on the bench: multitasking

One of the greatest joys curses challenges of being a small business owner is having each day be completely new, and completely unplannable.  Yesterday I had to step away from May Day Studio for a few hours, to train for a few additional responsibilities at the Savoy (for when my dear friends Eric and Megan are on maternity leave!), and didn't get to all the bookbinding that I needed to finish up.

But some of it did get done--the Bingo Books, at least, are ready for next week's shipment.

And I had to squeeze in a last-minute reprint of Hadestown programs for my friend Anais Mitchell. 

Here's the first color down--two more press runs to go!

workbench wednesdays: september first

Can you guess what this is?

It's so satisfying to peel back in one big piece--like peeling an orange in one spiraling globe.

And at the end of it, two really big sheets of perfect bookcloth!

Also on the table today: twelve BINGO books in two straight lines. 

internet convolutions

Woo hoo!  One of my BINGO Books is on the etsy front page right now.  How did I find out, you might wonder?  An email notification of a comment posted on my facebook wall, in response to an automatic "My Etsy" posting.  Sometimes the internet really astounds me!  

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!).

ready, set, go: totally off topic

Not that I have a topic, per se, but I generally try to stick to work stuff. But lately I've been doing too much "work" {here's the short list: printing wedding invitations, co-managing a venue for the Green Mountain Film Festival, making amazing lattes, waiting on your table, making bingo journals, teaching workshops here and there, driving to and from here and there, putting bids on more print jobs, losing my mind in the projection booth at the savoy, designing business cards and cd cases for him, designing baby shower invites for her, and definitely not doing my laundry} and not enough fun stuff.

Fun times chez moi:

all refrigerator photos c/o noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com

Reading No one belongs here more than you. {Two words: brilliant and devastating. If you don't know about Miranda July, where the heck have you been? Go here now!}

Listening to my favorite song three times in two days. It's that good, really. And I just found the r.e.m. + David Letterman video on youtube, and it's here for your viewing pleasure. Also, r.e.m.'s new single is totally stuck in my head: supernatural superserious is my theme song for the week. And it can be stuck in yours, too.

{As a side note, I've been crushing out on r.e.m. and michael stipe for eighteen years now. That's longer than I've known almost anyone else in my entire life. And it makes me feel really, really old, instead of just thirty-ish.}

weekend wrap-up: sunday

On Sunday morning I was a tired bunny. I woke up rather early to head down to Somerville, MA, for the Albertine Press Paper & Chocolate Trunk Show. Shelley had mentioned that she expected a fair number of attendees, given the numbers from previous events. What she didn't expect was over 600 (600!) folks clambering for magical hot chocolate from Taza Chocolate and press demonstrations by Shelley herself on the Vandercook. The folks were prompted a bit (I'm sure) by sweet mentions on Daily Candy Boston, decor8, and the Boston Globe online. Here's Shelley taking a rare break from her press duties to pose for the camera.

My table...before the crowds hit.
Shelley's beautiful and decadent 2008 was in high demand...but I received one as a thank you. (Thank you, Shelley!) Below is a closeup of my favorite marble pattern. (Buy the calendar here before they're sold out!)
Angela and I traded: one Bingo Book for one artist's book. I don't know who made out better! My treasure is an accordion book called The Owner of the Bow, illustrated by Guido Scarabottolo. Emily's lovely deer print was behind me on the wall for the greater part of the afternoon...and by the end of the day I knew I needed to take it home with me! Take a peek at her sweet business card, too.

It was such a busy afternoon that I didn't get to take pictures of Angela of Carta, Inc., or Becca's prints and artist books, or Melissa's pocket journals and book-structure-explorations. Everyone was so nice to talk to, and it was a pleasure to be among such talented artists! Read more about paper & chocolate at edizioni and hot off the press.

After Paper & Chocolate, I ran off to Wellesley for a private trunk show at my friend Katie's house. There were only a few other artists there: Carrie and Laurie of Two Trick Pony (my new limited edition two trick print is below), whose prints will be available as part of Design Nearby at the pink comma gallery.Other artists I met at Katie's shinding: photographer Leah Cornwell makes the world look quieter and crisper than it really is. She has several striking collections--check them all out! And designer & goldsmith Ilah Cibis brought a small selection of her artisan jewelry...if I had the money, I would have taken this piece home with me. I also loved these earrings, but there were so many appealing pieces there I couldn't have decided if I tried.

Thanks to all the wonderful folks I met this weekend, and those who bought (or bartered) may day goodess, and to the weather for holding off the snow until Monday. And now I'm back to work!

