I printed these lovely invitations for Jen & Bernadette’s summer wedding last weekend. They wanted a modern look with a nautical reference, so we created an abstract wave motif to carry throughout the wedding stationery. Along with the enclosures (pictures of which to come in a few weeks), they’ll be paired with silver envelopes — a stunning combination.
I have been in love with Rebecca of Sown‘s work for a long time. But, because she just can’t seem to keep anything in her shop (she sells out all the time!) I haven’t been able to feature her. She recently stocked up again, so hurry up and check them out!
Rebecca makes the coolest pillows from vintage feed bags and the occasional modern printed fabric. You all know I’m a typography nut so I especially love the ones with writing on them, but the color choice and modern composition makes each one a gem.
Lately when I’m printing a run of cards or prints, I’ve been trying to stretch my ink and paper scraps a bit farther (I recently figured out just how much money I’ve spent on this venture and it scared me!) so I’ve started making gift tags. It’s great because now everyone can have a little taste of a limited edition piece or a custom order (the purple ornaments were ordered as a custom printing for my sister) and I’m doing something worthwhile with the extra paper that I can’t bear to throw away. I’ll be including a couple tags in each order from now until the holidays (or until I run out). Hope you enjoy!
I’ve been trying to work on some art prints for quite some time, but with increasing stock for stores and designing all my PR pieces to send to those stores, I hadn’t had time until now. Two weekends ago, I started playing around with some of the wood type I purchased from Tom in Racine (see what else I got here) and the result was this limited edition of 12 chocolate and aqua prints.
I also bought a lovely drawer of this great blocky all-caps face, which I set in an alphabet and made the limited edition below (half on pearl white, half on ecru paper). Both pieces are currently available in my etsy shop.
Ever since I fell in love with typography and letterpress in college, I knew one day I’d buy a press. One day meaning when I had a house to put it in and the time to do it (ok, so maybe just the former).
Then came craigslist. The boyfriend, he is addicted, and he found this press under an hour away from where we live. With everything I needed to start a studio. Plus type. For cheap. How is this possible? Well, of course because I had nowhere to put it. Then the most surprising part of this whole enterprise, my parents were easily sweet-talked into letting me take over half their basement. I had a studio!
A very dirty studio. A studio covered in dust and bugs and 120 years of ink and solvent (mixed with dust and bugs of course). I bronze-brushed every square inch of the press (ok, only the important square inches, but it works, doesn’t it?) and have been slowly but surely going through the process of taking every compartment of type out, cleaning it in denatured alcohol, drying it and putting it into a clean type case.
Then I had to figure out the whole image thing. The only image I had ever letterpressed before I made with a solar plate, which didn’t create a deep enough impression, wasn’t mounted at the right height and was generally a total and complete pain in the ass. Thanks to briarpress, I found boxcar, and later Owosso Graphics.
While boxcar does beautiful work and many many letterpress artists swear by their photopolymer system, I like Owosso for two reasons. 1) The initial investment is significantly less (as in less than 10% of what it would have taken to start with boxcar’s system) and 2) There’s something wonderful about working with wood and metal, materials that have been used in this manner since this method of printing was invented, that photopolymer plates simply can’t match. Since then, I’ve also found they have great customer service (as in they call you if they’re unclear on your order—a real person, not an automated anything) and a super quick turn-around. GO OWOSSO!
622 press | LETTERPRESS GOODS MADE BY HAND 