That’s right, I’m opening Frenchly. I’ve recently dusted off Duolingo and my knowledge of high school French, and now I’m subjecting you to my limited language skills. English will be prevalent throughout the rest of this newsletter, which I thank you for reading! Hopefully, it inspires you to make something and/or reach out to tell me what you’ve created recently. I’d love to know about it!

On the real-life front, our dog, Mac, broke a toe while frolicking, which has forced us to have some quiet weeks. No walks or playing ball for him, and no day/weekend trips for the humans in the house, but we’ve been trying to make the best of things. We’ve painted a couple of rooms in our house, making it more ours. We’ve been getting quotes for solutions to address our unencapsulated crawlspace. (Okay, this task is not really us “making the best of things,” but it’s necessary.) We’re planning trips/more reasons to look forward to the future. We’re laying the groundwork for a better tomorrow!

As for acts of creativity, plenty of those have been going on! I recently started a “Once Upon a Time This Week” feature that looks back at what I was doing at this time in previous years. Enjoying cocktails when writing blog posts, it turns out. But other things as well, such as drawings, collages, tutorials, and more!

I also summarized stuff going on in my life in LiveJournal-esque breakdowns, like this:

Listening... to my EVERYTHING EVER Spotify playlist, which is a compilation of all my other Spotify playlists that have been sectioned off chronologically by either my schooling situation or where I was living at the time (e.g., “Middle School,” “Post-College,” “The Penthouse,” “Portland,” et cetera). Fun fact: I also have some themed playlists that involve some variation of my name, such as “Stef Is Working Out Now,” “Stephanie Is Most Zen and Chill,” “Stephanie’s Christmas Tree Ball,” and so on.

Watching... Taskmaster, for the third time. We first saw it when we visited Ireland in 2023 and have been hooked ever since. Ask me how mad I was when the recent US tour sold out instantly. My favorite seasons: 7, 12, 19, and others that I’ll remember when I rewatch them yet again. Invite joy into your life, give it a watch, all episodes are free on YouTube!

Reading... and finishing Yesteryear during my morning coffee, and I’m still in a fog, thinking about it.

Eating/Drinking... sourdough toast topped with hummus, tomatoes, and kalamata olives for breakfast, and that’s been super tasty.

Wanting/Needing... to find a good pet sitter for both Mac and Goblin. Currently, Mac doesn’t like other dogs, and Goblin has never been away from us for longer than 24 hours and is afraid of people who aren’t us, so the process feels complicated and solutions seem expensive.

Enjoying... having Goblin purring on my lap right now. Every afternoon, he comes into my office from sleeping in a cardboard box across the hall in the guest room, sits at my feet, and meows until I pick him up and snuggle him. This is why I can’t bear to leave him alone! He’s full of needs!

Thinking... about volunteering at the local creative reuse center, a place where people donate their used or unused art supplies and

And now, onto the art stuff!

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Here are a few artistic-leaning projects I’ve been pecking at lately:

It’s also been a while since I made a revamped Sweet Valley High cover, but my interest in this project—ongoing since 2020, that magical year—has renewed! Some background: After book 95, the series traded its iconic, Sears-portrait-style covers created by James Mathewuse for a “snowglobe" of drawings by a different illustrator. Later, the new look was replaced by awkward photos of Brittany and Cynthia Daniel, the real-life twins starring on the Sweet Valley High TV show in the ‘90s. In other words, after book 95, it wasn’t the same. (Despite my opinion, the series persisted for 50+ more books.)

So I took it upon myself to Photoshop pieces of covers 1–95 to create new covers for books 96 and up, like this:

But as I said, it’s been a while; I got hung up on a dumb story arc and couldn’t think of a cover to Frankenstein together—until last week! Inspiration struck, and I’m finally powering through. It’ll be a bit before it goes live, but here’s the sneak peek:

Check out more covers here!

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This month’s shop highlight is the shop itself!

For the past couple of years, I have been slowly inching away from HappiMess Media, the name I’d associated with all my informal creative endeavors since 2015. However, over time, HMM felt less and less like me—I felt encumbered by the title, and I wanted to just be myself. Thus, the transition to renaming everything Stef Mates.

Everything except the shop, that is. It’d be boring to rename the shop “Stef Mates”; that’s not a fun, amusing place to acquire goodies. But I did rename it after a nickname of mine, so I suppose I named it after myself after all.

Check out the Etsy and Threadless storefronts—as of this issue’s publication date, everything is on sale!

Thank you for checking out this issue—more of the scoop is forthcoming next month, so have fun until then!

Stef Mates