stitch.rip.repeat.

Amelia's Birth Announcements

2011-03-22T08:35:00.000-04:00

I've finally completed Amelia's birth announcements. She's now 10 weeks old. I've had them designed for quite a while, but printing them and getting them assembled took some extra time. Now I just have to finish sending out my "thank you" notes before I send out the announcements. Sheesh. I'm so embarrassingly bad at things like that. The sad thing is, I've had the notes written since before she was born, but I haven't found the time to address and stamp them. It's really shameful considering how grateful I am to everyone who gave us something and took the time to throw us a shower.

But enough with the sob story. I'm thrilled with how these turned out. Big big shout-out to Heather Roth Photography (HSR Photography) out of St. Louis for the wonderful photos. She came all the way out to the country to take them and she was just amazing. I have a nice big camera, and fancy myself a decent photographer, but let me tell you this: I could never have gotten the shots that she did. She was just amazing with the poses and handling Amelia in a soothing way. I was so stressed in the first hour that I had to step away and let her do her magic. They turned out wonderful!

So what I did was arrange a couple of my favorites in Photoshop, sent them to Sam's Club to get printed on 5x7's (so much cheaper at Sam's. 38 cents instead of $1.48 at Walmart). and then attached my letterpressed piece on the middle. It was tempting to just do a digital card with no letterpress, but I didn't think that would be quite acceptable.

I bought an edge punch at Michael's which amazingly enough actually held up to cut through that super thick Lettra paper.

Here's the printing plate. I tried the reversed out design, but you couldn't really tell that it was letterpressed, so what was the point? Too much surface area of printing can have that effect, no matter how hard you're hitting the paper with the press. We've learned that the hard way.

Here's a shot of the girl herself at the age of 9 weeks. It's funny that I was so "anti" pink before she was born, but it just suits her so beautifully! That red hair and her complexion make the pink perfect.

~Beth

Happenstance

2011-03-16T09:39:00.001-04:00

So a friend of a friend sent us this link along with this message "Check out this link. Hopefully you can see the photo on the right of the FedEx page. The book cover’s picture looks like your recipe stuff….Alan"

I couldn't imagine what might be on there, but was pleasantly surprised to find the book cover that I designed for BlogAid: Hope for Haiti a year ago. Apparently, FedEx has purchased Blurb, which is my favorite book making software.

Dinner With Julie Blog author (Julie) contacted me about creating a cover using the recipe card box image, and I was more than happy to help. It's so weird that a year later it's showing up on FedEx Office's website! I wish there was a credit for the artwork that linked back to our shop, but I guess that's a good lesson for making sure you know exactly how your artwork is being used. In this case, I guess it's not a bad thing. My brain keeps trying to think of the worst case scenario, and I guess there isn't one. Right?

Anyway, I suppose I should just be happy that they liked the look enough to publish it!

xo~Beth

Our Name in Lights!

2011-03-05T11:45:00.006-05:00

Or actually, on air. Our local NBC station, KOMU has a segment specific to our rural little county, and they wanted to do a story about our letterpress!

Here's the link. They did a lovely job of portraying our little business in 2 minutes!

And here's Karen...she did a fantastic job!

From one friend to another..

2011-03-04T09:36:00.005-05:00

A dear friend has started a new company and I just had to help spread the word

Wendy specializes in unique tours of the city which are stress-free and affordable. She can show you all of London in less than 6 hours without needing a map- and without the worry of getting lost.
There is finally a reason to stay off that tour bus!

If you are busy at work, and need to entertain family and friends this is a great way to do it! A long layover? Traveling alone? London in a Day is the answer!

Tours also make a great gift!

Check out her website: London in a Day.

Contact info:
wendy@londoninaday.com
www.londoninaday.com
www.londoninaday.co.uk

That's My Baby!

2011-01-22T18:54:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago, Amelia Jane was born into this world. She weighed 10 lbs, 8 ozs, and 21.5 inches long. Oh baby! No wonder my stomach was so big!

Everything went smoothly, and she's a darling. We're getting accustomed to each other and working on sleeping schedules. Carrie and Jason are packing all of our Etsy orders, and I'm just starting to come out of the haze that is the first 2 weeks to think about sketching and things other than how long it's been since I've changed a diaper.

