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THE GOOD. It's finally Halloween! Well, we sort of cheated and have been unabashedly gobbling a stash of our favorite candy for a couple weeks now. But what we’re truly excited about beats any amount of Kit Kats and Butterfingers: we welcomed George to the team! He is our new pressman, and the only way to describe him is magical. From the first day he and his trusty toolbox arrived, he’s mesmerized us with his printing, ink mixing, and press whispering. AND he brings in donuts (of the fresh from Union Square variety). Magical, right?

Speaking of amazing feats, Clayton ran the Chicago Marathon this month. Or more like he sprinted the marathon to the tune of 02:46:41!! You guys, that placed him 260th out of tens of thousands of runners! But if you ask him how it went he’ll just say he felt good and was excited to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That’s great and all, but I think a little Rocky theme song is appropriate here.

In other good things, we officially introduced April May for Smudge Ink! This line of map cards and prints all grew from my love of Boston and its neighborhoods. I’ve included many other cities and state since my first map drawing six years ago, and now all Smudge Ink customers can shop the collection.

THE BAD. Like all months, not everything went according to plan. Our “September” release was a full month late. Changes to schedules and staffing, coupled with an already demanding print lineup for the holidays, added up in bottlenecks and delays. It was a good lesson on how to tackle issues and make necessary adjustments sooner rather than later. We also made sure to communicate everything to our sales reps, being quick to answer all of their questions and providing them with easy access to our catalogs to show to stores in the meantime. We're really happy to see Valentines orders already starting to come in!

THE NOT-SO-UGLY. Crusoe kills it with this costume.

 

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THE GOOD. Lots of parents look forward to back-to-school month for obvious reasons. That first day can be a bit harrowing but fortunately I’d say the transition went relatively smoothly. At least we had a couple stories to laugh about (thanks, Deb!). I also look forward to September because it feels like a fresh start: the weather's changing and everyone's got a little extra pep in their step.

This week we started the tradition of monthly staff lunches! You may have already picked up on my obsession with lunch given the past two posts on lunch ideas and lunchbox notes. We typically all just grab and scarf down our lunches at our desks, each at different times throughout the day. I really loved the idea (good one, Sarah!) of allocating one day a month for us to gather and gab over our lunches together. There was lots of laughing and joking around; it was a great way for all of us to hit pause in the middle of a very, very busy day.

We also celebrated three office birthdays (read our birthday notes here) with a super chocolatey 5-layer cake topped with shiny heart sprinkles!

THE BAD. We've been really bogged down in our print room. With lots of staffing and scheduling changes, it's been hard to keep to a normal print schedule. Throw in a few early season colds, and the presses nearly came to a stop! But we're getting back on track and making a dent in our print list!

THE UGLY. We had quite the lively debate about Cats the musical. Does anyone know whether it has a plot or not?

 

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THE GOOD. I love thinking back on all of the good things that happen each month! It's a reminder that we're accomplishing quite a lot, which can be really hard to notice in the day-to-day craziness of a small business. This month Julie has been keeping everything moving in the press room while soaking in as much as possible before Margaret’s departure (more about this below). We finished reorganizing inventory on the new shelves! Our summer fulfillment assistant pre-packaged so many holiday cards that we can barely see over the stacks (unless you use a tall ladder in order to take a photo). And Clayton is doing such great design work right now (plus we're ahead of schedule!!!); we cannot wait to share it all with you later this year!

THE BAD. More like the sad, I suppose. To start, Ryan ended his summer internship. He helped us with so many projects, including blog posts like this and this. Then right after that, we threw a farewell party for Emily, our longtime print shop manager and lover of teeny things! She enjoyed a mini cake as we reminisced about her eight years with Smudge and talked excitedly about all of the great things she'll be doing in the coming months. Last week, we sent Margaret off with a road trip care package complete with a copy of the Sister Act 2 soundtrack. She's en route to Nevada right this moment! And finally, we said bye-bye to Henry, our Beyoncé-loving and superstar packaging assistant (yes, he boxed all of those cards and more). He's starting his senior year of high school today!

