Block and white

This past weekend I'd scheduled two wood block type holiday card letterpress classes. Due to random circumstances, only two of five students could make it to day one. So Kerry, Haven and I had a grand old time designing and printing new year's cards.



Above, Haven navigates the intricacies of setting wood type, and printing in two colors.

Below, two of the funniest, cleverest new year's cards ever:



Since it was such an intimate class, I joined in the fun by setting a card of my own. Surrounded by such uber-cleverness, here's my contribution to the day's efforts:



What a most fun and wonderful day - thank you Kerry and Haven!

Sadly, due to this:



I had to cancel Sunday's class.

Playing with the wood type was such fun, though, that there's definitely a wood type valentine's class in the works for early next year.

If the weather allows.

Back in black

Earlier this week I received a most welcome package - new art from Marisa!



Consider this a preview of some new cards for 2008 (particularly Snow-merican Gothic there).

Thanks, Meish!

Palm reading

My favorite part of these invitations (finished last week) is the full bleed envelope flap. The stylized palm leaves are a refreshing reminder that there are still warm places on this planet... too bad Boston isn't one of them.

Stamp of approval

I love American stamps. I love that they come in so many designs and denominations (I mean, really, who needs an eight cent stamp?). I also love little collections of beautiful and interesting things. How perfect to meld the two when shipping out orders. - it's so much more festive than a postal printout.

Brahms in letterpress

Another fun handset poster job - and thankfully (given the short timeline) the Vandy was being very cooperative.



I love using the wood type - if only it weren't so hard and expensive to come by. I'd also like more larger (point size) fonts.

Color blind?

This is how I display the coasters at craft fairs.

The contents of each box are identical but I package different designs on top to showcase the different designs/colors in each set.

Nevertheless, the boxes with purple birds on top sell more than any of the others, and I'm always left with orange crane ones at the end. Go figure.

Whiz bang pop fizz snap crackle baz biz

This was my first Bazaar Bizarre, and it was very exciting: lines starting an hour before doors opened, steady streams of happy craft shoppers, lots of great fellow vendors, and I had the display down to a science. And I got to show off my fancy new Susy Pilgrim Waters t-shirt (one person even recognized it!)

Before the madness began I took a little walkabout to see the goods. Way across the hall, Ezra and Terri from Rainy Planet Press had their Kelsey set up for emblazoning Moleskines in addition to their Pirate cards and more (I got a great happy birthday card).



Here's a look at the crowds.



Our biggest sellers: Papercut Coasters, Last Duck holiday cards, and the blue and green World Notes. In general, this year's trends were skulls, robots, monsters and bicycles. Pleased to say, we carry none of the above. I think nearly every stationery table had some sort of bicycle card. I ended up with a few, since I have bike friends:



What fun would it be without sharing all the swag I captured. The monster patches really were too cute and I picked up at least three of the "I Make Stuff" ones for gifts.



I also filled a bag at the Repro Depot table before all of the madness started. Lots of projects bubbling away inside my little head.



Though I considered it a successful show, other vendors who'd done it in years past seemed to indicate that it was slightly sub-par in attendance. I don't know, but I had a steady four to eight people in front of the table nearly the whole time.

Marisa headed up the Albertine Press / Marisa Escolar table at the Baz Biz San Francisco yesterday, in it's first year. She reported that many people came up to the table who had heard of us, both on Etsy and in a few local stores. It's terribly exciting to be recognized across the country. We've come a long way from that teeny, tiny, poorly-heated space up in Lynn, that's for sure.

For more photos of the event (by all sorts of people) click here.

Prints Charming

A little overdue, here's a little recap and photos from the Design Nearby event at Pinkcomma Gallery a week ago, Friday.

I got a special sneak peak when I dropped off the rest of the editions - a hanging in progress. The gallery had painted their walls in super-pale different color shades, giving each artist a subtly distinct wall space.



Before and after.



