Peggy Eldridge-Love : The Nudgies® Calendar

Have your ordered your 2005 Nudgies® Calendar yet? If not, now is the time to get this year's collector's first edition. 2006 is also available, so you might want to pick up both!

Click here for 2005
Nudgies® Calendar!

Click here for 2006

Just in case you're not familiar with Nudgies® here's it's story!

Nudgies® Greeting Cards

Creator Peggy Eldridge Love

THE IDEA

In the mid-70’s a friend who was an artist brought a canvas and a small tin of oil paints to my apartment and elicited a promise from me that I would not leave that day until I had painted a picture. This was to be quite a feat because I prided myself on being a writer, but did not fancy having any particular visual art talents.

Although I gave both that day and my promise my very best, as the sun was going down what was before me on canvas was clumsy and amateurish. In frustration I painted over it until there was nothing but a dull gray oily hue. I took the brush, dipped it in black and painted a stick figure, its arms thrust out in the frustration I thought I felt. I had done this with the intent of showing my friend that the day had been a miserable waste. Instead, suddenly before me was “someone” that I felt an instant affinity towards; a slender stick figure who seemed to embody the exact emotions I was feeling, emotions of exhilaration, not frustration! That’s the day I met the first of the characters I would later name Nudgies®.

THE GREETING CARD LINE

Within a few months of my first meeting Nudgies® I had an opportunity to leave my hometown of Kansas City and relocate to Los Angeles. The stick figure painting was among the things I packed carefully to take with me. I frequently found myself glancing at it in my new home, feeling its energy and strength, and a sense of comfort emanating from it when I was homesick and lonely. I began to sketch the image on notes around my office and including it in letters and cards. Something came up at the office where I was employed and a unique greeting was needed for a loyal and trusted employee. One of our bosses asked if I’d mind sketching my stick figures along with one of my poems for that occasion. I gladly agreed to do it. Over the next year I was sketching and writing constantly for co-workers and soon their friends and their families. As the 70’s faded into the brand new 80’s I decided it was time to formalize my little endeavor and I began to copyright my characters and greetings, I created a logo and went to press with my first line of ten Nudgies® Greeting Cards.

To my delight, my first run of cards, somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 each, sold very quickly. I actually made the first sale to a unique bookshop in Kansas City while in town visiting my family. Back in Los Angeles friends and associates were waiting on the cards, and when I took them around to my favorite little retail spots a number of the owners were receptive as well. Many of those initial sales were to corner convenience stores or neighborhood eateries, but the cards were moving and they were asking for more! It would take another five years before Nudgies® had an opportunity to really test the waters. For a brief period in the mid-80's Nudgies® Greeting Cards received the full attention of both my husband and me and we were able to market it throughout our region of Kansas and Missouri and a beginning penetration into a few other states with the success of 100,000's of cards sold, but other business demands made it necessary to step away from that quest at that time.

And so, today, after years of sitting on the back burner Nudgies® Greeting Cards is ready again to show its stuff and share its gentle nudges of love and understanding with the world. I hope you'll take advantage of this very first opportunity to participate in the launching of Nudgies® E-cards! I assure you with Nudgies® you're sure to get your message across!

LICENSING INFORMATION:

For licensing information please send email to Licensing Manager at Nudgies.

Nudgies® Greeting Cards is a registered trademark. All Nudgies® Greeting Cards are copyrighted. All Rights Reserved.