05 · The takeaway

Send them home with something.

A keepsake is the part of your house that leaves with the guest and keeps working. It can cost two dollars. It just has to be specific to you.

A watercolor postcard of a cottage, pressed flowers, a linen guest book and a small bluebird stuffie

The idea

A souvenir from a house, not a city.

Hotels do this instinctively, the matchbook, the postcard, the little soap. Homes almost never do, which is exactly why it lands so well when you do. Commission one small illustration of your house and you'll be printing keepsakes off it for a decade.

Six to steal

Keepsakes that are easy to repeat.

A postcard of the house

Have your house painted in watercolor once, summer version and a Christmas version. Print a hundred. Write two lines on the back and hand one to every guest who stays.

Botanical

Pressed flower cards

Press your signature flower, mount a stem on card stock with the house name below. Free, seasonal, and unmistakably from your garden.

Toy

A stuffie in a house shirt

A small stuffed animal in a tiny tee that reads "The Bluebird House." Absurd, delightful, and the single most photographed thing you'll ever put in a guest room.

Ritual

The guest book

One linen-bound book that lives by the door. Ask for a sentence, a date, and a drawing. Ten years in, it's the most valuable object you own.

A memory box

A shallow box for the ticket stubs, polaroids and notes from every visit. Bring it out at Christmas and let people find themselves in it.

Stationery

House notecards

Your house name, letterpressed or digitally printed, on a small folded card. Use them for thank-yous, treat tags, and notes left on the guest pillow.

The one that always works

The house stuffie.

We have a husky. So there's a small stuffed husky in the guest room, and he wears a tiny tee with the house name on it. That's the entire idea. Children find him within about ninety seconds, adults photograph him, and everyone asks about the shirt, which means everyone learns the name of the house without us ever having to say it.

Whatever animal is already associated with your home, the dog, the cat, the barn owl, the bluebirds in the eaves, there is a small plush version of it for under twenty dollars, and a print-on-demand doll tee is a couple more.

How to do it

· Pick the animal your house already has a relationship with
· Buy two: one that lives in the guest room, one you can gift
· Print the house name on a doll-sized tee, no minimum order needed
· Sit him somewhere findable: the pillow, the windowsill, the shelf
· Give him a name and use it consistently. People will ask after him.

Sourcing

Where to get this made cheaply.

Etsy illustrators

A custom house portrait typically runs less than a nice dinner out, delivered as a print-ready file you own.

Local print shops

Postcards and notecards are cheapest in runs of 100+. Ask for uncoated stock, it feels handmade.

Print on demand

For stuffie shirts, tea towels and tote bags, no minimum order and no inventory in your hall closet.

Shop the look

Postcards & stationery

Print partners and stationery finds for turning your house into something guests can pocket.

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