It was fairly sad and we most definitely ate our feelings (coconut cake, mini three layer cake, strawberry rhubarb pie, and coffee ice cream to be exact), but we're so grateful to these fine folks for being a part of the family and taking great care to make sure we're all set up for life without them.

THE (NOT SO) UGLY. Does anyone else talk about Stranger Things every day? We're obsessed. We being everyone but Sabrina and Clayton. Get with the program, guys. Staff record so far is watching the entire season in one sitting (ahem, Julie).

 

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THE GOOD. So many great things happened this month! First, we hired two new fulfillment assistants. We've all been pinch-hitting to fill orders while we searched (and searched) for the right people. It took us a few months, but Erin and Molly were definitely worth the wait. Both are talented creatives (see here and here) who get our quirky sense of humor and have the positive attitudes to match. We are so glad they are part of the crew! Second, the summer outing was a hit! It’s been one thing after another so it was nice to hit pause for a day and talk about things other than work. And last but not least, we got another press! Lovingly named Athena, she is truly glorious. Margaret got her up and running yesterday and the new chugging and hissing sounds are music to our ears. She's really going to help speed up our production time.

THE BAD. We're in the middle of reorganizing our space and it is a MAJOR pain. Basically, we’re moving our inventory from one room to another. But first, we had to clear out and rearrange big (and heavy!) furniture, computers, and equipment to make the layout more functional and have room to install brand new shelving. I don’t even want to think about how many boxes of cards, stacks of wrapping paper, and piles and piles of stuff we’ve lugged. The 99% humidity and 95 degree weather wasn’t doing us any favors either. It hasn’t been fun but I know we’ll be able to utilize the space better once we get through this messy part.

THE UGLY. Given the aforementioned humidity and heavy lifting we basically look like this. Yikes.

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A couple weeks ago, we welcomed Athena to our family! She came rather unexpectedly as we hadn’t been actively looking to bring in another press. Then we caught wind that Bill and Andy Schell in Jamaica Plain were looking for new homes for their Heidelberg Windmills. Curiosity got the best of us, and soon we had Margaret and Deb scouting it out. It was pretty much a done deal at first sight (and test run).

With so much else going on, we were really fortunate to have Margaret work with Mike Andrejewski to spearhead the logistics of moving the press, or rather press-ES. Yup, Margaret had placed dibs on the second Heidelberg, Athena’s sister. The process took the better part of three days from start to finish during which Margaret would pop back in the studio covered in grime and with a huge smile on her face. Read on for Margaret's highlights of the move ...

The main challenge of this move was getting the presses through this (not so roomy) doorway. 

Taking the clutch arm off is pretty simple but that still did not create enough clearance. We ended up having to remove the whole table base, and the only way to do that is to disassemble the front of the machine. That base is as heavy as it looks.

We spent the next day figuring out how to get both presses down two stairs outside the building’s front entrance. Mike brought a heavy metal plate that he propped up with big wood blocks in order to extend the first stair out over the second. With the palette jack, we wheeled a press out on the makeshift platform which then allowed us to come around to the front to pick it up. Mike is a maniac in the fork lift. He just plucked the press up out of the doorway while turning sharp (and backwards!) in order not to fall off the curb and then just, nice and easy, set it down on the flatbed like a boss.

We fork lifted and chained the presses onto the flatbed, and they were on their way!

Thank goodness we had a wider entryway over at Smudge HQ! We rolled Athena right into the press room and placed her in her new home. 

I was psyched to help out with this process. I learned a lot from taking them apart and putting them back together. It's incredible how well and relatively simply these machines are built. Here's to another 50+ years of printing!

Shout out to Bill and Andy who generously gave us these presses and put up with the ordeal of us trying to get them out of there! Happy retirement, and I hope you're reading this in Florida!

Thanks, Margaret! We hope Medusa is enjoying her new home too!

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