Hi. I'm Danielle
In 2010, I was busy planning our wedding when I decided to take on the task of assembling and addressing our invitations myself. I posted pictures of my endeavor on a wedding blog site, and soon I was working full-time as a pediatric speech therapist by day, and hurriedly writing out other people's wedding invitation envelopes by night.
And so, Dani Writes was born.
Then one night while perusing eBay for wedding favor ideas, I found something interesting {read: scary-looking and expensive}: a 1942 Chandler and Price letterpress not too far from us. It was pick up only, seeing as it weighs roughly the same as a baby elephant (approximately 2,500 pounds), and lucky for me, my husband has lots of big, strong friends who will work for free :)
We hauled our cookies to Pennsylvania, where it took exactly 2 extra (yes, that's two more than the original rental truck we arrived in) UHaul rentals, 8 hours, and 3 strangers in addition to the original owner, his son, my husband, and our 3 friends to move the massive beast that I call Olive from that tiny PA town to a storage unit back home. To say it was a fun trip would be lying. It was awful and I'm surprised any of our friends talk to us, haha! I baked lots of "please forgive me" cookies :)
It took us the next two years to completely refurbish Olive (partially because I got pregnant shortly after we got Olive home and couldn't play with a 2,500 pound machine that I had no idea how to use with a giant baby belly).. In the meantime, I continued to work full-time as a speech therapist, and earned the Knot.com's Best of Weddings three years in a row! Last year, I decided to stay home my little guys, and focus on getting Olive up and running.
I never pictured myself as a stay-at-home mom running a letterpress business during my kiddo's naps, but I have never been happier, and I really hope that comes across in my work!
