Greetings from the beyond
I bought a Halloween Hallmark card once.
There was no real rhyme or reason behind it – I bought it mostly just for the sake of buying it, because I love Halloween, and I'd been seeing these Halloween cards in stores for years, and I'd never actually bought one. So, I bought one, wrote a cute message full of Halloween puns in it, and gave it to a friend of mine. I haven't bought another one since.
The thing is, Halloween just isn't really a card-giving holiday. That's a title better suited to Christmas, Valentine's, or personal events like birthdays and anniversaries. Still, if you love spooky stuff as much as I do, you might still have a hankering for some Halloween-themed greeting cards, even if Halloween itself isn't the time to give them.
That's where Ghost Girl Greetings, a "greeting card and gift shop for horror and pop culture fans" run by longtime friends Laurie Necco and Toni Gabriele, comes in. They make Halloween and horror inspired cards for every occasion.
The shop started the way any good thing starts – with pizza.
"It all started over a shared pizza and accidentally crashing a kid's birthday party," the creators explained. "It was around the holidays and we were going out to eat and talking about the holiday cards we *wished* were on the market. This family had rented out the place we had chosen to eat, and they were so sweet to invite us to a table (and even gave us homemade cupcakes!) Before we hit dessert Ghost Girls was born, and within a few weeks, we had created and printed our first cards!"
However, artist Laurie Necco's love of illustration long precedes the idea to start selling greeting cards. " Laurie has been creating art since childhood," Toni told me. "You won't often find her without a colored pencil in her hand whether it's creating for our shop or her own!"
The girls create products that are a lot of fun to look at – and, by the sounds of it, equally fun to design. "We do these brainstorming sessions when we create and it's so fun," they said. "Sometimes the idea will start out from a joke one of us makes. We're both really silly people by nature and (Toni) is very quick on the draw when it comes to movie quotes and puns. From there we concept out the card from the art to the words. We made a commitment to our shop that we would both love everything we make, so we take our time to create things we are 100% proud of!"
The shop creators both love Halloween – in fact, when I asked what their favourite part of Halloween was, they said it was everything.
"We're both big Halloween nerds," they explained. "From haunted houses, scary movies, lots of pumpkin-themed clothing, we love it all. Also, we really love making Halloween themed cards for people as in love with the season as we are! We're spooky all year kind of gals and it shows in our work."
While the last year hasn't been the best for small businesses, Laurie and Toni are looking forward to the future. "We have so many goals," they told me. "We'd say the most immediate is creating some new products that we've been secretly working on! While 2020 has been tough for all of us, it has given us a lot of free time to work on creating new things and growing our business."
Those things they've created have been pretty cool. In particular, the girls have a few favourite items from their shop. "We'd have to say as of late wrapping paper," they said. "We love it. It's almost too pretty to use. We also have a few card favorites, like our Buffalo Bill inspired birthday card... it always makes people laugh, and that's always what we want to achieve!"
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