Weeks 5 and 6 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

*Just updated with a photo of the papaya animals!

I hope everyone enjoyed some rest and a lot of food over the Thanksgiving weekend! I know I did.

But now we're back in the real world, so I wanted to remind you that there is still time to enter the combined Weeks 5 and 6 letterpress giveaway. If you haven't already done so, you can enter up to two times. Be sure you go to the original post to enter (don't comment on this post because it won't count!).

If you just can't wait to win the cards, you can buy some now. My Etsy shop is back open and stocked with cards, most of which you've seen here, but there are some new ones. Today is the last day of my buy one, get one free special: buy any single card or set of 3 cards and receive a second single card or set of 3 cards of the same style and color for free!
 

You can see the selection of cards for the giveaway that are printed in pansy, guava, and rhubarb pie ink in the original post. Later today I'll post photos of the critters I printed yesterday, including the giraffe (which is probably my favorite critter so far!). Today I'll be printing the beaver, elephant, dachsund, rhinoceros, and squirrel. I'm excited to print the elephant. I think he may turn out to be cuter than the giraffe!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! How will you be celebrating today?

I wish I was going to be at my house so that I could make my table look like this gorgeous creation by 100 Layer Cake.

Instead, we'll be going to Santa Fe to my cousin's place. It will be nice to sit back and just stuff my face with turkey and cranberries!

In case you decide to do any online shopping over the long weekend, I wanted to let you know that my Etsy store is finally open again. I still have to post a lot of goods on there, but at least it is alive and kicking again!

Moto, Tanqueray, and Drake

I spent yesterday afternoon with my four-legged buddies at Roice Hurst. I managed to walk three dogs (so what about all the other things on my list to do before leaving for NM today...).

First up was Moto. This isn't a good picture of him. I'd guess that he's a boxer mix. He's 8 months old and really tall for his age. He's had a rough time in his short life, and I think he's the kind of dog that just doesn't eat when he's stressed. He's really quite skinny, which I think might be why they blurred his picture so much. But what a sweet boy he is (his sweet brown eyes made me want to melt!), and he can jump straight up in the air about 6 feet. That's a really neat thing unless your fence is only 5 feet high.



Second was Tanqueray, a 9-month-old pit bull mix. Sweet and adorable, with a tail that goes a million miles an hour! She really liked the idea of running after the tennis ball, but lost enthusiasm when it came to bringing it back to me. I love her one blue eye.



The last dog for this week was Drake, an 8-year-old yellow lab mix. He seems like a bit of a goofball, and like most labs, his tail went from side to side the entire time I was with him.

Things to do in Boulder, Utah

For my birthday, the husband took me to Boulder, Utah for a long weekend. Never heard of it?

Me neither.

But you need to make a note of it, and if you ever find yourself in southern Utah, be sure to visit. But don't sneeze or blink as you drive down Highway 12, or you'll miss it. Boulder is home to roughly 200 people and a whole bunch of cattle and horses. It is an odd patch of topsoil and pastures in the midst of a sea of sandstone cliffs and mounds that look like enormous, um, boulders.

What is there to do in Boulder? Well, mainly three things. But first you need to enjoy the experience of getting there, where you'll find red sandstone cliffs and amazing bits rock every where you turn. I was kicking myself for not paying more attention in that geology class I had way back when.



Once you get to Boulder, the first thing you want to do is experience nature. You know, go for a hike. And that's just what we did.

Here's the view just outside of Boulder. See what I mean about the sea of sandstone?



We spent Saturday morning on a 6-mile roundtrip hike to Little Calf Creek Falls. Calf Creek is the creek that is at the bottom of the canyon in the photo above. In some places the sand was so deep that it was difficult to walk. But the hike was worth it.

There were amazing sandstone cliffs everywhere.



And Calf Creek has the most gorgeous crystal clear water. So clear that you can watch the fish. That's just what Sadie did. That's a fish that she's staring at, about 2 feet in front of her nose. She was a bit puzzled at first.



