A few new things off the press

I've been doing a bit of printing here and there. Here are a few of the latest items. I love this quote by Abraham Lincoln, and I printed this card in turquoise ink before Mother's day. I sold out of it, so I reprinted it in turquoise but also added it in dark purple after I received lots of requests for more colors to choose from.



I also finally got around to printing this new birth announcement design. I've had the plate for months (and months...). Now it will probably take me a few more months before I find the time to photograph it and add it to the shop. The story of my life lately!



And when I came across this cute little dinosaur I couldn't resist making it into some cards with this cool new striped font I recently got. I've been meaning to print more samples showing a variety of motifs and fonts for personalized cards, and it's nice when they can do double duty as cards for the little one. :)



In other news, our CG (Capable Guy) is making good progress over at the other house. He has started framing in the carport to convert it into a bonus/family room with a powder room. It was the best option we had after we had to scrap the plans for a master suite when we found out we couldn't add a fourth bedroom to the house. I'll be stopping by the house tomorrow and will hopefully get a few pictures to show you the progress.

Have a happy weekend, everyone!

Happy Monday

Happy Monday, everyone. I realized over the weekend that it's been a long time since I've been here. Gigi just finished her third week working here, and although she is doing a lot of stuff I used to do, I find that it just gives me more time to do all the other things I haven't been able to do, and not necessarily more "free" time for blogging and whatnot. Although I did manage to spend several nights catching up on old Fringe episodes and even watching a rented movie with the husband, as well as TWO different outings this weekend with the family, which is nearly unheard of lately.

One of the things I have gotten back to is some more printing. I'm working on some things for Christmas, but also a new line of boxes and packaging for party/wedding/shower favors. I'll have both generic stocked items as well as the ability to customize them for the event. I'll have several colors available, including white ink on kraft. I printed that combo yesterday and am in love with how it turned out. I'll post some photos of all those things soon.

In other printing news, here are some cute two-color invitations I did for a farm-themed birthday party for a 4-year-old. I love the little pink pig.



And totally not related to printing, here's one of my favorite new photos of Lachlan and his best friend during one of our afternoon trips to the park.



I can't remember what he was pointing at, but you can probably tell from the photo that he was in a hurry to get to it! I hope you all have a great week!

Employees and printing

My new employee started today. Things around here are already feeling more awesome. I still can't wrap my brain around the fact that something I started as a little hobby to fill the time while Lachlan napped has turned into something that requires the assistance of an employee. In addition to regaining my sanity (hopefully!), I am also really hoping this gives me a tiny bit more time to get back to printing, which is how I got into this whole mess in the first place!

With dad home now to entertain Lachlan for the day, I spent the weekend in the shop, just me, my presses, my giant paper cutter, a tub of silver ink, and a stack of white cotton paper, chipboard, kraft and white pillow boxes, and red cardstock. And as the new holiday items rolled off the press, my life was filled with joy.

Literally.

Time warp (and a bit of printing)

I have been stuck in a time warp the last week or so. Where in the world did September go? Argh!

As you can probably guess, the shops are busy, the new house is busy (I have officially met every single person working in the county that does anything even remotely related to permitting renovations and additions!), and Lachlan is busy, all while the husband was away in Australia for 6 weeks. He is home now and I'm catching up on things, including printing a few birth announcements (all for boys and all with airplanes!).




I'm also working on a very special two-color birth announcement for a very special set of twins who are almost two weeks old now! I'll print the second color this week; I can't wait to show them to you!

Western wedding

Several weeks ago I showed you the save the dates I did for a western wedding in Utah this September. Yesterday I finally got around to printing the invitations for them. All the pieces are printed in chocolate brown ink on ivory paper, and she plans to tie them together with a piece of turquoise twine with a cute little tag I made.

The couple is getting married in Moab, Utah, which is world famous for its red rock cliffs, so I incorporated the area's unique landscape at the bottom of the invitation. I love how it turned out!!

Things have been crazier than normal this week, between the unusually large number of printing jobs I have and the rapid pace of Paper and Present these days. I know you all get a kick out of seeing what life is like in my little world, so here's a peek at what my kitchen looked like just as I was walking out the door to the post office today. In case you are wondering, that is about 25 packets of hot chocolate on the floor. Rearranging them between two different boxes kept Lachlan busy for at least 8 minutes...

