Good Printed Things (2024)

02/08/2024

If you’re on my email list, you already know why things have been a little quiet on this account. This time of year, my role with Indie Craft Parade becomes a (very) full time job on its own. Good Printed Things takes a little bit of a backseat as our team sets the stage for over a hundred artists to come show and sell their work at the festival.

This year is an even bigger deal because it’s our 15th year, it’s earlier (just 2 weeks away!!) and it’s at a gorgeous new location, .

If you’re anywhere near Greenville, SC you should definitely make plans to come to the event on Aug 16 or 17! It’s full of incredibly talented and inspiring makers that you should meet! If you want to know more about Indie Craft Parade, there’s a really great article by in that features this incredible photo by .jpg!

I’ll put the article link in my bio!

24/07/2024

Made a little freebie for my retailers who order during market this week! If you carry in your shop and want a few of these recipe cards, just send me a DM. ✨

PS You’ll also find them in a few goodie bags on August 3rd!

19/07/2024

✨This one’s for the shop owners! ✨ All Good Printed Things will be up to 20% off during Faire Market next week — July 23-25 (plus one day early for Insiders). It’s a great time to stock up on titles for your shelves, so fill a cart and mark your calendar! My Faire direct link is in my profile!

16/07/2024

We’re doing final read throughs for ‘Wild Things of the Upstate’, and it’s looking SO good! Files will be headed to the printer later this week, which puts us one giant step closer to having books in hand! 🙌🏻 🙌🏻 🙌🏻

FYI If you have friends or family who missed our Kickstarter campaign, we are taking preorders that will ship as soon as Kickstarter orders are filled. The preorder link is in my profile!

09/07/2024

What a wonderful surprise to see and ‘The Song of Everything’ in this summer booklist!

If you haven’t had a chance to hear Glenis read from this book (we had so much fun at our April events!), we have great news for you! She’ll be doing another reading at Conestee Nature Preserve, July 27 at 7:30pm. This is a ticketed event, so reserve your tickets now! The link to read the article and for the event are both in my bio!

28/06/2024

This is your reminder that product reviews mean a lot to any small businesses.

Your assignment: think about a product or restaurant you love and go leave them a review (Google or otherwise). Your words can help others feel more confident making a purchase, especially from a small business!

And THANK YOU to anyone who has taken time to leave a review for one of my books!

25/06/2024

Stockist feature: South Carolina Botanical Garden

A few weeks ago, I stopped by the Visitor’s Center. I’ve visited the gardens before, but somehow missed the gift shop! I loved seeing Good Printed Things books on the shelves next to other local makers and I especially loved the reading room, where you can look at all their gardening books for free!!

If you’ve never been, add the SC Botanical Garden to your list as a place to visit! It’s a 300-acre garden that’s free and open to the public from sunrise to sundown, every day of the year.

20/06/2024

This trail is in Travelers Rest, SC across the street from City Hall and Trailblazer Park, and it will soon be home to a wildflower garden, thanks to ! They are supporting our Wild Things of the Upstate book project by providing a new garden space beside the spur that connects to the .

Tomorrow, we will be planting a mix of Southeastern Wildflowers that will create a new habitat for pollinators bordering the trail. Keep your eyes on this spot over the next few months to see how our wild things grow!

We’ve been waiting for a good rain to make this happen, but can’t wait any longer to get these seeds in the ground. Good news though — we learned on this week that it’s National , so I guess our timing is just right!

19/06/2024

This Saturday, June 22, make plans to stop by and say hello to Tiffany of ! She’ll be there doing an Author Pop Up from 10am-12pm with copies of ‘The Uncomplicated Gardener’ zine! Come by with your gardening questions, your favorite tips to share, and support a local author who knows how to make things simpler!

Psst: If you’re there around 10:30, you can catch storytime on the steps out front before or after you see Tiffany, which is my plan!