I'm hoping to have this fabulous photographer out of St. Louis come take some newborn pics, but so far the weather has been thwarting us! I have lots of props. Crayons, flower headbands and vintage blocks. I've been trying to take some artsy photos, but sometimes it's just nice to have someone else lend their artistic vision. And I'm not too great at manhandling the baby into position.

I'll try not to make this a baby picture blog, but I wanted to share our great news!

~Beth

There's a baby in there!

2011-01-03T21:21:00.004-05:00

I don't know if I've mentioned it or not, but I'm all set to pop out this baby in 2 weeks, give or take well, 2 weeks. Isn't it strange that one of the biggest events in your life is so completely and utterly un-plannable?

Let me tell you that being uber pregnant is not conducive to doing a lot of work. Thankfully I have had a lot of help from Carrie at the barn and at home from Jason and from my mom and dad.

December was a crazy month sales wise, but it was wonderful! Thank goodness we had everything printed already, and all there was to do was ship everyday, something that took Jason or my mom less than an hour or so. I can't speak for Carrie, since she ships 50%. What a brilliant idea to have a partner! It works out so much better when life (baby) takes priority over your hobbies.

I have some serious anxiety about how this is all going to work out after having the baby. How will I find time to print and work on things? I just don't know, but it might be a great catalyst for me letting go. Maybe we'll find a great intern to be our printing monkey. We've hired an awesome wholesale liason/life organizer, Karen, and I hope to hire someone else to do the bookkeeping. It would be great if Carrie and I could just draw and design. Those are the things we're good at.

Renegade Holiday Fair! Chicago

2010-12-13T08:10:00.000-05:00

For the second year in a row we decided to make the trek up to Chicago to be a part of the Renegade Holiday Craft Fair, and it turned out to be a GREAT weekend. Since Beth is just a few weeks out from having her baby, she decided that it might be best to stay home where she could get a little more rest. I (Carrie) was obviously a bit disappointed to be going without my sidekick, but we all knew that it would be for the best. So I recruited a team. They dubbed themselves The A Team. And they were awesome. The line-up...Karen, (sis-in-law), and Dustin and Melissa (brother and sis-in-law).

We left Mid-Missouri early on Friday evening. Everything was going great until we got to central Illinois and ran straight into a snowstorm. For about 200 miles we averaged maybe 35 mph. Dustin handled it great...and the van pulled us through. We rolled into Chicago safe and sound around 3:30 am. Ouch.

Saturday morning we drug ourselves out of bed and headed straight to the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse to set up for the fair.

Our booth location was great this year. We were lucky enough to be in the auditorium on the end of a row.

Karen and Melissa did an awesome job of helping set up the booth.

It's a challenge to fit everything into a 6x6 ft. space, but we made it work! It is really crazy to think about how much we've done in a year. I feel like this year we had twice the amount of products to put on display than we did last year.

Attendance was great, and we got such a great response from all the fair goers who passed by our booth.

We were also directly across from some awesome entertainment. Dustin taking in the sweet sounds of the record players...

Saturday night we went out for some deep dish Chicago pizza at Lou Malnati's. It was SO good, but we were SO tired. We went back to our home away from home and crashed. We were lucky to stay in a really great location not too far from where Renegade took place. The street was so pretty in the snow!

We were back at it on Sunday for day 2 of the fair. It was a lot of fun looking around at all the other booths, and meeting other vendors. So many talented people!

Christmas in Chicago!

On the way out of town on Monday morning we stopped at Millennium Park to see the giant bean sculpture.

Always a fun place to take pictures!

A BIG HUGE thanks to the team for all the work that made the weekend a success!

Thank you notes are here!

2010-12-06T07:06:00.001-05:00

So, being all pregnant and such, people seem to want to give you things for the baby. I'm totally thrilled with this! I didn't think it would be quite right to send out someone else's letterpress thank you notes. Thus, a new product was born.

I drew one design and Carrie drew the other, and we printed them each in 2 colorways. We are THRILLED with how they turned out.

Now I have a stack of belated notes to be gettin' out. Better get to that and stop the yakking. We didn't print just too many, so you better get them while you can! Here's the shop link.