Pretty in pink

I have a ridiculous amount of printing to do this week. First up today was the light pink color called blossom. I had an order for 160 birth announcements for little Annie Louise using one of my brand new monogram fonts. So excited to get to use it!

Since I had ink on the press, I also printed a sample using this same monogram font that I can post on Etsy (I don't like posting actual customer's announcements to protect their privacy).

And while I was at it I printed a birth announcement sample with another new monogram font with a vine flourish.

And last but not least, I printed some notecards with another new monogram font (yes, I bought a ton of monogram fonts lately!).

Hopefully I'll manage to get these new samples posted in the shop before the year is over!

New monograms

Monograms are turning out to be quite popular for birth announcements, so I've been working on making more designs available. Here's one I recently did with a leaf frame, printed in a dark blue-black color called night. I printed it this weekend for a sweet boy named Penn and shipped them off yesterday. Now I am working on creating some coordinating return address labels for his mom. I like them so much that I might just make them available in the shop.

Business cards for Paper and Present

I had to print some more business cards for Paper and Present the other day. I printed 100 of them not all that long ago, but I seemed to have run out almost immediately and had to send out several days' worth of orders with regular cards from my inkjet. This time I printed 200 of them and I'm trying to be a little more selective about who gets them. I set a minimum dollar amount for orders that qualify for the good letterpress card, but the stack seems to be getting smaller already. It's a good thing, to be sure, because it means I'm getting lots of orders (I'm almost at 1,000!). But on the flip side, I'm so busy packing orders that I don't have time to print more cards. It's an interesting dilemma. :)

 

In other Paper and Present news, I am busy trying to add lots of new products to the shop. I've had several requests for masculine gift wrap options, so I'll be adding several new wrapping papers and tissue paper that have a masculine feel, as well as several new feminine tissue paper designs.

I also am working on lots of custom colors for my stained wood clothespins and something completely unique to Paper and Present: stained wood berry baskets!! Just like the cute little pint baskets you get berries in at the farmers' market, only BETTER because they are stained a color. So far I have seafoam and fuchsia, and I am working on peach and a few other colors. I think they'd be perfect to hold favors at a summer wedding, but they'd be equally great for a family picnic or BBQ. I'm working on the photos now and hope to have them in the shop soon.

And even though it is only June, yesterday I placed a GIGANTIC order for Christmas gift wrap, gift bags, and tissue paper. As busy as I was last year at Christmas (when I was the new kid on the block and no one had ever heard of me), I am anticipating a very busy holiday season so I thought I should start preparing now. I can't wait to show you all the pretty new things. :)

The press and I

My big press and I have been spending some more time together these days, printing lots of birth announcements and finally getting around to printing some new things. I love using instagram to photograph the things I print, but for some reason I end up picking a different format for the photos each time! The light in the press room is usually perfect, and it's so easy to take the photo with my phone while I'm printing. I send it straight to my Flickr account, and then can grab it from there to post here. The technology today is mind boggling...

I recently printed these announcements in a dark purple color for little Eliza Rose. I think the baby kangaroo in its momma's pouch is absolutely adorable. Eliza got coordinating note cards printed in the same shade of purple but with a platypus. Too cute!

Here are some announcements I did for Briggs. It was a very simple card with his initials and details printed in a dark blue.

I am also finally working on some new (and more fun!) designs for birth announcements and invitations for kid's birthday parties. The first is this train design; I printed the birth announcement sample in this fun medium dark blue and also in a pale blue. I think I like the darker blue better. Next I plan to print the coordinating invitation in a bright grass green color. Now if only I could find the time to take some proper photographs so I can list it in the shop! ;)

And last but not least, here are some save the dates that I don't think I ever shared with you. I am working with the daughter of some of the husband's friends to design the invitations for her wedding in Moab, Utah in September. She wanted a vintage western vibe, so we picked this beautiful font that has an old-time Western feel but with a touch of glamour. It's actually a revival of a font designed in France sometime around 1820. We combined it with some other more serious western fonts as well as some pretty borders and decorative elements. I printed the save the dates a while back, and now we're working on finalizing the design for the invitation and other pieces. Everything is printed in a rich dark brown on ivory cotton paper, and the invitation will feature a few bits of teal as an accent color. I can't wait to show you the rest of the pieces!