But then she decided that fish must be almost as fun to chase as lizards!



So close. So, so close! But no cigar.

I kept asking the husband how we would know we reached "the" falls. We saw a few small falls along the way, but I figured there must be something more. And boy, was there!

Weeks 5 and 6 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

*Updated on 11/24 with new photos.

I realized over the weekend that this week is Thanksgiving (that's what happens when you live in the freelance lifestyle vacuum), and that I--and probably most of you--won't be spending much time on the computer after tomorrow.

So, I am combining the Week 5 and Week 6 giveaways. Because I'm combining two weeks, each person can enter two times. You have until next Friday, December 4, at noon EST to enter. I will pick two names at random, and each person will receive a total of 20 cards of their choice of my critter cards (they can be mixed and matched as single cards any way the winners want, or the winners can choose two sets of 10, each packaged in a clear plastic box that is just darn near perfect for gift giving or stocking stuffing!). Each card comes with an envelope that matches the ink color.

I'm behind in my printing, and have only done two of six colors so far. Shown below are the critters I have printed in a dark purple color I call pansy: a moose, a pointer (I like to think of it as a Weimeraner...), and a walking cat.



Also shown are the critters I've printed in the color I call guava--a lioness, a basset hound, a lounging cat, and a bunny.



And here are the critters printed in rhubarb pie--a porcupine, Scottie dog, camel, and another long-haired cat.



I'll hopefully print the rest of the animals early next week, including the rest of the "woodland creatures": a beaver, a squirrel, and a howling coyote; the rest of my "African critters": a rhinoceros, a giraffe, and an elephant; and the rest of the dogs and cats (including a dachsund!). I'll post new photos as I print them.

Good luck!

Klinger and Gigi

I made two new best friends today while volunteering to walk dogs at the Roice Hurst Humane Society.

I had a ton of things to do today (um, like post today's letterpress giveaway...), but I couldn't wait to get back out there to walk some more dogs. I had planned to walk three dogs, but I got all the way to the shelter and realized that I left a giant bag of dog treats on the counter. I raced home, fully expecting to find Sadie fat and happy and an empty bag in the middle of the floor. It could happen--just ask her how much she enjoyed that whole loaf of cinammon raisin bread her idiot mom left on the counter the last time she went dog walking...

First up today was Klinger, a 1.5-year-old male Husky mix. I guess he was destined to be a sled dog until someone realized he is deaf. He's sweet as can be, and it took him no time at all to realize that a wiggle on the leash meant it was cookie time!



The second dog today was Gigi. She's a 3-year-old Golden Retriever mix and it pretty much broke my heart when I got home and looked her up on the website and found out that she came to this shelter from another shelter where she had "run out of time." I just can't believe she hasn't found a home yet. She has the sweetest eyes and not a mean bone in her body. She sits on command, took cookies gingerly from my hand, and despite it all still wags her tail when you say her name. I hope she finds a family soon.

 

Winner of Week 4 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

Happy Monday to you all!

I'll get right to the good news: The first winner was picked randomly and is comment 13 from Sheryl (Sheryl, please send me your email so that I can get a mailing address for you). I picked the second winner based on their story of their best birthday, and it was very close between several entries. But I ended up picking c_lavallee because I love the idea of a girl turning 13 and celebrating with her mom by having a makeover and making a dance video! Each winner will receive a set of these floral cards.

Coming up later today will be the prizes and modified rules for a combined Week 5 and 6 giveaway (because over the weekend I realized that, like me, most people will probably be away from their computers at the end of this week). Stay tuned!

Locks of love

I found today that one of the best ways to celebrate a birthday is by removing about 20 pounds of hair. It's quite refreshing (and a lot lighter!).

Before



After



I've been planning on cutting my hair for about a year, but I struggled to grow it as long as possible so that I could have a mighty long contribution for Locks of Love. I hope they find a good use for that rat's nest!