Meet us in Chicago!

2010-12-01T08:31:00.001-05:00

This weekend, December 4th and 5th! We have a booth in the lovely auditorium at Pulaski Park Fieldhouse. Click here for all the details. I can tell you that we'll have 10 times the selection of items over last years show.

Carrie and I were thinking back on last year, when we had only printed 1 thing on our (then new) Chandler & Price. This year, we have coasters, stickers, house kits, calendars, fabric and so many prints! We hope to have a stellar show...so please come out!

Here's a post about last year, including some of our great booth neighbors!

Holiday Coasters

2010-11-23T07:49:00.000-05:00

Have we talked about our new holiday coasters?

We love to print coasters. They're easy to get in and out of the press, and they're so useful! Printing a functional item is sort of hard to come by, but these fit the bill perfectly.

The stars and snowflakes are printed with metallic ink--so fun! But a pain to wash off the press.

We used variations of our holiday cards for the artwork, and this allowed us to print them at the same time, saving us from the dreaded wash-up of the press and the rollers.

These make a great holiday party hostess gift--and they're only $15!

AND we've really packaged them up in a cute way, thanks to Jean Howard, sweatshop worker extraordinaire!

Check them out today!

Holiday Barnwarming Market!!

2010-11-16T06:48:00.002-05:00

We wanted an excuse to have an "open barn" party before the holidays and show people how the presses work, etc, so we decided to invite some friends along as well! Check it out:

Come out to the barn for an afternoon of local arts and letterpress demonstrations!

We'll have a roasty campfire complete with s'more making, the gumball machine will be rolling, and you'll get to shop with some of our area's best artisans! We'll be running our letterpresses and giving demonstrations of this fantastic process.

Details:

When: December 11th (Saturday) from 1-5 p.m.

Where: Shryock's Big Red Barn (home of the Corn Maze) just 10 minute East of Columbia . Click here for information and directions.

Come finish (or start) your holiday shopping with fantastic local artists!

-Animalia pottery

-Lily Dawson Jewelry

-Marietta Designs fused glass

--Fergus Moore Pottery

-Porch Swing Afghans

-Hoot Design Co. artwork and posters

-Chad Canfield Soaps

--and of course, plenty of 1canoe2 goodness!

New Business Cards

2010-11-09T08:21:00.001-05:00

First, I need to tell you all that you can find all these posts over on our 1canoe2 website blog. I'm just double posting for now, but I think a time will come when we'll mostly post over there.

And Carrie will also be posting over there, so you should check it out! The website isn't finished yet, but it's getting there!

Here are some legit photos of our new business cards. Our old cards were cute, but not really a good example of letterpress. We're pretty excited about these and plan to print a few every time we have a fun color on the press.

Hot and Fresh off the Press!

2010-11-04T21:51:00.000-04:00

We just finished printing some lovely wedding invites! Jackie came to us last summer with a request for some letterpressed invitations that reflected their botanical garden wedding.

We used some flowers that Carrie had drawn, and Beth drew the hand lettering and did the design work. It was a true 1canoe2 collaboration!

They're printed on Crane's Lettra 220lb....so luxurious! The impression of letterpress is really beautiful on this type of paper.

Congratulations, Jackie! We hope you love your wedding invitations as much as we loved making them!

The cat is out of the bag

2010-11-03T08:24:00.004-04:00

The biggest secret of the summer: We sold our recipe card box kits and address card files to Anthropologie! And it took a village to get them built, printed, assembled, and shipped!

My dad's workshop. He has officially made more than 1,000 boxes now. Whoa. This is what he did on his summer vacation.

Carrie and I printed and printed. I had to custom order special plastic packaging boxes since these will be on the shelves at Anthropologie and need to look nice!

After weeks of my mom and I and occasionally Jason packing boxes, two of my mom's sisters came over for one massive packing party, and we finally had all of them done!

Let's hear it for people who work for a good dinner!

Here's my sister Al with one of the boxes she found in the Kansas City, Missouri store! Go to your local store and see if you see them! And move them to the front of the shelves! :)

Seriously, though, this was a huge undertaking. One we are so excited about. We learned a lot of lessons about mass production and general pricing and business. Many MANY thanks go to my parents who work for free, and are always excited for us in every new adventure.