Baxter

Baxter is one lucky pup. For the second year in a row, his mom is throwing him a birthday party. And not just any birthday party. A birthday party at a dog park with 2-color letterpress invitations! (She said his first birthday party was at a dog bar. A dog bar!! Who knew?) I wish I was on the official guest list...

I printed these cards yesterday in bright and happy shades of blue and green. First the blue:



Then the green:



I had a lot of fun working with Baxter's mom to design the cards and come up with something that was suitable for the lucky boy. I mailed them today, and I sure hope they like them!

Mother's day card

Mom, if you're reading this, stop reading it right now.

A big thank you to Kristen over at Paper Crave for featuring my letterpress mother's day card!

I picked this quote by Abraham Lincoln for this year's card specifically for my mom. She's awesome, and I hope I've turned out to be even half the awesome lady she is! I also love this quote for a card because it can be used for so many different occasions--weddings, graduations, etc.--when you want to thank your mom for the role she played in making you who you are.

If you need one for your awesome mom, you can get one right here.

Last call for cards

I had a small booth at the Spring Fest street festival in my small town on Saturday. I took a bunch of my cards and slashed the prices on them. I have reached my limit for chaos and disorder, and I can't stand to look at the boxes of these cards anymore. Most of them are cards that I won't be printing again. Others are cards that have my old logo on them; a new logo for Paper Ink Press is about 98% complete right now, and I don't want to keep around cards printed or packaged with the old logo. I had decided that whatever didn't sell on Saturday would be recycled. I was going to reuse the envelopes for other cards and chop the cards up to use the paper for business cards.


But I just can't stand the thought of cutting up a perfectly good card.


Right now at this very moment there are many, many cards in the shop that are half off. Supplies of some of the cards are limited. The $10 grab bags, which have a selection of cards with an original retail value of $15, are now $5. I also have a BUNCH of dog cards, but I just don't want to spend the time to photograph them all and create new listings. Tonight I will count them all and on Tuesday or Wednesday I'll publish a list here of the dog breeds I have left.

Update 4/2 9:29 PM: I just posted the dogs in the shop, but I only listed one set for each breed. Each listing specifies how many sets I actually have, so contact me if you want more than one. I have chihuahuas, collies, border collies, old english sheepdogs, dachshunds, bull terriers, pomeranians, borzois, poodles, scottish terriers, and dobermans left. All other dogs have gone to their new homes. :)



I know it's only April, but if you or someone you know loves cards, this is a great opportunity to stock up now for birthdays, mothers day, and the holidays (it's never too soon to start shopping for the holidays!). You can visit the shop here.

The best part of this whole deal is that if you enter the word Handwork in the notes to seller (NOT in the coupon code box), I will send you TWO of everything you order, assuming that I have enough left of that card. Order one set of fox gift tags, and you'll get two. Order four grab bags and I'll send you eight. You get the idea. :) If I don't have a second set of cards like what you ordered I'll send you a grab bag. Just be sure to mention this in the notes to seller when you checkout so that I know you heard about it from this here little blog. :D

Got cheese?

My copy of the Spring 2012 issue of Culture: The Word on Cheese magazine arrived last week, and I haven't been that excited to get a magazine in a really long time.



Aside from being a really awesome magazine, this issue just happened to feature my Farmyard Animals letterpress cards.

Yes! My first magazine feature! Woohoo! I've been waiting for the issue to come out since they first contacted me a few months ago.

They put together a fun collection of cheese-themed notecards, and I'm so happy they included my cards. I wish they had featured the cow instead of the sheep. The cow is my favorite. :)







Aside from having great taste in letterpress stationery, the magazine really is pretty awesome. If you know anyone who loves anything to do with making or eating cheese, I think a subscription to the magazine would make a pretty great gift.

More printing

A few more things I printed lately. I love the little whale; he makes me smile. :)





I hope all of you are enjoying the nice weather that seems to be covering most of the country right now. We are spending almost all of our time outside, cleaning up all the gardens. Lachlan loves playing in the dirt. If only I could get him to leave his shoes on...

Leo and Eloise

I've been printing a lot of birth announcements over the last few weeks, including some for Sophie in Switzerland and Hans in Australia! I need to round up all of them and take some pictures to post here, but lately it seems that the only time I have to take any photographs is practically in the middle of the night. Here are two photos that I took with my phone using instagram (what an awesome invention!) while I was printing.

