This mess means only one thing — end of the year inventory. It’s the beginning of tax season, and I couldn’t have picked a better week this winter to be inside counting cards.

I’ve been printing since 1999, but I didn’t make my first greeting card until 2017. The first two years I only had six different designs. While a few have been discontinued, I currently have 46 designs in production.

I HATE bookkeeping. The act of keeping track of things and their numbers is quite painful for me. Coincidentally, I LOVE statistics, and being able to go back and track what happened, when, and how often brings me pure JOY. So record keeping has always been a present-torture that brings future-dividends.

My experience as a commercial printer taught me the importance of tracking every job, especially if you intend to print further editions. I transferred that process over to my art, and I have kept an archive of every print edition since my first amateur copies. At a minimum, I save one copy, write the date and quantity on it, and stuff it in a file cabinet. When I started making greeting cards, I knew there would be larger runs, and I wanted to have a better idea of what was popular over time, so I upgraded to a digital spreadsheet to track my runs. I have a record of exactly how many cards I have printed of each design, and any variations that I have made along the way.

An exciting discovery was uncovered yesterday while updating my inventory. Sometime during this past summer, I crossed the threshold of 5,000 greeting cards sold over the last seven years. And now filling an order this morning, that number jumps to just over 6,000! Probably some of those cards are sitting in junk drawers and gift piles, but it overwhelms me to think of how many small personal interactions and communications I was even just a tiny part of.

I don’t know if this will be a yearly report that I make public; I certainly haven’t set any production or sales goals in the past. I’m always just happy to see my work appreciated. And if you are reading this, you are likely responsible for contributing to this small milestone. Thank you!