The final straw was shipping out 2 pallets of boxes. Let's just say it involved using the small-town good-old boy network and my mom driving a trailer on the highway with 2 pallets and white knuckles. UPS picked them up, and now they're all over the country!

Round things are BACK!

2010-10-09T07:39:00.005-04:00

Last time we printed this beauty, we only made 38. And they sold out in 2 days time. It took all summer, but we've reprinted the poster, in another limited edition, and it's back! And if want one, this is your chance, cause I seriously doubt we're going to be printing all 9 of those colors ever again. GET YOURS RIGHT HERE!

And thanks to being featured on Daily Candy, we've sold all but 4 of our coaster sets, so we reprinted those at the same time!

We're now back to printing new things: some really lovely wedding invites, holiday coasters, and holiday cards. Let's hope I can post those soon!

Things That Are Long-Poster

2010-09-14T06:23:00.004-04:00

Everyone likes a good mini-series, right? Remember our "Things That Are Round"? This is "Things That Are Long", and we may do even more! We sold out of the last poster in 48 hours, although we still have some of the coasters. We're still hoping to reprint this sometime soon.

Carrie did so many drawings of "Things That Are Long" That we felt like we had to use them all! (Some go used in the calendar, but we couldn't fit all of them.)

So we made an 11x14 poster. And it's beautiful! It's up for sale in the shop now, and we only printed 120, so I recommend you snatch it up if you can. We only made 40 of our last poster, and it sold out in 48 hours.

2011 Calendars--it's official!

2010-09-13T07:11:00.004-04:00

2011 Letterpress Calendars! Get 'em while you can!
Cause there are only 200 of each, and it's only September, but they're selling quick!

Last year printing our calendar took us from Labor Day weekend all the way into November. It's pretty much the only project we did all autumn long. This year the drawings took us longer, but we printed it in just a couple of weekends. What will we do with our spare time?

This is my farm scape. I really love the way it turned out. I like it so much because I think it looks like someone else drew it! And I LOVE the colors. So happy!

This is Carrie's Flower Garden. I love the colors here, too! And the flower illustrations are brilliant. Doing the lining up was a bit of a challenge, but we did it! We've finally gotten to the point where we can think ahead and see problems. Like this time before we did anything else, we printed a few test prints with the dark lines so that we'd be able to line the whole thing up better.

This is my boats drawing, it's the misfit because it's horizontal.

And finally, Carrie's "Things That Are Long" which we also have made into a poster. (I'll post about that later). On a side note, I think we're getting so much better with our photography. With the help of Carrie's mom and dad, we shot these all at their farm. Carrie happened to be wearing the most perfect dress/boots, and the sunlight was beautiful. Nothing like the country in the fall!

Last week, we were featured on Design*Sponge (This is the holy grail of good publicity right to our target market) And we've been crazy-busy shipping, which is a great thing!
Have a great week everyone!

2011 Calendar sneak peek

2010-09-05T08:18:00.004-04:00

Even though it's just the first of September, Carrie and I have been working feverishly on our 2011 Calendars. See, you have to be ahead of the game with the calendars in order to get the publicity you want. Really, if we had wanted to try to get in some magazines, we probably should have designed and printed them in May (and then gone to the National Stationery Show to hawk them).

As it is, we feel extremely productive and ahead of the game this year. Last year's calendar was a labor of love and frustration. We began printing it on Labor Day weekend, and continued printing it until almost November to get just 300 copies done. This was long before Roy and Charlie (our 2,000lb. hot hunks of iron). Now that we have modern (circa 1950) technology on our side, our 4 designs for 2011 only (haha) took about 4 days to print.

Here are the step-outs from the flowers calendar. We are learning from past mistakes when trying to line things up, but these were a challenge!

So this year we couldn't come up with any designs that we thought would be great in a 12 month calendar, and we decided to draw 4 full-page poster style calendars instead. The paper measures 11x14, and this is really the limit for how large we can print on our presses. It's a great size, though, as it's still small enough to hang with just a clip, and it's a readily available frame size.

