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About Pretty Good Cards

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.



What's in a Name?



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.

Beth and her mom looking super adorable in the early 1980s

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

Sweet! Who the Hell Are You?


I'm Beth, and I'm an illustrator, poet, and former teacher. I'm also a mom to an 8-year-old, which means I'm equally conversant in comma splices and Naruto.
 
Elizabeth Wylder Sederstrom, owner of Pretty Good Cards and a large head
OK. I'm semi-conversant in Naruto.

 
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.

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.



(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.)

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

A snapshot of life with a 3-year-old during the pandemic. When I told my son I could paint his face to look like ANYTHING he wanted, he picked the Roku remote. A month later, I started PGC.

Reason No. 2

Making stuff is how I keep myself (moderately) sane in a world gone mad. I’m a self-taught illustrator who grew up drawing and painting... and then put it on the back burner for a couple of decades.

By degrees-on-the-wall training, I’m a poet and former teacher who spent most of her career at the City Colleges of Chicago. My first poetry collection, Antarctica is for Sleepers, was published in 2010, and I'm finally making time to write a second book now.

Slowly. So very, very slowly.

Several of the best years of my life were spent producing sketch comedy shows in Chicago with four hilarious and talented guys 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 preschooler can muster? My heart almost exploded.

He bought those art supplies with money from his toddler lawn mowing service. (It was wildly unpopular.)

In short, making stuff that helps people connect makes me happy, so thank you for letting me do that. As a single mom, I have to be on call and in the know for the little dude in my life virtually 24/7. (Maybe you can relate?) Thanks for helping me have something that's allllll mine, suckers.

In return, 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.

Beth
Owner, Illustrator, recovering side ponytail wearer

P.S. Wanna hear more from me every once in a while, including info about exclusive sales and free stuff and all that jazz? Sweet! Subscribe to my pretty good email list right here. (You can Irish goodbye your way right back out whenever you want. No hard feelings.)