Make a wish

I want to share three amazing presents that I got for my birthday earlier this week. First, Kelly brought me an original bingo book!



It's one of those journals you like so much you don't even want to write in it... I'll have to think of something really great to use it for. Maybe after the current Moleskine runs out, it'll become my next design notebook.

Next my grandmother brought me a homemade birthday "cake" challah - cinnamon raisin to boot! I've been eating two deliciously dense sweet slices every day at the shop for lunch.



Finally, Jacob found the perfect gift, called a Buddha Board. It's a flat board that darkens when wet. It perches prettily on a water tray with a brush and groved brush holder. Now whenever I get an idea I can paint it out on the board (or "doodle" while on the phone).



I'm working on a lighthouse design for a couple's Maine wedding. I admit that the top looks more like a candle, but the great thing about the board is that once the water dries, gone is the candle and I can try try again.

Here's hoping all of my new designs don't start to look like Japanese brush painting knockoffs.

Losing my marbles

This weekend I did something I've been meaning to do for years - over fifteen, in fact. I have marbled paper on many occasions, but always under another's watchful eye (read: someone else set the whole thing up, I just threw pretty paints on the water). Finally, FINALLY, I decided to wait no longer - as a birthday present to myself, I splurged on trays and paints, alum and oxgall, irish moss and a blender, eye droppers and clothespins. I covered the floor in plastic sheeting, hung a 50' clothesline across the studio and back, then invited Kelly of May Day Studio to drive all the way from Vermont and share with me a weekend-long journey into the world of unsupervised paper marbling. {click here for Kelly's post of the weekend}



Jesse from Firefly Press braved torrential downpours, and even Kathleen, the designer at Taza tore herself away from the scintillating aroma-liciousness of churning chocolate to play in our buckets of moss-water.



Still in the experimental phase, some of our colors dripped to the bottom (orange and navy blue were particularly prone to this problem). Here's the before and after six hours of marbling and dragging a shish-kebob stick through the size.



Kelly and some of our first soggy attempts hanging on the lines behind.



Our techniques were much improved by day two...



... so we played with color, design and technique with more confidence (if not always success). This line has some of my absolute favorites from the entire weekend.



A "stone" pattern with spanish marble (waves).



Kelly was totally down with the purple/green combos - so cool.



Giant stones, and a pair of orange monster eyes!



A blue-hued feather pattern on a fabriano tiziano paper.

It made all the difference marbling ensemble, chatting about printing and Paris (when isn't it a good time to discuss Paris?), and stealing ideas, colors and techniques from one another. Kelly tended towards the purples and greens (did I mention, how cool?) and lots of bright dense stone patterns. Jesse was a swirl lover. I myself liked the controlled patterns and giant concentric rings - and was the designated master of the spanish marble.

There are plenty of things that didn't go quite rightly (colors that spread too much was the biggest), but this notwithstanding, I definitely forsee more marbling in my future.

Express-ly Yours

On Wednesday and Thursday mornings of this week, Albertine Press was host to 50 burgeoning authors from a summer creative writing program called Writers' Express. These kids spend their days experiencing life and Boston - rock climbing, walking around new and interesting neighborhoods, visiting local businesses - and then using these experiences to inspire their writing.

Both groups of students patiently sat and listened to me go on and on about the history and practice of letterpress printing before digging in to a project of their own. Meet my visitors:





In preparation for each group, I typeset a page with little snippits from their writings.



Then they each in turn typeset their own names for the cover of the keepsake folio.





I had a great time watching them work, answering the myriad of questions, and finally helping them print their own copies.

Here are the final products:









It was a really special experience (okay, maybe just a little overwhelming) and I extend my thanks to the kids for being so great to work with, and the staff for helping me out. And I have a brand newfound appreciation for teachers, who manage this many students every day, all day long.

If the groups send over any of the writing inspired by the visit to the shop, I'll be sure to post it!

Color me orange

I am quite taken with the invitation set that I finished at the end of last week - the leaf stems are an original crayon drawing (yes, crayon) yet have such a whimsical elegance to them.



The cards are deeply impressed into Lettra pearl white paper. Printed in burnt orange and chocolate brown, the final invites will be wrapped in a matching chocolate brown petal enclosure before being slipped into a pearl white square envelope.



And wouldn't you know, finished just in time to sneak into the new "collection"!



Beautiful fall colors for a beautiful fall wedding - puts me right in the mood to get to work on another autumn wedding commission... details to come!

It's not easy being green

Today I had the immense pleasure of watching three very hard-working, incredibly patient, and wonderfully creative ladies complete their first ever letterpress project, and boy, were they all spectacular!

Meet Alice, Lauren and Leah:



Braving the multitude of fonts and typecases, operating both the Vandy and a stubborn little Kelsey, wading through mountains of wood type, hunting for just the right size spacer, learning how to read backwards (sort of...), just look what they created!


Ah, the joys of typesetting...


That darned backwards reading thing...


Learning to love the lockup.


A great green hello by Alice.


Leah's perfect leaf.

Thank you ladies, for making the first workshop such a splendiferous success! I'm so incredibly proud of all of you!

Craft-licious

I recently learned about the Somerville ArtBeat festival. Sadly, it was about a month after applications for craft vendors had passed. So unless another vendor pulls out in the next few days (maybe they'll be too busy devouring the very last Harry Potter book) I'll be there as a visitor only, and encourage all the local yokels out there to come check it out as well (that is, if you're not too busy reading HP7).

Support your local wizard... I mean, crafter.