This is my boats calendar. Jason helped out when I could think of no more boats to draw.

I'm especially pleased with my farm design. That pantone color book we bought was well worth the money. As we say, "It's gonna revolutionize our business".

Due to human error on my part and rushing to get the plates turned into the platemaker, Carrie has one more calendar that is 80% finished.

We're gonna finish it today and then do an official photo shoot. After all that, we hope to put them up in the shop.

All of this not a moment too soon. I have orders from my doctor to take it easy, and standing on concrete to print for hours is not exactly what she had in mind. So I'm taking a big camp chair with a foot rest and Carrie will be doing the heavy lifting. And Jason is going to get training. The doctor says I can be there while the printing is going on, just not actually doing it. This is so sad for me, but it's best for the baby, so I will have to deal with it! Luckily, we have most of what we need for the holiday season all wrapped up.

What we did today

2010-08-28T21:52:00.004-04:00

(photo by my mom)

I'm dead-dog tired today. Carrie and I printed a total of 8 rounds of colors on our press, with washups in between all! We have all but 1 of our 2011 caledars done! Consider this your very sneaky peek. I might be posting the finished versions soon, but we're not quite ready to sell them yet.

We've been super busy with 1canoe2. Carrie's family's corn maze starts in a week, and we're getting (gently) kicked out of our space at the barn while it's going on. This will involve our beloved presses and paper cutter going 1 mile down a dusty gravel road on the front of a tractor. I've asked to not be present, so as not to have a heart attack. Sooo we've been printing like crazy in an effort to be efficient.

We're also working on a website, possible holiday cards, and generally getting our ducks in a row for the holiday season.

Oh yeah, and I'm pregnant. 20 weeks along, and have been super sick, so there's my excuse for not posting all summer. It seems like all I can muster is the energy to draw a teeny bit, ship orders, and keep 1canoe2 going. Not to mention, my blog time is usually early morning, and let's just say those haven't been pretty for several months. Here's hoping for a healthy happy baby on the ultrasound next week. I'm thinking that will be the moment it all sets in. There will be a baby here on or before January 15th! Then I'll get a luxurious 8-12 week vacation. HA!

Anne and Dan's Wedding Invitations!

2010-07-26T07:44:00.004-04:00

Here are some lovely wedding invites that we designed ourselves and printed for the charming Anne and Dan.

We printed these on the 220 lb Crane's Lettra...it's like buttah. They're our favorite invitation job by far.

They had a small breakfast wedding complete with seersucker and coffee cake! How sweet!

Remember that flower from my sketchbook? (It's been so long since I've blogged, you can probably just scroll down, but here's the link just in case)

People, I have so much in the hopper that I can't tell you about just yet. I will say this: I have a HUGE order from a large national retailer that I'm trying to get done, and I also have a licensing deal for some of my artwork. And a bit of personal news as well...but it will all have to wait.

This week is QUILTFEST! I need a jump in the lake like nobody's business. I will definitely be posting about that when I get back. Bear with me!

Canoeing!

2010-07-01T08:11:00.003-04:00

Carrie and I took a couple of days out of the week and went for our first official company-wide float trip! We get asked all the time about our company name, and while I wish there was a more clever story, basically, we just like canoeing a lot, and then we liked how "1canoe2" sounded.

It's been several years since Carrie and were in a canoe together, and it was exactly what the doctor ordered! We camped the night before and were on the water before 9am.

Southern Missouri has some really great floating rivers, but the best in my opinion are in the Ozark Scenic Riverways National Park. We floated the Current, which is completely springfed, meaning that the water is completely clear, even when it's 15 feet deep, fairly fast moving, and COLD. Every time you pass another spring, the water gets cold again.

We floated 10 miles or so, and never saw another boat of people. Heaven! It was one of the nicest days of the summer so far (83 degrees) and so we didn't swim as much as we normally might have. Great weather for camping, but a little chilly for jumping in 60 degree water!

We saw lots of turtles, and 3 cranes.

There are several great floating rivers in Missouri. Unfortunately, a lot of them are full of partying rednecks on the weekends. I think the Current River tries to keep that to a minimum. It also helps that we went on a Tuesday. All in all, it's a relaxing experience. It really felt like a breath of fresh air in the middle of the week!