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!

saturday treats

A "day off" Saturday is rare for me--usually I'm teaching, or driving to teach, or spending many hours hunched over the press. Today, I'm happy to say, I gave myself the morning off, ostensibly to spend a few hours outside...before coming back to the studio to finish a custom book (I promise to post pics later!).

So, back to Saturday morning goodness...mmmm latte at Langdon Street Cafe (thanks, Wes!), then off to the glorious farmer's market (today's finds: green beans, fresh onions, and baby beet greens) for some much needed socializing. If you live in a small town like I do, it's possible to run into every single person you know at the farmer's market. And so I saw a whole lotta folks, talked about the weather (uniformly yucky today), the new Thursday Next novel, and the strange habits of grasshoppers and Japanese eggplant.

And as I was leaving, I ran into yet another friend, who reminded me that the ReStore was having it's 17th birthday today. The ReStore is a fabulous treasure trove of all that stuff you really don't need, but are sure that someone else will. I make a weekly trip, because you just never know what you're going to find! It's where, for example, my amazing stash of Bingo Cards came from, and where I get all my fabric for that new line of books. Here's what I found today:
Vintage knitting magazine-size pamphlets. For those of you who've seen my artist books, you'll know that I can't pass up a vintage lady. And while I can knit, sweaters are still a bit beyond my skill level. They're a bit scruffy around the edges, but I'm sure I'll find a use for them. Any suggestions?








Bits of fabric. It's not that I don't have plenty of fabric to work with already, but I couldn't pass up the 70s orange & brown flowers, or the giraffes (!), or that "I still think it's 1982" patchwork. There's basically enough for one book from each. Perfect! And the price was totally right: 42 cents for the lot. You heard me right!

I hope you're enjoying your Saturdays, out there in la-la land. I'm off to work!

stacks and rows and craft shows

While I've been *mostly* avoiding the studio for the last few weeks, my friend Jen mentioned this secret treasure of a memorial-day-weekend craft show that she shows at every year--and (of course) I couldn't say no. So what to do about inventory? I dropped off a handful of BINGO Books and letterpress cards at Studio STK a few weeks ago (thanks Amanda and Sage!), but I still have a good amount of each of those for this weekend's show.

Yesterday was chilly and rainy, so I took down the vintage books from the shelf, and decided to spruce 'em up.

If you're in Western Massachusetts this weekend(sat-sun-mon), check out May Day Studio & lots of other cool crafters at the super secret show: take Route 9 east from Northampton (towards Williamsburg) and keep an eye out for the teapot-shaped sandwich boards. You can't miss 'em.

back from the dead

...or so I feel. I was totally & completely pumped for the Queen City Craft Bazaar, and now I'm definitely exhausted, and also ready to go in twenty new directions. For those of you who are curious, the Bazaar was good. There was so much amazing stuff, and amazing artists to talk to, and the weather was beautiful. And we were in beautiful Union Station, which I'd never been to before. Folks were very excited about my stuff, and I had lots of nice compliments and conversations with other bookbinders & bingo aficionados. My booth was between Happy Fantastic (preppy and pink J. Kalisz was sooo nice!) and jewelry designer Wendy at Earth Originals--very good company, both! Sara at Made Boutique took some sweet pictures of the booths and was running around being a mother hen for a good part of the day. Thanks to Sara & my booth neighbors for making my first craft-y event so special![My setup at the Bazaar, kinda faraway. Click on the link to read my notes!]

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!

Working Hard...

...and playing little. Not the usual way I like to run my life, but there you have it.

It was a long work weekend: seven new journals (including a new line) and the beginning of a wedding invite. Phew! And tonight, the mad rush to put all the new stuff on etsy. Here's a group shot:

Four new BINGO Books, and the new line that I've christened the "Pretty Peep" line--longstitch journals with Lokta covers, and a peep of the pretty paper inside!

Also, I decided to clean up my camera, and found lots of letterpress workshop pictures yet to be blogged about. So here they are--the January workshop crew:

Take a look at the photo album for some "action" shots!

Friday Happy Hour

This weekend sure has snuck up on me!

Two pieces of happy friday news: Power Cuffs are sold out! They went into the Gladiator at the Langdon Street Cafe on Sunday, and as of this morning are all gone. Pete & I are working on a V2, possibly involving vinyl...

One of the super-est things about etsy is Friday Happy Hour specials. Today only, from 5-9pm eastern time, when you buy a BINGO Book from my shop, you receive a FREE letterpress noteset. Check out my shop for more details!

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!