12/06/2024

I’ve been getting some very fun packages in the mail…

Pretty sure our Kickstarter backers are going to love these stickers as much as we do!

10/06/2024

D is for Dogwood… or is it secretly for daydrinkers, the unofficial meeting place for Wild Things?

I love how each of my projects this year have quickly become connected to one of our amazing local coffee shops. With The Song of Everything, and I claimed as our spot. For Wild Things, has been our home base for meetings. If you are part of creating welcoming spaces — whether that’s a coffee shop, a bookstore or library, a retail shop, a park, etc. — please know that your work is inspiring more creativity, whether you realize it or not. 💙

If you read this far, your reward is knowing that has finished all the interior illustrations for our book(!!) and is busy finalizing the words. Next up: layout!

04/06/2024

So much work has gone into this book already, and while I know there is plenty more work ahead, the fact that so many of you are excited about this idea with us is making it all worth it!

Thank you for being here, for sticking with us through all the Kickstarter posts (there were a *lot* of Kickstarter posts) and for believing in us. We’ll keep you posted as the book progresses over the next few months!

30/05/2024

It’s hard to believe that today is the last day of our Kickstarter campaign!!! Thank you so much for following along, sharing, and supporting.

Yesterday I shared that if we raise $500 above our goal, we can donate 50 copies of Wild Things of the Upstate to Greenville County Elementary schools!! Can we make it happen!? Let’s see what we can do in these last few hours! The campaign ends at midnight (EST) today, May 30!

29/05/2024

WE DID IT!!!! Wild Things of the Upstate has been fully funded!! Thank you to all of our backers for helping us reach our goal!

With less than 48 hours left in our campaign, we’re going to see if we can squeeze in one stretch goal! If another $500 in backer funding comes in, we will donate 50 copies of Wild Things of the Upstate to Greenville County Elementary Schools with the help of Greenville’s Rotary Club and Communities in Schools.

We know these books will be a wonderful educational resource and we’d love for them to live in school libraries across the upstate of South Carolina.

A giant THANK YOU goes out to each and every one who donated to or shared this project. We would not be here without your support!

27/05/2024

How awesome are these A B Cs!? Our alphabet book will not just feature gorgeous illustrations and rhyming words, it will also include a Glossary of Wild Things where you can learn more about each plant and animal.

We’re so excited about this project being a helpful educational tool for teachers, families, and more!

26/05/2024

Alphabet art in progress: Thirteen wild things letters have been illustrated and are ready for layout! Zoom and see if you can pick a favorite (I think it’s impossible!). We have just 4 days left in our campaign and a little more than $1,000 to raise to reach our goal!

This is an in-progress mock up of the poster art you’ll receive as a download if you back the project at the Environmental Advocate level — along with a signed copy of the book, sticker sheet, patch and downloadable coloring sheet! See all the backer levels and rewards at the link in my bio!

24/05/2024

I probably haven’t talked enough about *why* we’re doing our project and why ‘Wild Things of the Upstate’ felt right for our first kid’s book, but it’s right here in this quote from the federation.

We hope this book will connect generations through a shared love and appreciation for nature, and plant seeds of curiosity and care in young South Carolina explorers. 🔍🌿🦉🦎🪰🐛

22/05/2024

Meet the Illustrator:

Carissa Grace Bowser has been creating art as long as she can remember. With a BA in Studio Art, she and her fellow artist husband run . Over the years they have collaborated on many projects from murals and children’s book illustrations to posters and prints. She finds inspiration in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains and does her best to spend time outside taking in the beauty of the trails, lakes, and waterfalls nearby.

You may recognize Carissa‘s art style from the many beautiful posters and campaigns she’s created for over the years. When we set up our kids craft at the market a few weeks ago, it was incredible to see how many people know and love . I am so excited to be working with her on this project!

21/05/2024

It’s the perfect time of year for nature walks and exploring. So we put together a fun and free printable activity (link in profile) for the kids in your life. It features artwork by from our Wild Things Kickstarter project, and gives you a peek at some of the plants and animals writes about in the book!

