One of my oldest and dearest friends moved to Houston last year, and I finally got down to visit a few weeks ago. We did a bunch of fun stuff, but I though you’d all like to see photos from The Printing Museum! Here’s just a small selection of the photos I took—I highly recommend stopping in for yourself!
Officially, Pantone named two colors of the year for 2016: Rose Quartz and Serenity (which is a sort of pastel blue), but so far from where I stand it’s been all about lovely shades of blush pink.
First, bride-to-be Krista got in touch. I had designed and printed her save the date coasters last year and they were some of my favorites, so I was thrilled to hear from her! I’ll do a bigger reveal after their wedding day, but here’s a sneak peek of their dusty rose wrap that holds all the invitation elements together.
Another bride from last year got in touch just after Krista. The future Mrs. O’Brien went for a more formal design for her wedding stationery, which features the same pink filigree pattern, gold family crest and formal script as her save the dates. Her invitations are hot off the press (and drying all over my house) as I type, so I don’t even have a sneak peek for you yet, but stay tuned!
I’ve also been working on non-letterpress wedding invitations lately. I’ve been thinking about offering less expensive options for a while now, since not every bride can or wants to spend several hundred (or more) dollars on their invitations. And, as smaller celebrations become more popular, the price-per-invite goes up, since the initial supply costs for letterpress work are so high. Although personally I still think it’s totally worth it!
I recently connected with a photographer via The Rising Tide Society that offered to shoot some of my new invites! Nicole over at Simply Charming Pictures did a great job, I can’t wait to share the rest of her work! Watercolor invitations aren’t yet available online, but get in touch if you’re interested!
As I was finishing up those big wedding projects, a new mom got in touch via Etsy about invitations for her baby girl’s first birthday party. She loved my Watercolor Ombre Fill-in Invitations, but wondered if I could make them in pink and gold instead… to which I said of course! I knew I would love the results, so I made an extra set to list in the shop—find them here!
And finally, I’ve finally started ordering a few new printing plates for my own projects. You may have noticed I didn’t launch as many new cards last year. When I first moved, I was so excited to have so much time for letterpress work that I may have gone a little crazy and printed all the cards I’d had bouncing around my head for years but never had the time to print, and my stock got a little out of hand. Not only do I have limited space to store everything, but it’s difficult to keep track of nearly 200 different designs!
Someday when I have my own shop, I’ll be able to maintain that kind of inventory, but for the time being, I needed to pare things down. I’m finally at a place now where enough designs have sold out so I’m ready to create some new work!
Far and away my favorite of the new fonts I bought a few months back is this beautiful modern calligraphy typeface. It’s perfect for wedding season! My “Mr & Mrs” cards have always been popular, but I’ve been feeling like the design needed an upgrade, so I designed these! Pick up a set here. I also wanted to created a new design that would not only work for weddings (and not even same-sex unions at that), but any joyous occasion—birthdays, adoption, engagement, graduation… you name it, this card works. Available in blush here, but I’m thinking of printing them in lots of colors… feel free to comment with what you’d like to see next!
Price Farms’ stationery is the last of my new year projects. I print a lot of business cards, but these were a particular challenge—not only are they a three-color job, but they also feature reversed-out type on a solid color flood background… twice. I printed lots of extras to allow for imperfections and mis-registration and I’m quite pleased with how they turned out!
The letterhead was a completely different story. I ordered the lighter text weight version of my favorite Crane paper and they printed like a dream! I was a little worried I wouldn’t get a good impression into such a light paper, but I was so wrong. I just love how they turned out!
I can’t beleive I haven’t shared this with you all yet, as it was one of the more interesting experiences of my trip home, but I guess that’s what you get when you’re a bad blogger…
Last fall, I designed this logo (plus a few other options, but this is my favorite!) for Laura, a Madisonian I’ve known for years, we first met through the magazine I used to work for, I got my hair done at the salon she owned for a number of years, we have lots of friends in common. She is also an intuitive reader, or, for lack of a subtler word, a psychic.
While I was home in Wisconsin, I did something very much outside my comfort zone and went to a reading with her. I actually tried not to think about it before my appointment so as not to create expectations in my mind, but even after being acquainted with Laura all this time, the experience was still not what I expected. More than anything else, it was like having coffee with a friend who wants what’s best for you and gives great advice (and might know a thing or two you haven’t actually told her).
I left feeling renewed, uplifted about life in Bermuda, the relationship that brought me here and the direction I’m moving in career-wise. There’s been more than one little nugget of advice that has stuck with me since our chat, but the one producing the most tangible results right now is when we were talking about how to grow my business in a country that doesn’t allow me to work locally. Laura told me to give (my work, my time, my expertise, etc.) without expecting anything in return (particularly since I can’t currently accept money for any of those things). Say what you will about karma, but so far it’s working out in my favor.
A few weeks ago, I was putting together Valentine’s Day orders for two of my stockists. I had pulled all the cards from my stock, and I was just short on a few things for one of the stores, which means I would have had to do two printing days for less than $10 immediate profit. Then I remembered that I had a few extra cards in a different custom design for the other store and I decided to give them those for free. When I pulled the cards I was going to give away, I happened across the exact quantity of cards I needed for the first shop!
Perfect coincidences like that remind me that the universe is working in ways that you or I won’t see until the right time… and we just have to trust the journey.
Just before the holidays, I finished up a save the date card for the boyfriend’s sister. Abi and her fiancé are planning an Art Nouveau themed soirée this fall and wanted their invitation suite to give guests a peek at what’s to come.
Once I saw Abi’s Pinterest board—full of soft candlelight, sparkling chandeliers, swirling illustrations and hues of cobalt and gold, I knew I had to use this amazing shimmery paper I had experimented with a few weeks prior. I love that while it definitely reads gold, the paper is actually more of a champagne hue, free of the brassy or yellow hues that can make gold look cheap.
I created a two-color design inspired by motifs of the era: vaguely nature-inspired, but stylized into pure decoration. The white ink I used to print it plays beautifully off the iridescent paper.
I struggled quite a lot with the typefaces for this project, primarily because I don’t particularly like fonts from this era. I offered several more modern options that fit with with the design motif, but in the end, Abi and Spencer preferred typography that was historically accurate, and I was able to find several typefaces that I liked and worked well together!
I’m so pleased with how the save the dates turned out and can’t wait to get started on their invites, stay tuned!
622 press | LETTERPRESS GOODS MADE BY HAND 