I love my dog

Every dog person out there needs to go here right now and watch this video.

"I love my dog as much as I love you." I love it. I'm thinking I need a video like this for Sadie Bug. I think she's almost as photogenic, don't you?

That's Sadie when she was 9 weeks old, and that's Simon in the background trying very hard to take a nap.

I need to send this video to the husband. I don't think he understands when I tell him that he and Sadie are my #1a and 1b... :)

Cold noses and warm hearts

I recently signed up to be a volunteer dog walker at my local animal shelter, the Roice-Hurst Humane Society. I decided I have too much love to give to dogs, and this is turning Sadie into a spoiled moocher. ;) This morning I went for my "dog walking class" and got to walk my first two dogs.

My first dog was Ace, a 4-year-old Blue Heeler mix. Their website says Ace is a female, but he's really a boy. What a sweet dog, but it seems like he didn't get a lot of human contact before. He doesn't like to play ball and he always seemed a little surprised that I would want to pet him. By the end of our walk he was really pretty happy to have his neck under his collar scratched.



I also walked Darvey, a 7-year-old Red Heeler mix. This Darvey is one special guy. He was born without tear ducts so his eyes get really goopy. He's also missing about 98% of his teeth (and what he does have are awfully crooked) but that doesn't stop him from mooching dog biscuits every chance he gets. He loves to play ball and knows how to sit and shake. He also has an amazing ability to quickly determine which pants pocket contains the dog cookies!




If you're interested in volunteering and you like dogs (or cats), check with your local shelter to see if they have any volunteer opportunities. I had no idea that my shelter had a dog walker program until I looked on their website about something else two weeks ago--a little something that I'll be sharing with all of you next week!

Week 4 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

Well, shucks. I went and opened my big mouth last week and told you I was going to print something really great over the weekend for today's giveaway. But then I got some last minute "real" work on Friday night that ate up most of my weekend. Ah, the joys of the freelance lifestyle.

To make it up to you, this week I'll be picking TWO winners and each will receive a set of 6 of these A6 (4.5" x 6.25") flat notecards with a floral print, with matching envelopes. This week each person can enter up to two times. As usual, please enter by noon EST this Friday, November 20.

It happens to be my birthday this week, so I'll be heading out of town on Friday. The destination is still a secret, so if I don't have internet access to post the winners on Friday night, I'll post them on Monday.

I'll select one winner at random, but I'll choose the other winner. Just tell me about the best birthday you ever had. Good luck!

Winner of Week 3 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

The winner of Week 3 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway is comment 6 from Hello, I'm Emily Claire. Congratulations! I'll be contacting you soon to get your mailing address so I can send you your sunflower cards and gift tags.





My very nice UPS man brought my new plate today, and I am beyond excited to print some of these new things. I am hoping to get one thing in particular printed this weekend so that I can offer it up as the Week 4 giveaway.

Have a happy weekend everyone!

Day 217

I realized with some sadness this morning that the last post on the progress of the house remodel was on day 146. I'll let you do the math.

Things are at a standstill with the remodel at the moment. Did I tell you about the problem with the tile? The last pallet of floor tile has a different sealer than the first three pallets. It looks shiny and nice like the other tiles until it is installed and grouted and cleaned. And then all the shine is gone, every last bit of it. I didn't realize this until I had installed 70 of the suckers.

John, the manager of the local Dal Tile, has been out to the house twice. He agrees that the tile is defective. But we are in a bit of a predicament because he hasn't been able to contact the manufacturer of the tile in Mexico, and he thinks they may have gone out of business. Because we probably can't get a new shipment of tile to replace the last pallet, John has been trying out several different sealing products in an attempt to find what will work best on the defective tile so that it will match the shine of the other tile. So tiling is on hold for the moment.

