a man in an apron.

Join many fabulous printers, printing enthusiasts, and moi (of course) at the Printer's Fair the coming weekend.

Here's what the Letterpress Guild has to say:

Sunday, June 17, 2007 – 10am - 4pm – Free Admission
The Museum of Printing
800 Massachusetts Avenue
North Andover, Massachusetts 01845

Gardner LePoer (aka the man in the apron!), Director of the Museum of Printing, invites you to attend the fourth annual Printing Arts Fair, held at the Museum across from the town common.

Sponsored by the Letterpress Guild of New England, the Fair benefits the Museum of Printing. Vendors of cards, stationery, decorative papers, books, crafts, and letterpress printing equipment, include the Albertine Press, B Designs, Carta Inc., Swamp Press, Sea Dog Press, and the Green Mountain Letterpress, among others. Explore the museum. Have your personalized stationery custom printed with your name cast on a Linotype machine. The Fair offers ongoing demonstrations of the printing arts and a raffle.

Activities for kids include a print-it-yourself turn on a press and punching out names on an old-fashioned stencil machine. Kids can also make a card for Father's Day.

The Museum of Printing is dedicated to preserving the history of the graphic arts, printing equipment and printing craftsmanship. In addition to many special collections and small exhibits, the museum contains hundreds of antique printing, typesetting and bindery machines, as well as a library of books and printing related documents.

I realize that sounds rather dry, but last year I had a really good time, and got to meet lots of other printers, as well as see cool demos of machines and techniques I'd never attempt in my dizziest daydreams.

hot hot hot

Hot days call for extreme measures. Since I'm not quite ready for hot days yet, my extreme measures involve laying flat on my back in the middle of my studio, in front of the open door, watching the crabapple tree and hoping for a breeze.

And sometimes updating my blog.

So, two quick things for today: a new "section" on blog--Upcoming Events--about the cool letterpress & bookbinding stuff you'll find me doing over the next month. Please note that I *still* have open spots for next weekend's "Experience the Letterpress Thing" workshop, so if you've always wanted to...now's the time. Not convinced yet? Check out the photos from past workshops and you will be!

And if you are a new letterpresser, and want some new type to work with, check out the "Starter Sets" on the M&H Type website, along with cool videos and tours of their casting & bindery facilities.

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.

of brownnosers & speed racers

Just kidding! The latest workshop was a start-to-finish race between two couples: Kenneth & Sheri and Siri & Jason. Kenneth & Sheri won out on the time--they finished typesetting and printing in under 3 hours. But Siri & Jason were in it for the long haul, and set two rounds of type, to print on two of their pages. All that and we bound two chapbooks each, and finished early--which meant more time for shopping at Letterpress Things! Check out the rest of the photos here.

My First Treasury

Thanks to Felicia at Fluffy Flowers for including me in her latest etsy treasury. She's had 4 treasuries in a row, now, and usually they're so hard to get. She always includes a range of items--like this one, with baby shoes, earrings, a sewing book, and lip balm. I'm just so happy to be included as one of her blog readers. You should check out Felicia's blog here--she posts often, and always has something stunning to show us. Here's what the list looks like when your item is included--you get a gold star!

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!

Gosh, paper is pretty. And the rest of my studio is not.

Isn't this lovely? A stack of 4bar cards, waiting for round two with the press--and hoping to be chosen as the best of the best. For sending to the happy couple, that is.

Friends of friends Linda and Brian are getting married this summer, and chose *moi* to do their invites. They turned out to be quite luxurious, in my opinion. Ink in papaya and chocolate, a lush image, and toothy cream-colored paper for the invite and rsvp. It's taken me a bit of time to pick the one that I get to keep for my portfolio!Here's the finished product, with a bit of editing for the public. I'm so excited about these!

What I'm not excited about is the state of my worktable. It's been a catch-all for all kinds of junk--err, supplies--while I've been gallivanting around New England teaching workshops. And of course flickr is being extremely slow tonight, so I can't leave notes on the photo. But here it is, and check back soon for fun tidbits about the may day magpie. Yay! Click on the photo to see what the magpie is "collecting."

Whew!

The most recent workshop was a blast! After a rocky start (my alarm clock didn't go off, and Kerry and Heather were on the wrong side of the building), we jumped into action.

This class marked the inaguration of Kelsey #4--so now each student has their own press. Even so, they worked for the better part of the day on their prints--and they turned out beautifully.

