Custom-Made Calling Cards

I recently had the pleasure of creating custom-designed letterpress calling cards for Jacqueline Marque, a photographer out of Rhode Island. She specializes in weddings, and does an amazing job of capturing the emotion of the moment. You can see her beautiful work here. She told me her very first camera was a Canon AE2, and asked me to draw one for her calling card. We tried several ways of integrating the camera icon with her name, along with several ink and paper color combinations. This was the final product.

New Times Two!

Thank goodness, spring is just about here. We've got seedlings growing indoors, and we're itching to get outside and start planting soon. I've been working on some new spring items in the meantime, including these Bird Personalized Bookplates with matching beaded bookmarks:



And (in anticipation of the weeds that will be sprouting in our yard before long), these silvery Dandelion Matchbook Jotters:



Happy Spring to you!

Hello, Little Birdie!

My dear friend, Estelle, recently welcomed her first child into the world. I was honored to create custom birth announcements for the arrival of her sweet little boy. She and her husband settled on this design, with bold, playful birds on apple green paper accompanied by a lively turquoise vine. Because Estelle also happens to be French, we had two versions, where I could switch out the turquoise elements for each language but keep the brown plate the same. The tall, flat announcement was mailed in a clear vellum envelope, with just a hint of the exciting news showing through.

Two Sisters Jewelry Boutique

I've had an influx of custom work lately, which has been a nice change (although I'm behind on reprinting some items on my own website, but I hope to catch up soon). One of the projects recently has been jewelry cards for Two Sisters Jewelry Boutique out of Arizona. They're simple little cards for earrings and necklaces, but fun to do, and set off Gina and Jennifer's designs nicely.

Printing the orange ink on the brown paper has been a little bit of a challenge. It turns out that it takes a double hit of ink to make it pop. I put the paper in, print it once, let it dry for about 8 hours, and then come back and print it again. Luckily, the registration has been lining up fairly well, so the letters remain crisp. Anyway, check out their website here — so many beautiful, beautiful things!

New Flip Book Colors

Thank you, everyone — the flip books have been so popular that I ended up reprinting them over the last couple of weeks, in between all the custom work I've been doing at the moment. I thought I'd try a few other paper colors for the covers besides the kraft brown while I was at it. There are now tomato red, apple green, and cotton candy blue ones, all available here. Enjoy!

Matchbook Calendar Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to everyone who entered to receive a 2010 Matchbook Calendar. I appreciate all the kind comments, and am pleased to announce that the winners are:

#14 - Deb's Artful Journey
#6 - Marna
#17 - uglygirl

Please contact me with your name, mailing address, and which color you would like (red, blue or green), and I will mail them out in a jiffy!

I'm Finished With Next Year.

(Next year's calendars, that is!)

One of my vivid holiday memories from childhood is our extended family gathering at my grandparents' print shop to help make hundreds of calendars for the following year to give to customers. We'd all squeeze in to the shop on a Saturday, and spend the entire day working together.

My grandpa would print the pages for each month the week before, and then we'd all work in a line, collating them. Once we had a big stack of collated calendars, we'd tidy it perfectly straight, weigh it down, and paint one side with red padding compound. After a bit, the compound would be dry, and I'd use a knife to cut apart the stack one calendar a time. Grandpa cleverly cut December just a tad longer than the other months, so I could pull apart each calendar by feel. Then we'd staple the year's pages to a piece of cardstock that the customer could hang from their wall during the coming year.

Anyway, collating these new matchbook-style calendars reminded me of those days gone by. These calendars aren't the wall kind, though, and I only made sixty, not hundreds. Instead, they're pocket-sized, with each month on a perforated page inside. They're available in three bright colors, and would make perfect stocking stuffers or gifts for co-workers or teachers. Help yourself, right here.

You know what? I think it's time for another giveaway. I'm offering three calendars to three people (one calendar each). To enter, please leave a comment below before 9:00 am CST on Thursday, December 10, 2009. I'll use the trusty random number generator to pick the winners that morning. Please be sure to check back then so I can get the necessary info from you if you're a winner. I'll allow one week for the winners to contact me before I choose any alternate winners. Thanks for entering!