But yesterday we did take one tiny step forward, and now I feel like I can show you the first true before and after of the house (please excuse the fact that I still don't have covers on the light switches or outlets, and please also excuse any dog snot that may be visible on the glass door. Argh!).

We finally got our new woodburning stove yesterday after two long months of waiting for it. YAY! I already love this chunk of cast iron almost as much as my printing presses! It is so much smaller and less obtrusive than the last one. I'll be firing it up today for the first of three "break in" fires, and hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll have it blazing away and Sadie will spend the rest of this winter like last winter, with her head under it baking her brain.


On a related note, between real work and all the printing I've been doing lately, I am behind on my smut. So, I will probably put the house and garden smut features on hold until after the holidays.

Mixing ink

Most of my time lately has been spent printing, which involves mixing a lot of new ink colors. I think the inks are so beautiful as they swirl together to create a new color. Here are three of the latest colors I mixed:

Sweet pea (the color used on the cards of this week's giveaway).


Caribbean


Aegean


My life is also being taken over by everything I've printed. Here's what the bed in the guest room looks like right now. I'm waiting on a new shipment of envelopes and then I can get everything packaged up and safely stored some place other than on the bed!

Week 3 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

Sorry for being late with today's giveaway announcement!

The giveaway for Week 3 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway is a set of 6 flat notecards (6.25" x 4.5") and envelopes. The cards are letterpress printed with a sunflower on the side in a light purple ink color I call sweet pea. In addition, the winner will get a set of 6 gift tags letterpress printed with a coordinating sunflower in the same color, tied with an off-white soft cotton string.





Enter by leaving a comment on this post by this Friday (November 13) at noon EST. I'll randomly pick the winner and announce it on Friday evening. One entry per person. Good luck!

Winner of week 2 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

Thanks for all the great entries in this week's Great Letterpress Giveaway! It was really nice to see so many new people here. A big thanks to Kristen over at Paper Crave for mentioning the giveaway, and I believe that Liz over at Mabel's House also spread the word via twitter. (If anybody else mentioned it via a blog or twitter, please let me know).

Between fighting a cold and spending every spare minute printing new goods, I haven't had much time to visit all of your blogs, but I plan to do so soon!

Before I announce the winner, I want to take a moment to review the giveaway schedule with you so you won't miss out on anything, because I promise the giveaways really will get bigger and better each week.

There will be at least six more weeks of giveaways, which will be posted on Mondays with the last one being on December 14. I may also do another giveaway on the 21st of December, but I'm not totally sure yet what my travel schedule will be like around that time, so I'll let you know.

As I am printing new items I'm developing a plan for the remaining giveaways. I highly encourage you to participate in all of them, but let's just say that you will definitely not want to miss out on the giveaway on December 14!

So, on with the winner:

Lucky comment #2, which happens to be Linda over at Lime in the Coconut! Yay! I love that blog. (And am I the only one who finds it weird that the three winners so far have been comments 1, 2, and 3? Any statisticians out there who can determine the probability of that?!)

I enjoyed reading all of the comments, and I thought it was so sweet that Nicole-Lynn from Seaside Smitten (who I see from her blog was recently engaged. Congratulations!) said that she would use them as gifts for her wedding party. So, Nicole-Lynn, if you've decided what your wedding color(s) are, let me know. If not, let me know what other color you'd like and I'll send you your choice of a set of 6 gift tags or 6 flat notecards like the ones shown (with matching colored envelopes) printed with this flower design for each member of your wedding party, plus a set for you.

Garden smut: Stone edge farm

Location: Stone Edge Farm, Sonoma Valley, California; 2009 ASLA Honor Award for Residential Design
Landscape Architect: Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture
Found via: American Society of Landscape Architects

House smut: Empire place

Location: Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Found via: Sotheby's International Realty

Hot off the press: Custom calling cards

My cousin Suzanne is in her second year of pharmacy school. As part of the program she is doing a lot of internships; this is great real-world experience for her and also a great opportunity to network and make connections with potential employers (we hope!). My mom and I thought that these calling cards would come in handy for her as she meets new people, so we're giving them to her for Christmas. (I sure hope she doesn't see this post!)