Check out more photos here.

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!

first times

I just received my acceptance email...to my first craft show! It's Saturday May 5, 10-5, in Burlington, VT. I know it's a month away, but it was juried entry, and only 35 spots available!

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.

The Latest Workshop

Yup, these hardworking ladies know all about letterpress. Or at least what one could learn in 6 hours. That's me on the left, with Milly, Michelle, and Erica, and our sweet chapbooks. Want to peek insidethe chapbook? Take a look here.

This was the third in what will hopefully be a long line of letterpress workshops at the Letterpress Things print shop. John B. wrote this amazing copy to advertise the workshop:

The cool touch of decades-old metal type. A firm two-handed
impression roll for a copy proof. A deft transfer from composing stick to
imposing stone. A gentle tap of the planer. Two quick twists of the locking
key and the chase with form is secure. The press is inked, the guides
aligned, the chase slips into position, paper is correctly placed and your
very first impression is ready to print.

Seductive, no? I have been totally amazed with the ingenuity and creativity of all of my students thus far. With this workshop, I set the challenge of printing all 4 sides of the page. Michelle set her quote, and then hunted through John's stock of image plates to put on all four sides. Milly set type. And then more type. And then added images, too. Erica whirled through the print ship, printing on all of the available presses (3 Kelsey Excelsiors, a Nolan Standard, and a C&P Pilot) and forgot to eat lunch. Luckily, I set the type for our covers the night before, so only had a little bit of printing to do while they worked madly. What fun!

For those curious folks, my next workshop is scheduled for March 17. Email me now, because there are only 4 spots available!

Let it snow!

I've been stuck inside all day, but we're officially getting a *@!$load of snow. Brent was apparantly out taking pictures in front of the cafe this morning--so here's one to whet your tastebuds:


Also, last year this brilliant thing happened on Valentine's Day--and it happened again! We (heart) Montpelier.

Along with every good thing must come a big downer, right?

I was wasting time yesterday, reading other people's blogs and so forth, and discovered that i love letterpress has put me up in her directory. YAY! Also, Shelley at Albertine Press wrote me a comment (I love comments!) and I discovered that she has a blog, too, and I've spent many mintues reading her posts. It's nice to know another young-ish woman has a hankering for old metal!

And so, to rectify my hours on the computer, I decided to file my mounds of important and less-important paperwork. And discovered that I had to file business taxes as of the 25th. Oops.

I've spent my morning reading the Business Tax guidebook, and still can't make heads or tails of it. Looks like I'm getting up at 7:30 to call the tax office and beg mercy. And maybe ask for some help.

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!

Busy hands!

I've been working on these 99% recycled journals for a few weeks now...had to let the project "marinate"...and finally :

7 journals, different sizes, different paper combinations. Made from scraps of other projects (thus the many sizes), with covers from a 2005 Cavallini calendar that I couldn't bear to throw away. These are off to Black Sheep Books in Montpelier for happy viewing and fondling.

Also, some new paper I've accumulated more BINGO Books--I've been hording the green BINGO cards for lack of cool paper. Not anymore!

This has turned out to be a *very* long day. But look what I have to show for it!

John B. is attending the Letterpress Guild of New England's event tomorrow, and wanted to have a handbill to show off the workshop (and moi of course). So I was up at 5:30 this morning, arrived at Letterpress Things at 9, left about 5, and have spent the remainder of my evening coming up with this beauty.

Thanks to the letterpress manuals on Boxcar Press's site, I have that stud smoking a pipe and trying to figure out his Kelsey!

a new year, and now what?

So today at work, slinging coffee and bagels, I decided that nothing says 'Happy New Year' quite like a new post. Oh, and a few resolutions...

A#1. I am A#1. I am A#1. I am A#1. I count more than you do. So phooey.

The biz: something's gotta happen soon...I feel like I'm at a peak on a roller coaster, and I don't know if it'll go any higher, or if it'll cruise into the station for a refresher. I'm hoping for option number 1. To that end, I've busted my bum to get nine new journals up on Etsy, because the rest of them sold out! Yay! Take a peek at the pictures below.

Walking is good. I am trying to take at least a short walk every day, even if that just means walking to work--which I should do anyway.

Keep posting on the blog! My goal is for 3-4 a week, since my fancy new digital camera is so awesome. Now I just need to get better at taking pictures!

So I guess that's it for resolutions. Happy New Year to y'all!