There are times when I marvel at the way things have turned out in my life. I have a wonderful marriage, a solid job and we live in a wonderful lake home on one of the largest lakes in Minnesota. It is not the biggest house on the block nor does it have the nicest beach, but we have the best neighbors in the world. We are so blest to have moved next to a couple that we enjoy spending time with. We play card together, fish together, gamble together and eat meals in each others homes. It is so nice to live next to someone that you can trust and that will lend a hand when you need it.
The guys like fishing more than the women so we often go shopping in the small gift and craft shops in the local towns. We have gotten to know several of the shop owners. One day I was looking for birthday greeting cards for several birthdays that were coming up in the month. I was having a hard time finding the right birthday greeting cards. The shop owner commented that so many people were using e-cards that many of the companies were down sizing the physical cards that they had available. Also there were many people that created their own cards on their computers. She said holiday cards still sold very well, but birthday greeting cards were on a decline. She said another reason for this was that the gift bags had become so popular and most of them included a tag that you could write your birthday message on.
When we left the shop my neighbor and I started talking about the cards we had seen in this small resort town about twenty miles away. The cards featured old black and white photographs of different people and the inside had hilarious sayings in them. It was a great day for a drive and neither of us had anything planned so we drove to the town. There were a few of the birthday greeting cards left, but not nearly the selection that they have had in the past. The shop owner said that the local woman that had made the cards was no longer interested in doing them. My neighbor and I started talking about this on the way home. She had a trunk full of old photographs from her mother. She said there were several that would make great cards. We started fooling around with sayings to match pictures. It was great fun. We used photo printers and card stock and different fonts to create funny unique cards. We contracted with one of the shops and started making a nice side income making birthday greeting cards.
3/10/2015
News