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!

When life gives you failed perc tests, stain berry baskets

So the dirt at the new house failed the perc test. Failed it miserably. So unless we want to shell out nearly $25k to put in a new septic system with special pumps and whatnot, we can't add the fourth bedroom. And we don't want to shell out the $25k. So it's back to the drawing board on the house plans...

In the meantime, I'm making some berry baskets for Christmas. I'm going with two general color themes in both shops this year: cardinal red, white, and silver, and moss green, gold, and ivory. Yesterday and today I was staining lots of clothespins, wood tags, jute twine, and berry baskets in the moss green and cardinal red colors. I can almost smell the pine cones and hear the jingle bells...

Hiccups and perc tests

So we had our first hiccup over at the new house.

We want to convert it from a 3 bedroom/1 bath house to a 4 bedroom/3 bath house. The house has an old septic system, and to add another bedroom means we have to increase the size of the septic tank. To do that, we have to move everything to the back yard where there is more room for the tank and leach field. To do that, the dirt has to be good. And by good, I mean dry.

Yesterday I met the backhoe guy and someone from the engineer's office (planning septic systems now requires an engineering firm!) to dig some holes for the perc test. The perc test measures the percolation rate, or how quickly water drains through the soil. When you dig for the perc test, the deepest hole is about 9 feet. And you really want to see dry dirt there.

Our dirt was wet. Like, really wet. About 30 minutes after we dug the hole there was several inches of water at the bottom. That's bad. Really bad. So we dug another hole in another area of the property that should be drier. And it was really wet at 6 feet.

So today is the official perc test and then the engineers and person from the county health department will decide what kind of system we can have. At this point, it's not looking good for a system that will work well for the future of the place as a horse property, or the cost will be so high that it just doesn't make sense. So I might be back to the drawing board with the house plans and we might be stuck with just 3 bedrooms. What a bummer.

What makes me happy

My new employee, Gigi, makes me happy.
 
For the past few days she has been organizing my space out in the workshop. Last night before she headed home, she left me a little surprise that I discovered this morning.

It actually stopped me in my tracks and I laughed out loud because she gets it. She just took some of the milk glass vases, a few wooden boxes, and just odds and ends sitting around in all areas of the shop and created this adorable little display. Goodness do I wish I had a brick-and-mortar shop so she could design the window displays!!



Once she helps me catch up on all my pre-packaging in anticipation of the holiday rush, I'm going to have her take all the different items in my shop and decorate packages and make little displays to photograph for the shop. It's been on my list of things to do for a loooong time, but there's never enough hours in the day. I am ecstatic just thinking about all the fun things she'll come up with.

In other news, those of you out there who were crossing your fingers that I made the final cut in the magazine I was working with, thank you! I just now filled out the final form from the fact checker. The issue will be on newstands November 19. I'll tell you more about it once the time gets closer, so you can get a copy if you don't already subscribe to it. :D!!

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.

Open concept

Yesterday we officially achieved the open concept I'm going for in the new house by removing the wall separating the living room and kitchen. I'm a bit bummed that we'll have to put a post right at the end of the countertop to support the two headers. It was just too long of a span for a single header. I also finished the design of the kitchen cabinets yesterday (Oh my gosh, it's going to be awesome!!), so will be placing an order for them soon.


The bathrooms are mostly framed in, so things are moving right along now. Yesterday I also spent some time picking the tile for the two main bathrooms and I think I finally found some things I like. Weeee!

More demo

Capable Guy and his Capable Helper continue with the demo of the new house while Lachlan and I continue making the rounds down at the county to get all the permitting taken care of.

This is the view down the hallway from the living room to the back bedrooms, with the kitchen on the left.

Here they've removed the wall separating the kitchen from the bathroom and also removed the walls where the furnace and water heater used to be. They're being moved to the outbuildings so that the one original bathroom can be split into two full bathrooms. We also removed the exterior door (now covered with plywood on the far left of the photo below) in the main part of the kitchen. It seemed silly to have it because there is a set of French doors just about 10 feet away from it, and removing it gives us valuable wall space for cabinets. Weee! Progress!

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!

Demo

Over at the new house, the kitchen is pretty much gone. Open concept, here we come!

 

 

Oh, and the bathroom, furnace and water heater are on their way to being gone, too. :)