house merch

My parents are immigrants from Argentina, and growing up we used to have pens with our names on them. My dad got like a 500 pack of customized pens from one of those company merch companies. We might've gotten a brochure in the mail, now that I'm thinking about it, because my parents had their own business, so our address had an LLC attached to it….. I'm just now, as I'm writing this, doing mental detective work and yeah, all of this checks out.

The pens were in the generic green blue and black colors. They said our names on them, like all of our first names, like Dad, Mom, Me, & Brother. And we would give out pens to friends and family that would come over or visit from Argentina. I always thought it was an incredibly odd thing my family did.

After my parents received their residency, we went back to Argentina for the first time (and my and my brothers first time ever), and we had about 30 people receive us at the airport. Cousins, aunts, uncles, and family we've never met before. It was crazy but anyway my dad had THE PENS. He got another batch made with our last name on them — The [Last Name] Family. Idk why I don't write my literal name but I'm a scorpio and weird. Everyone was like cool, sick, thanks, love this pen. Normal reaction to receiving a normal gift. I was around 19 years old at this point and still thought the pen thing was odd.

Anyway — the other day, late March, I was thinking about the pens and I got an immediate mental download and was like wwwaaaaaiiitittttt a damn minute. House merch? Did we have house merch? Family merch? Next immediate thought was oh Kyle (my partner) and I need "postcards for the house". This was an immediate thought because we moved to Queens recently, June 2025, and since then we've had so many friends and family visit that we started joking that we run a bed and breakfast. What would a bed and breakfast have? Some sort of souvenir with their name or emblem. A business card, gift shop, brochure, postcard.

I opened photoshop and typed "I Just Visited Kyle and Emily's Apartment in Queens and All I Got Was This Postcard" in Helvetica. With a photo of a pigeon that I took in Central Park. I showed Kyle the design, he approved, and I emailed a PDF to a print shop a block down from me.

I picked them up the next day, came out to about $1 each. We got 25, for the sake of fun and art. And I have a heavy foot and tend to order more than I need (of anything) for emergencies. I knew I wanted to document at least 1 in my planner and another in my junk journal, and possibly mail out some retroactive postcards to past guests.

Time was of the essence of course because a day later, my cousin and her partner arrived from Spain to spend 10 days with us. I was so excited to give them the first postcard to test this thing out, and she was over the moon with this postcard! Not the best testing pool because she has a familiar obligation to like it, but I was convinced nonetheless. I posted the postcards on Instagram and went on with my day. A week later, the post blew up, which prompted this article about house merch. I received so many messages and comments about other folks' house merch — lots of comments about custom matchbooks with a surname or home emblem on them, someone else mentioned a guest book for their car for ride-takers to sign, a guest book for the home, recipe cards to give out at dinner parties. A running club commented about giving out postcard souvenirs at the end of their hosted runs. So many ideas, so little time.

Now, thanks to social media, I have tons of house merch ideas. Definitely matchbooks, pins are pretty low cost. Getting a guest book in place shouldn't be a big lift — I'm thinking an empty sketchbook, like 4x6 but horizontal, like the Disney autograph books we had, if you're a Florida kid. Customizing the cover, and letting friends go wild and doing whatever they want in there.

Along the lines of house merch, we started sending out Christmas cards in 2024. I choose a photo of us from the year where we look hot and young, photoshop the cats in if they're not in the photo, and send them off to print via Canva. Then I handwrite letters and add the Christmas card, decorate the envelope with stickers, and send them off. It's an incredibly fun art project, your friends have fun with it if they love you, you get to wish your loved ones a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year in old handwritten snail mail form, the most intimate. Since you're already sending mail, you can add more goodies to the envelope (stickers, postcards, photos), or go with a usps priority box if we're switching it up to a full care package or Holiday gift. You can do anything this is your world.

This years Christmas card will have to be an experience…… somehow. Like a magazine or mini zine, something interactive. Maybe the back of the card has a fun crossword, or puzzle or mystery. Or scratch-and-sniff.

I also am really into the idea of an emblem or a logo for the home. My partner is a graphic designer so I think I'll solicit a home emblem from him to print onto some matchbooks or coozies (eh) or something else. A large print for our gallery wall with the emblem would be cool too.

I'll end this with famous words from Tyler the Creator: "Find some time to do something" 🙂