Leo's cards were printed in a mint green color, and Eloise's cards were printed in a custom mixed persimmon color.

I have two more sets of birth announcements to print this weekend, then another set of birth announcements and some save the date cards next weekend. It's nice to be back printing so much again. I'm also finally getting back to cleaning the type and printing more samples of the personalized stationery (I feel like a broken record because I keep saying that!). Hopefully I can finish moving everything out of the house and into the new space this weekend, and in that process I'm hoping to discover all of the other samples I printed but can't seem to find right now. :)

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Little metal puzzles

We've had several days that have been in or near the 60s, and the urge to do some spring cleaning is really kicking in now. We spent some time over the weekend cleaning up the workshop. There is a small space about 4 feet high above my new studio, so we moved all sorts of stuff up there to get it out of the way.

I am also refocusing my efforts on getting rid of a lot of the type that I won't use. I have so much and it takes up sooo much space. I also don't like having all the cases and buckets of type sitting around because it means it's never safe for Lachlan to be turned loose in the main part of the workshop.

I have some mixed grab bags of type, but I realized that some people might like to see what they're getting, so I started making little collections of type. I started on them on Sunday night and it was surprisingly fun! It's like putting together little puzzles made of metal type.

I'm not entirely sure what people buy these for. I know some people make jewelry or art pieces out of them, and I think a lot of people use them to stamp clay and whatnot. So far I've done 6 sets, but I'm hoping to do a lot more in the coming days. Hopefully I can find new homes for most of this stuff soon. If you ever find yourself in need of some vintage/antique type, you can find it in my special Etsy shop, i heart letterpress.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here's one of the gorgeous roses my husband sent to me. They actually arrived late last week, and I think that was so smart of him because he definitely got the pick of the litter as far as roses go. They were all huge and gorgeous and SO fragrant. :D



Speaking of a holiday that's all about love and hearts, I wanted to give you advanced warning that I'll be having another Heartsy deal for my letterpress shop this week. The sale will be on Friday, with early access for VIPs on Thursday.

This will be the last Heartsy deal I do. I am making some changes to my letterpress shop and all of the pre-printed flat cards will be discontinued. I'll keep the four-part animal sets for now (woodland, farmyard, African, and Australian animals), but everything else has been put on sale (so you can get a super bargain with the Heartsy deal) and I won't print them again.

The four-part animal cards will also be phased out over the next few months. I redid them late last year because the company that supplies my envelopes discontinued one of the colors I was using. So I picked four colors for the new set, and I just found out that one of those colors has also been discontinued and won't be available after this year (ARGH!!). So I'll sell what I have in stock and more than likely won't reprint them unless the paper company can come up with a new color that will work with the rest of the set. So if you ever wanted a set for yourself or a friend, now is your chance. :)

You can get a sneak peek at what will be available for the Heartsy deal here. I'm also going to try to add a few other cards that I currently have in my Etsy shop, but all of those photos are on the dead computer... I am hoping to get something worked out temporarily so I can list them, but if you want something specific that you don't see in the ArtFire store, let me know and I'll set something up for you.

In the works: Part 2

With all the projects I have in the works right now, I have a lot of stuff. And by a lot of stuff, I mean every closet in every room is jam packed with stuff. And the guest room bed is piled about 2 feet high with stuff. And I have stuff in boxes stacked 6 feet high in my bedroom. And I have more stuff in plastic bins under my bed. And more stuff arrives almost every day.

And so the only logical thing to do was to convert the last remaining free space in our workshop--the space that was reserved to one day house the horse that still lives at my parents--into space to hold my stuff in a more organized and user-friendly manner.

The space, which is about 13 x 18 feet, is currently under construction. The walls and floor are in, and today he added a glass door between the new space and the adjacent space (that I took over last year) where I keep the presses. The new space doesn't have any windows, so the door was added not only to make it easier to use both spaces but also to let in a little bit of natural light.

The space can be accessed via the press room, through the main workshop, or from the outside.









I have spent a lot of time this week at Habitat for Humanity, buying up all their metal shelving units and as many base cabinets as I could find. I got some fantastic stuff. Now I just need to find the time to get it painted. Hopefully I can get that done by the time the space is finished and ready for me to move in.

And then there will be almost no limit to the amount of stuff that I can accumulate!