A love of sheep and a love of puns grew into an unexpected adventure...
How it started:
It was the spring of 2012. Two of our cousins were graduating and we needed cards for them. We thought “Why buy cards when we can make them ourselves?” So in that DIY spirit, Sonora sat down at our trusty Apple computer and started to draw.
“I wanted to experiment with ‘figure drawing’ on the computer anyway, building shapes in a messy under-drawing, then cleanly tracing over them in a new layer. The results kind of blew me away.”
After that first drawing of a sheep, a cow and a chicken holding signs, she went on to sketch several other simple, cartoon-like sheep cards- most playing off of puns containing the word ‘ewe’.
Running a shop has been a learning curve- quite a steep learning curve at times, especially at first….
Our first photos were taken on a grey bed sheet with bad lighting. The perspective on the cards sort of made you queasy, and our search tags were so bad it’s a wonder the cards ever got found! But they did get found- there were wonderful people out there who could see past the bad photos to the cards true cuteness.
Little by little, listing by listing, photo by photo, our shop has gradually improved to the place were we are proud to give people our website address.
We have paid attention to shoppers’ searches and to our customers requests, and have expanded our card line in ways that have surprised and amazed us!
Who we are:
We are a family of three: Mom (Jackie), and daughters (Ciera and Sonora). We have grown up on various small farms in the upper midwest, raising sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys, with a couple of beloved house cows (dairy cows to hand milk for the house) and a few cats and dogs thrown in for good measure. We have dearly loved all of our farm animals, but we are less than thrilled with the climate in the midwest, so are seeking to move to a warmer place.
We are independent Do-It-Yourselfers, who eat and breathe creativity. We love art and we love to craft. Some of our passions, hobbies and experiments include: Knitting, drawing/painting, writing books (nothing published yet, but getting closer…) gardening, reading, sewing, crocheting, spinning, felting, tatting, weaving, feng shui and healing crystals.
The process- how our products are created:
The cards all start out as ideas. Then the ideas are (mostly) turned into Sonora’s digital artwork. Once completed, the artwork is sent to our home printer where it gets printed onto card stock which has been meticulously hand cut and hand fed into the printer by Ciera. Then, through the phenomenon of modern technology, Sonora’s digital artwork becomes a physical masterpiece- which still seems like magic to us.
After a new card design is created, Ciera matches envelope colors to it, and Sonora puts the design onto one of our card mock-up listing photos (which we carefully created for our own shop), and together we list the card- combining our passion for writing with our detail-oriented perfectionism.
When a customer places an order, we print the order fresh, on demand. Sonora runs the computer files and writes on the receipt and Ciera fills and packs the order.
Jackie acts as a creative consultant and proofreader, delivers our packages safely to the post office, fills-in customs forms, handles finances and is the shop gofer.
While Sonora’s is the hand that ultimately draws the cards, Jackie and Ciera pitch in ideas for captions and subjects, and give loads of constructive criticism and even more positive feedback.
We love high quality products, great customer service, and detailed item descriptions and we are constantly working to be a shop that we would love to buy from.
Recently, we got to thinking about the old question: ‘If you won the lottery, would you quit your job?’ before we opened our Etsy shop our answer would have been a resounding “YES!” Now, Venus Moon Card Shop has become such a wonderful part of our lives that, although Jackie would certainly quit her day job, the Etsy shop is for keeps! Every time we get an order it gives us a thrill, and the positive feedback that we have received makes us feel all warm and gooey inside- it’s a really nice feeling to know that in a small way, we are making people happy. Maybe our cards won’t change someone’s life, but a little bit of happiness is never to be sneezed at- it probably sounds corny, but it’s how we feel!
Thanks for taking the time to get to know us, and thanks for checking out our shop! Please feel free to message us with questions about our products, custom order requests or simply to chat!
All the best!
Jackie, Ciera & Sonora
