New cards for people who are not me

June 11, 2015May 24, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

Growing up in a homogeneous small town in a fairly homogeneous state, I wasn’t exposed to much in the way of diversity. Sure, I had a few (and I mean few) classmates whose skin was a different color than mine, but real differences—religion, culture, sexual orientation—were few and far between. Let’s just say it was easy to forget that not everyone celebrates Christmas.

I grew up, met new people, made efforts to broaden my horizons. I strive to be more conscientious about being inclusive in life, and in my little corner of the letterpress world. You’ve seen my same-sex marriage cards for years now—those were easy to come up with—but it’s still hard to write and design greetings for occasions you personally don’t have the cultural context for. Lucky for me, I have friends who can fill in the gaps.

So this year, keep an eye out for a more inclusive card collection! The cards pictured are all now available in my etsy shop, and please feel free to leave me a comment with a sentiment you’d like to see!

#RealTalk: Love Edition

May 28, 2015May 26, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

You guys, my boyfriend of two and a half years, the one I moved to a foreign country to be with, has never written me a love note. I’m not talking Byron and Keats here, all I want is a Valentine’s or birthday or just because card that I can look back at when the road gets rocky or when he’s traveling or when I’m feeling sad. (Full disclosure: When we were long distance he used to occasionally send very sweet, long, loving texts… but it’s just not the same!)

In fairness to him, there’s a lot of cheesy crap out there when it comes to lovey-dovey card shopping. While brainstorming straightforward sentiments, I started thinking about the love cards I’d really want to send. I started here:

And then I came up with a brilliant idea… funny and honest, and a reflection of the sender, which is really all you want in a card, right? Here’s the first batch, all of which are now available in my etsy shop. I’ve already come up with a bunch more to print, feel free to leave your ideas below!

#RealTalk

May 23, 2015May 18, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ 1 Comment

Avid readers of this blog have seen a progression (intentional and non-) toward more type-based designs lately. Not only does that mean ordering fewer [very expensive] printing plates for me, but people like cards with words on them, whether it says something they couldn’t quite figure out how to put into words or weren’t sure they were allowed to say.

I’m a pretty straightforward person. If you’ve met me in real life (or maybe you can even tell from my writing!), you more or less know how I feel about you, a situation or the work that you’ve made. I’m tactful, but I’m just not going to bullshit you—in fact I think it’s incredibly rude to say one thing to someone’s face and another behind their back (or even think it really).

So it makes sense that the cards I’ve been working on lately cut straight to the point. Sure, I could send you something with a quote about your journey and how everything happens for a reason… but wouldn’t you rather have this?

The card above was actually inspired by a girlfriend’s experience with miscarriage. She said the best, most truthful sentiment anyone expressed to her was from her doctor, who simply said, “This really sucks. You don’t have to be ok right now.”

Of course that straightforward attitude works both ways—when I’m truly excited, you know it! And so, for when exciting things are on the horizon:

I’m at that age where most of my friends have or are thinking about, maybe working on making babies, which still just blows my mind. I know the survival of the species depends on it and all, but DO YOU KNOW ANOTHER, SEPARATE PERSON JUST GREW INSIDE YOU AND IS NOW OUT IN THE WORLD? “Holy crap” pretty much sums up how I feel about that.

These are now all available in my etsy shop, and there’s more to come in my next post! Stay tuned!

Words with Friends

May 18, 2015May 13, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

As you may remember, just a few weeks before I moved to Bermuda, I bought a bunch of vintage wood type from a college classmate who was closing her shop. I never even got a chance to print with it in Wisconsin, it went straight from the back of my car to the containers I was loading into my crate.

Within the first few months, I had proofed all the type and was offering custom stationery sets in a variety of styles along with a handful of type-based note cards, but after that I focused on my attention on my spring collection and let my wood type gather dust.

I’m happy to report that I’m rather word-focused at the moment and my collection of vintage type is getting inked up regularly. Check out the stop-motion video I made of locking up type before printing!

The “hell yeah” card and others are now available in my etsy shop. Here are a few of my faves—check them all out here!

Oh hi! You made it all the way to the end of the post! For that you get a little sneak peek of something else I’ve been working on… more to come :) Thanks for reading!

Postcards Posted

May 15, 2015April 21, 2015 ~ Bess Paper Goods & Gifts ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks ago (I’m going to take an aside here and apologize for beginning what seems like 99% of my blog posts this way. Letterpress is a long process and so by the time I finish the project and photograph it, several weeks or a month or two have always gone by, so it feels strange to pretend like I just did whatever it is I’m writing about. My apologies!)

Anyway, a few weeks ago, a student from the Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) emailed to ask for some letterpress goodies to include in his senior show. His thesis was on moveable type and letterpress and he wanted to create a hand-out kit with a variety of examples. He mentioned past projects (business cards, wedding invites) were just fine, but almost all of those are created with a custom printing plate, not vintage type. The main thing I use my type for is greeting cards and coasters, but that would mean giving away several hundred dollars worth of merchandise—which is a big deal to a teeny tiny business like mine!

But I did want to help the guy out and I had been tossing around an idea for postcards for a couple weeks, so I decided that would be the project for him!

You all know I repurpose my practice printing paper over and over again, and then cut it up into tiny paper circles/confetti, 2-inch paper squares, gift tags and garlands. While printing this latest collection, I had a lot of what I refer to as “happy accidents”—designs that overlapped in a really interesting way or somehow worked together in a design, even though I hadn’t planned it.

I had been saving these pieces, not wanting to chop them up into little bits, yet they had too much already printed on them to use for practice sheets. So, I trimmed them up to a standard USPS post card size, used vintage lead type to print “Post card” and a dotted divider down the front, plus added my logo to designate where to place a stamp. Voila! The coolest post cards you’ve ever sent.

I sent most of them off to Ohio, but made a few extra sets and they’re now available in the shop. Pick some up now for quick notes, or they’re great to have on hand for summer vacation or when the kids go off to camp!