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A woman hugs a little girl wrapped in beach towel

Pam and Beth celebrating their women's doubles victory at Wimbledon, 1981.

A woman and her young son taking a selfie on top of a sand dune

Beth and her son at the Indiana Dunes. The hat's his father's fault.

Beth and Scott after their wedding.jpg

Beth and her husband after their wedding and before he started buying hats.

About PGC

 

Pretty Good Cards is an independent, woman-owned line of unique greeting cards and other stationery items based in Valparaiso — the one in Indiana, not the one in Chile.



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What's in a Name?

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I named this brand Pretty Good Cards — PGC for short — as a nod to my Midwestern roots and a tribute to my late mother, Pam. Those were her initials. 

A portion of the proceeds from all sales is donated to the Maggie Daley Center for Women’s Cancer Care in memory of my mom, the original PGC.

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Sweet! Who the Hell Are You?




I'm Beth, and I'm an illustrator, poet, and former teacher. I'm also a full-time mom to a 5-year-old and a stepmom to a 19-year-old, which means I'm equally conversant in Wild Kratts and shitty SoundCloud rappers.

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I started PGC in the summer of 2020 for two main reasons.



 

Reason No. 1





I couldn’t find the cards I wanted anywhere! I wanted bold and fun and fast, and I found a lot of peaches and taupes and the same two fonts over and over and over and — OK, you get it.

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My likes and needs and sentiments didn't feel represented. I wanted cards for women like me who grew up with an encyclopedic knowledge of Masters of the Universe and dreams of NBA stardom, cards celebrating under-served pop culture communities that I adore, cards dudes would actually enjoy shopping for, cards for people who admire Rae Dunn’s business acumen but want to barf every time they see a kitchen sign reminding them to EAT.



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(What was I going to do in here, Rae? Play rugby? Plot a heist? Get confused, think I was in the LAUNDRY, and try to GATHER or WASH something? The absolute horror.)

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This is an incomplete list, and I have absolutely nothing against taupe. I just wanted more alternatives on the shelves — so I decided to start making them myself.

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Reason No. 2

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Making stuff is how I keep myself (moderately) sane in a world gone mad. I’m a self-taught illustrator who has drawn and painted her entire life. By degrees-on-the-wall training, I’m a poet and a developmental English instructor. Several of the best years of my life were spent producing sketch comedy shows in Chicago with four dudes I graduated from Second City with, and the first time my son drew a picture that took him several minutes to explain, in great detail, the sort of detail only a 5-year-old can muster, my heart almost exploded.

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In short, creativity lights me up, even if it means risking an aorta-stained coffee table. And I don't know about you, but things seem pretty effing dark lately.

 

So. Thank you for helping me have some fun, and thanks for helping this wife and mom and step-mom have something for herself. I hope I can help you bring a smile to somebody's face, and I hope you'll drive to my house, package me up in a rocket, and shoot me off into space if I ever say "help you bring a smile to somebody's face" again.

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Beth
Owner, Illustrator, recovering side ponytail wearer

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