Last week I printed the vine and flower background in what is called a blind deboss. I run the paper through the press with no ink so it just creates an impression in the paper. I did the background with a very light impression because I didn't want it to distract too much from her name.



Yesterday I printed her name and contact information in a color I call pansy. It's almost the exact shade of those dark purple pansies. I'm really happy with how they turned out. 



I hope she likes them!

Meet the Presses

First, I want to thank everyone who has entered the letterpress giveaway this week! It's so much fun for me to read all the comments, and it's nice to see all the letterpress love out there.

With all this talk lately about my new big press, my other press is feeling a little slighted. She's been doing a lot of hard work over the last year. Isn't this sort of like kids, where the first one does all the work and the second one comes along and just gets all the attention?

This reminds me, I feel like I need names for the presses. I've been referring to both of them as females, but I'm open to one or both being male. They are both made by Chandler and Price and are referred to as a "C&P" so I'd sort of like to come up with some C or P names. Any suggestions? (Hey, if I pick your name[s] and decide to use it/them, you might get some letterpress stuff!)

So, I introduce you to my first press, a Chandler and Price Pilot. She's a petite thing, weighing only around 200 pounds or so, and she fits nicely on a table in the comfort of what will one day be my official studio (as soon as I get organized enough to find some furniture so I can get organized). The fact that I can use her inside on a freezing day means she'll always have a special place in my heart.



She works much like the bigger press, but her small size limits the size of what I print unless I get really creative and print small sections at a time. Her big disadvantage, though, is that I have to pull that lever each time I want to print something. Put the paper in, pull the lever, take the paper out, put the paper in, pull the lever, take the paper out. You know the drill. It gets tedious after awhile. In April I was printing a set of wedding invitations--150 invitations, envelopes, reply cards, reply envelopes, directions, maps, escort cards, place cards, and table numbers. Some cards had to be printed in two or three sections. By the end of it, I figured I had pulled that lever about 5,000 times. First I wrapped a washcloth around the handle because it was actually blistering my palm. And then I informed the husband that I needed a bigger press with a treadle.

What? Did someone say something about my big press? Do you want to see her again? OK. Here she is, and this time you can see that I've added the wooden feed boards to her (him?).

Sadie and her binkie, part 2

I just realized this morning how much Sadie is like the characters from the Peanuts cartoon by Charles M. Schulz.

Lately, she's been a lot like Pig Pen. This girl has some serious funk on her. I took her swimming a few weeks ago while it was still warm out and I washed her collar, but the funk is slowly coming back. The husband finally made me throw away her old bed because it smelled so bad (and couldn't be washed because her sister Lucy ate too many holes in it). I swear that she leaves a trail of stink behind her.

So I got her a new bed, and while I was out I also got her a new binkie with paw prints on it. She loves it as much as her old binkie, which I just realized makes her a lot like Linus.

The other day I finally got some video of her lovin' on her new binkie. You'll notice around 17 seconds into the video that even though she's lovin' on the binkie, she is the ever vigilent guard dog!

Week 2 of the Great Letterpress Giveaway

This week's giveaway of letterpress goodies is a total of 24 gift tags with a simple flower printed at the bottom. Twelve tags will be printed in silver metallic ink, 6 in metallic green ink, and 6 in a metallic red/burgundy ink. Each tag has a silver eyelet and a silvery-cream colored cord and is about 2 3/4 inches square. The tags are generic enough to be used for a gift for any occasion, but the metallic inks make them festive enough to use on special gifts for the holidays.



To enter, just leave a comment on this post by this Friday (November 6) at noon EST. I'll announce the winner on Friday evening. One entry per person. Good luck!