PrettyGirlPostcards

WELCOME TO PRETTY GIRL POSTCARDS! This is an excerpt from an ETSY Conversation Podcast Interview I had with Ijeoma from convome.com. I hope you enjoy it!

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF - CRAFTER, MAKER, ARTIST? I guess at this time I consider myself a graphic artist; but I've been interested in so many different things in my life – calligraphy, quilting, acting in community theater, and I was a hairdresser for many years – but everything that interests me has been in the creative arts. So I guess I'm a creator of pretty stuff.

WHAT DO YOU SELL? They're called Pretty Girl Postcards; or, as I call them, my “FUNNY FABULOUS FASHIONISTAS”. They are 4” x 6” glossy postcards featuring illustrations from 18th Century French Fashion Plates. Each of these lovely ladies has an attitude and, I know this sounds crazy, but I just look at them one at a time until they 'speak' to me. I'll give you an example, and actually, she was the very first Pretty Girl: my sister Carmala was visiting me and I was anxious to show her a new book that I'd gotten of 18th Century Fashion Plates. We were going through the pages one by one when we came upon a picture of a woman decked out in a red 18th Century gown that was filled with mostly green adornments of lace and baubles, completely over the top, when my sister said, speaking as the queen in the picture, “You mean we have to decorate the tree, too?” referring to the Christmas tree. Well, we laughed and laughed until it dawned on us that, as we went through the fashion plates, that these fancy ladies were speaking to us. And that was the beginning of Pretty Girl Postcards. Now there's nearly 100 of these Pretty Girls, some sassy, some sweet, but they all have 21st Century attitudes.

YOU SAY YOU STARTED THE BUSINESS WITH YOUR SISTER. ARE YOU AND YOUR SISTER STILL PARTNERS? Well, sort of. She moved to North Carolina last year, so we don't see one another as much as we used to, but we still talk nearly every other day and we are constantly bouncing new ideas around. So, I would say yes, we are still partners. But we're sisters first.

WHAT WAS YOUR ORIGINAL GOAL OR INTENT? I wanted to just make some extra money but my sister wanted us to be so successful that we could buy Hallmark!