Story & Lesson Highlights with Shayna Norwood of Logan Square

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Shayna Norwood. Check out our conversation below.

Shayna, really appreciate you sharing your stories and insights with us. The world would have so much more understanding and empathy if we all were a bit more open about our stories and how they have helped shaped our journey and worldview. Let’s jump in with a fun one: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity is most important to me. It’s probably the most abstract of the three qualities listed. Both intelligence and energy can be measured. Energy can be conserved, squandered used or taken. Intelligence can increase or decrease based on age, time and practice. Integrity, or lack of, says way more about a person and who they are at their core. A person with integrity is trustworthy and reliable. Even using the word to describe the physical world “structural integrity” indicates inherent strength and stability.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Steel Petal Press is a letterpress greeting card brand and retail storefront located in Logan Square, Chicago. We design and print our greeting cards in house and sell our products wholesale to hundreds of independant retail shops around the country. Our cards have also been sold in national chains stores including Paper Source, Barnes and Noble, and Urban Outfitters.

We’ve had our retail storefront since 2016 (almost 10 years!) Our retail shop and production space is a unique operation because both parts of the business occupy the same space. Customers in the shop are able to see the vintage printing presses and witness the cards being made in real time. Our retail shop specializes in gifts under $50. We try to support other small, independent, and local vendors as much as we can.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I’ve always marched to the beat of my own drum, paved my own way, and gone against the grain. If the world ever told me who I had to be, I certainly wasn’t listening or paying attention. I’ve always been me, and I’ve never been good at pretending to be anything other than that. One of the many reasons why entrepreneurship is such a good fit for me. I thrive when paving my own way and I shrink trying to follow other people’s rules.

What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
From 2021–2024, I suffered multiple heartbreaking losses in a very short period of time. Each of them was defining in its own right, and together they have truly changed me forever.

In 2021, my father passed away. Just a few months later, our puppy was hit by a car—all while my marriage was unraveling. By the end of that year, a little over six months after losing my dad, my 17-year relationship came to an end. I spent 2022 and 2023 navigating the divorce process. At the end of 2024, my mom passed away suddenly and unexpectedly after three excruciating weeks in the ICU.

Losing a parent is terrible, losing a pet is like losing a family member, divorce contains grief similar to death, and losing both parents is next level. At this point, it’s hard for me to separate each event from the other. For me, it was a completely life-changing few years. With my mom’s passing, I experienced two deaths at once—the first of my mom, but the second of my immediate family. Learning to navigate the world without my mother is one thing, but I’m also learning to understand this new reality without parents.

I can definitively say I’m not healed from any of this yet. It was only last month that my brother and I sold our childhood home. We are still working through the paperwork involved with her estate. Logistics aside, I’m existing in an entirely new reality. My entire world, as I knew it for almost 20 years, doesn’t exist anymore, and I’m sure it will take some time to rebuild something new out of everything that was lost.

I can say that through all of this I’ve witnessed my own resilience—something I didn’t know I had on such a deep level. Right now, I’m focusing on slowing down, resetting my nervous system, prioritizing my health and well-being, and finding gratitude and beauty in the pieces of my life that remain.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
One personal project I am constantly working on is writing a book.

I have been producing and collecting written pieces for years now. My goal is to one day organize the words within the structure of a loose storyline to create a novel that feels like a surrealist painting and can be experienced as an organized dream state. I’m still in the process of producing the snippets and pieces. They come to me at random times and flow through, unedited, as words on a page. Eventually, I plan to compile, edit, and organize these passages into a loose narrative.

I have no timeline for this project. At this point, it is a constant work in progress. It comes from my need to express art, humanity, and creativity in ways that cannot be done through greeting cards. Greeting cards can be satisfying but are also limited as an art form in their self-expression. I have more in me to share. I haven’t found the time and space yet to express it, but it’s a project I am committed to working on for however long it takes. I’m not in a rush. It will happen when the time is right.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Could you give everything your best, even if no one ever praised you for it?
That is the only way I operate. I’m a self-driven, perfectionist. Praise is great as well, but knowing I did my best is always the most satisfying.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Lynn Renee Photography
https://www.lynnreneephoto.com

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