Print the downloadable PDF on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper and cut in half for two player boards. Use rocks, leaves, pinecones, or whatever other wild things are within reach to mark your spaces.

Happy exploring!

20/05/2024

👋 Hey, it’s the Wild Things team — Abby, Lib, and Carissa — letting you know that there are 10 days left in our campaign!! We’d love for you to consider donating to our alphabet book project, if you haven’t already.

The link with all the details is in my bio!

15/05/2024

Let’s talk about our top tier reward. It’s a big one — and for good reason! 🎨

Our book illustrator, , and her husband, Jesse, are behind . They have quite a few murals in their portfolio of work (some pictured in this post). When we were brainstorming about backer levels, we loved the idea that some of the art from our book could exist larger than life! We came up with a mural tier so you can get art from Wild Things of the Upstate (with or without the letter) painted on your wall by the artist.

The mural can also be gifted to an individual or organization, so think about whether your favorite school or church or nonprofit organization needs some color added to their space!

Swipe if you want to see new letter art that we haven’t shared before!

PS you know what I realized while writing this post? If one person backs us at this level, our project will be fully funded. 😳

10/05/2024

Meet the author:

Abby Moore Keith is a writer based in the Blue Ridge foothills of South Carolina. She spends a lot of time exploring her own backyard and more with her husband Sam, two children, and dog named Gus. Her love for the natural world and the creatures that call it home inspires her work, so it’s no surprise that she dreamed up a book about Wild Things!

Sharing photos of some of the wild things she’s spotted lately, and her thoughts about this project: “Kids delight in the wonder of the natural world. Curiosity is built into them, and they want to know what things are. And I one hundred percent believe there is power in naming things, because naming something means knowing it, and when we know it, we give it meaning and value. It may seem small for a child to know an oak tree. But if they know that it supports hundreds of caterpillars and those caterpillars feed hundreds of baby birds, they know it’s worth planting. It’s worth protecting. It’s one small way they are empowered to bring more joy and delight and wonder into our world.”

08/05/2024

Wild Things of the Upstate may be written for 3-7 year olds, but I fully expect to learn from it myself. In fact, I already have!

A few weeks ago, we were at Paris Mountain and saw this little guy. Because I’d been working on this book, I knew exactly what it was and also knew the fascinating way he can use his tail to distract predators. It felt almost like a celebrity sighting… if the celebrity was a creature. 😂 I cannot wait for kids to experience that same kind of excitement and recognition when they encounter a familiar wild thing in nature!

06/05/2024

All of the art for our Kickstarter backer levels were created by and inspired by merit badges. So we thought it would be fun to actually make real Wild Things patches as a reward!

If you back our book project for $40 or more, you’ll get one of these ‘I Care For Wild Things’ patches. Even better? They iron-on, so you can put them on shirts, hats, backpacks, etc!! Go wild! ☺️

05/05/2024

Loving my foresty spot at today’s market! And my booth neighbor is who I found out hosts Silent Book Clubs with .hub here at the coffee shop every month!! Come see us and buy some books!

03/05/2024

Unless the weather thwarts our plans, I’ll be at the market this Sunday with free wildflower seed packets! Come find me on the patio and learn more about our newest book project!

02/05/2024

As a mom and as a graphic designer, I’ve always been a fan of beautiful picture books.

As a publisher, producing a children’s book has been a dream, but not one I could accomplish on my own. Abby, Carissa, and I believed in this book so much that we decided to try something new — a project — to make our idea into something real.

Turns out, we’ve found 62 other people (so far) who also believe in this idea and have been willing to contribute funds to make it happen! Our project is 49% funded on day two of our campaign. This is so much more than we had hoped for on our first day. 💚 A GIANT thank you to everyone who has backed or shared the project.

We can’t wait to see what the rest of the month looks like!

Good Printed Things