The one-night opening / show was oodles of fun. I spent some good time schmoozing with the ladies from Two Trick Pony (shop talk, business talk, design talk), plus Emily Goodale, who also showed here sweet and wonderful etchings.



My favorite feature of the Pinkcomma gallery was the pepto-pink bathroom.



Talk about taking color to the max - this is the pinkest room I've ever seen. I love the excess.



And the one item I'm kicking myself for not buying:



Why didn't I think of that?

Hot Chocolate!

How to even begin???

This past Sunday we held our third celebration of Paper & Chocolate, a collective open house with our neighbors Taza Chocolate. This time, however, I invited five other paper artists to share my space and their work. All I can say is wow.

In the end, more than 600 people came through the shop over the course of the afternoon. Yes, that's six HUNDRED. How do we know? Taza had the brilliant idea to give out stickers to every single person to come through (everyone started off with a chocolate factory tour) and was thus able to track the traffic.

After each half hour tour, the group of forty to fifty people filtered into our space, and if I do say so myself, it was marvelously organized with tables and people flowing naturally around the room.

Below you can see Angela of Carta, Inc. on the left with her ribbons and stamps and beautiful hand-bound books and things. On the right (behind that person in the blue jacket) is Kelly of May Day Studio with my ever-favorite Bingo books, gorgeous journals, and a snazzy set of new holiday cards. On the wall behind them are the incredibly sweet etchings by Emily Goodale.



To one side you'd find Becca Wasilewski with her giclee prints and a series of white-glove-only artist's books on display.



Across the room Melissa Gruntkosky was showing and selling her adorable teeny, tiny, hand-bound books.



Jacob was at the center island manning the Albertine Press sales while I stayed in the back at the Vandy, giving press demonstrations. Which means I helped everyone run their own keepsake on the press, even and especially the littlest visitors (photo courtesy of Angela). After explaining the process two hundred times, (quite literally) I was a bit horse at the end, but I never got tired of the "wow!" that happened the first time a new group saw a print hot off the press.



Sadly, I don't have any photos of our own display. Hopefully one of the other's will pull through and I can link over to them. It's a shame, since I finally got the display right. [They came through! For more pictures and takes on the event, click here, here, or here.] Angela's family came to visit, and here she is with her daughter Nada holding one of the keepsake prints.



The day was an overwhelming success - not only did everyone have great sales, but I met so many new people, and saw many many old faces. So thank you to all of the friends, family, students, colleagues, neighbors and curiosity seekers who came out in the first snow to share a most wonderful afternoon with us. Thank you to Angela, Kelly, Emily, Becca and Melissa for joining me in this venture. Thanks to Brendon at La Tene for the super bonbons. And especially, thank you to the whole gang at Taza for being just about the best neighbors a girl could ask for.

Toast-ed

Honestly, I was skeptical about how our first holiday fair would go. I'd been moved inside (after signing up for an outdoor spot) to a basement lounge without much lighting, and awkward spaces. I was worried about how it would look, and I was worried about people even finding the place, forget about coming downstairs and looking around.

I was wrong.

Living up to every previous Union Square (Somerville) market, this one was thriving. Toast Lounge was the perfect spot with eclectic yet charming spaces (one soap vendor displayed gorgeously along a wavy bar), a great mix of vendors, fantastic live music, and it was hopping with people the entire time. In short, a smashing success.

Here's the initial setup - holiday cards on the table, and non-holiday cards on the shelves (for the most part) allowed me enough room to splay out the calendar for everyone to see.





My table was directly across from the stage, and each of the four acts throughout the afternoon kept me toe-tapping and happy (though at the very end everyone was too engrossed in the music to turn around and shop...).



And at the end of the day (notice the dearth of coasters...) :



After all this I dropped everything off at the shop, had a quick dinner at home, and then returned the the shop to clean and organize for the big event the next day - Paper & Chocolate - photos to come.

Thanks Toast. Thanks Mimi and Union Square Main Streets. Thanks Somerville. You all rock.