mixed-tape mondays: late nights

Usually I try to be cheerful on the blog (lots of exclamation points! exciting things happening!)...and lots of good things did happen today.  But now it's just after 11 pm, and after twelve hours at the studio, I'm beat.

Around 8pm I was totally in the groove, listening to one of my favorite audiobooks, and sewing up the last few albums for a big order heading out to Greenwich Letterpress.

They look pretty awesome all lined up like that, and when I think of how many hours went in to each step of each one, I do smile (just a little).  And then, with a big yawn, I say goodnight!

finished fridays: rockstar gold

What a way to end the week--printing cd sleeves for rockstars.

Local rockstars, that is.  And the gold ink looks totally awesome over the black, don't you think?

workbench wednesdays: backwards week

So here we are, in the middle of the first week of the year...and I just can't seem to work fast enough. 

I was on the Vandercook today, printing more programs for Anais Mitchell's Hadestown show (happening next Monday in New York City!).  There's 400 to do this time around--and two ink colors, double-sided.

One color down!

P.S. Less-than-awesome photos today, because I forgot the camera at home and photobooth can only do so much!

on the bench: so clean!

Possibly the cleanest you will ever see my table--packing the last of this batch of wholesale orders.  These beauties are my new photo albums, and are on their way to the classy shelves of Bowne & Co Stationers at the South Street Seaport Musuem.

so much, so fast: story in pictures

Being a printer (and my own boss) has its ups and downs: I sometimes go two weeks without a day off, but I get to make pretty, pretty things that will make people gloriously happy.  Or in this case, make a birthday surprise that much more surprising.  

 
That's Saul, my apprentice for the month, working on the big beast.

 Going into the press for the third time!

Getting the second pass through the gocco!

Registering for the second color!

Lovely!

Just waiting for assembly!

Those are CD sleeves for my dear friend and local rock star Sara Grace.  It was her birthday a last week, and her partner (as a surprise) had the singles from Sara's album-in-process professionally pressed, and designs finalized by Bridget at Brand New Key, and finally printed letterpress and gocco at May Day Studio.  Sara also got a three-week, all-expenses paid trip to Amsterdam, with three shows booked in advance.   All this came together in less than ten days...and we're all thrilled (and exhausted)!

seventy degrees + one for the memories

It's a beautiful day in Vermont--the sun is shining, and I'm printing 900 coasters for the new pub in town: Three Penny Taproom.
And when I came home for lunch, I saw this on etsy:
Yay!

crafty kids

Cecilia at Craftsbury Kids has been a big supporter of mine since the beginning...and I'm happy to say that I finally have a few things for sale in her shop!

Craftsbury Kids is "a breath of fresh air in a gadget-filled world" and features fine, handmade goods from all over the world. There are so many lovely things on the site, it's hard to pick favorites, but if you were to stop over and buy one of my limited-edition Bingo Albums, you should also check out the Bubble Wand, the Jingle Block, and the Step Stool (which I totally had as a young'un!).

week(s) in pictures

I'm finding it hard to keep up with the blogging lately. This is my first "busy season," and while I'm not totally unprepared, I am a bit underprepared. And very nearly out of time.

Here are a few shots from the past few weeks:
That's new friend Emma and old friend Meagan having a private bookbinding class in my studio. Here're the finished products:For Meagan's book, she brought fabric that she'd silkscreened, and Emma chose from my voluminous stash of pretty papers.

Last weekend's "Experience" workshop was a lot of fun! Sina, Jinkyung, Jenn, and Sarah were very laid back, and ready to experience whatever the day had to offer.
Sarah getting up close and personal with the Nolan proof press.Sina experimenting with layout on her prints.
Jinkyung, Sina, and Jenn locking up chase after chase after chase...

I stayed late after class to try to get the Vandercook #4 ready to print for this weekend's workshop: success!!
And while all that was going on, I got my first custom order on etsy--and it was shipping to Australia!
Two Bingo Albums, to hold 100 photos each...they're quite fat little books!

