold mugs waiting to be thrown away. It also means a few extra days before it reaches you. That tradeoff is deliberate.