Coming up this week: Holiday Card workshop, printing my line of holiday cards, more prep for the Queen City Craft Bazaar and Paper & Chocolate trunk show, and hopefully not flubbing my first day as film projectionist at the Savoy!

Queen City Craft Bazaar--the final countdown

That's where I'll be, all day tomorrow, hunkered down behind a massive pile of books and cards--seriously, it's a lot of stuff! Click here for the directions, and I'll be on the first floor (the train level, apparently). Now you have no excuses, so I'll see you there!

What to do...

...when you're supposed to be working (or blogging)--but you just can't get motivated?

So I've been taking lots of pictures of the things I've been doing when I should be working.

Item one: Googling yourself. You know you do it. But do you spend two hours doing it, looking up all possible combinations? And now with the business, there's even more to do. But that's how I found a fantastic thing! The design*sponge guest designer blog featured (drum roll please) me! Guest designer Molly Symmonds has a great eye, and titled her Tuesday Feb 20th post "splendid stationary," and filled it with beautiful paper treats harvested on etsy. I've got this blog on my links--and you should too! I'm working on a few more journals made from this paper, so stay tuned!

Item two: I bought a new couch. As in New. And the placement of a large piece of furniture in my living room-slash-print studio meant a major rearranging needed to take place. So I moved the living room around, which inspired me to actually put some stuff in my bedroom, which meant some stuff had to go in the kitchen. In the end, I had a bookshelf with nothing on it! And having recently perused the winter issue of Adorn magazine and seen the pretty workspace all brought together with paper...I thought I should get around to covering my storage boxes and lining the back of the shelves. My new color scheme is pink/orange/red/brown, and so I dug out scraps for covering the fronts of boxes, and found a pretty orange polka-dotty paper and a graphic flower print to do every other shelf. The effect is just lovely. I want all my shelves to look like this!

Item three: I posted a little while ago about the Bingo card album that I gave to Cecilia as a gift. Well, she took it to New York with her, and gave it to her publicity people, and it's in the works for publication in a magazine. The upshot is that I have a heck of a lot of paper to cut. This is just the beginning of it!

Item four: So this one is actual work. Kind of. My friend Sian finally broke down and decided to let me print her some business cards. But because she's a designer, she has a yen for perfection. Which means that I didn't have her typeface in the right sizes to hand-set her text. And while I'm waiting to receive the Ludlow slugs with her text, she nudged her partner Eyrich to get cards of his own. I got to mess around with a new paper (yay!) and get paid for it! I think they came out beautifully--and Eyrich actually had something with his name on it to take to a woodworking show.

Item five: I needed a "no-stress" art project to do while I contemplated money-making projects. So I decided to get on my project for The Gladiator, the super-duper art vending machine at the Langdon Street Cafe. It was, at least to everyone else, pretty obvious that I should make something with paper. But who wants to be obvious? I decided that Power Cuffs would be the best use of my time. There's been lots of talk about Wonder Woman lately, and I thought that declaring your art/love with felt and pretty cotton print wristbands might be cool.

Item six: Taking silly pictures of the cats. Because they're the only kids I'm going to be allowed to have for a while.

Here's Punk looking perplexed (or perhaps annoyed) at my pile of Power Cuffs.

And Sasha being very patient while I make her a spiky Lettra collar. (n.b. It didn't last very long. She nibbled the ends and then batted it under the couch.)

Finally Punk gave up, and just gave me the evil eye from the end of my work table.








Well, I guess that's all for now. But coming soon to my etsy shop: spring-themed letterpress cards, more bingo books, and more pocket journals like the one in the design*sponge feature.

And maybe, just maybe, a new blog.

So I haven't been keeping up with my resolutions...but for a good reason.

My friend Cecilia has an online shop selling beautiful things for kids. She was one of the first to buy a BINGO Book, and recently asked if I'd thought about doing a little something for her shop. How could I say no? The result is a one-of-a-kind (so far) BINGO album. I just finished it this morning and couldn't wait to show it off!


Please be kind. Respect my ideas--but comment all you like!