Ugg. And Ireland

2010-06-19T07:48:00.006-04:00

I've been avoiding logging into blogger because I didn't want to see just how long it had been since I had posted last. I closed my eyes. Life and a 2 week vacation took over, and I'm still recovering!

I do have some decent post material, however, so let the fun begin!

Today: Travel plans.

Jason and I went to London for a few days to visit our dear friends the McCooeys who have moved there for work. They have a lovely apartment in Notting Hill, very near and awesome market and several really great restaurants and pubs. And super close to the Tube station.

We saw a few sights in London like the Tower Bridge and the Crown Jewels, the British Museum and we did lots of market shopping. There are all of these adorable neighborhood markets---HUGE with lot of food stands, etc.

We went to Brick Lane which was pretty exotic, and of course Portobello road, which is just around the corner from where we were staying.

There are a few letterpress stands at this market, but the day I went, the wooden type guy wasn't there. I did buy a couple of things from this guy, but they're reproductions, and they're not even type-high, so I can't print them. He said I could buy a stamp pad, but I was like "Dude. I'm way beyond the stamp pad."

We ate some truly delicious food in London. This is from Wahaca. (Oaxaca???) Such flavor!

After stopping in London for a few days to see our old Nashville friends, Jason and I joined my whole family--mom, dad, sisters, brother-in-law, and boyfriend (my youngest sister's) in Ireland for a week and some change.

We traveled down the Southwest coast and stayed in a lovely little town called Kenmare. We rented a cottage for a week and then struck out each day in search of castles, chowder and Irish beaches.
Our Cottage:

Pretty much everywhere you turned it looked like the set of Lord of the Rings.

The driving was absolutely horrific. Luckily my sister and my mom drove our rental cars. I would have taken a photo, but I was too busy saying my last words to everyone else in the car. The roads are more curvy, hilly, and NARROW than you can imagine, you drive on the left side of the road, oh, and then some giant tour bus comes along and blows you off into the hedge that serves as a shoulder there. Not a great time. I'm so glad we had cars, because we did whatever we wanted, and really saw the countryside. I'm also glad I wasn't driving.

We spent the last few days in Dublin. I was exhausted by this time and didn't take many photos.
The last night we were there we went to a pub with Irish Set dancing. Conveniently, it requires sets of 8 people, which we had. It's something like square dancing, where they call out orders and you dance them. Very fun.

Now I'm exhausted from writing all of this. I have much more in the hopper. I hope I can get back here to write it soon!

I'm spoiled

2010-05-13T20:39:00.003-04:00

So I know that there are real, serious problems out there in the world. Forgive me for being obsessive about my kitchen.

Original as seen in this blog post:

After I painted 3 different shades of green, I still don't like it.

I think the real problem is the cabinets/countertops/old appliances. I am wavering about doing anything because really, if I paint, I want to get new countertops, and if I get new countertops, we'll need new appliances, and if we're getting that deep, I really want to knock out both walls and put in a kitchen island. I think I'm going to settle for painting and possibly new countertops (which does definitetly mean a new sink. The old owner was a smoker and used to put her ashes out in sink, and it was acrylic, so you get the picture.)

Here's the deal: I don't really want to paint the cabinets, but I don't know how much good I can do if I don't paint them.

Old cabinets: Painted cabinets:

Old cabinets: Painted cabinet

The orange is the only one that I think might work with the existing cabinet color.

Old cabinets: Painted cabinets::

This is supposed to be more of a steel gray/blue color.

Any ideas? Anyone ever painted their cabinets?
Help me!!

New project

2010-05-09T09:14:00.001-04:00

I'm trying out the bloggong feature on my new smartphone...its smarter than me.

Carrie and I printed a new project yesterday. Sticker labels for all your organizational needs.

Nashville is Hurting

2010-05-06T07:09:00.002-04:00

Last weekend Nashville, Tennessee experienced possibly the worst natural disaster it's ever seen. My second hometown is sadly wrecked. 13+inches of rain in a 2 day period washed out roads, hundreds if not thousands of cars, friends of mine lost all they had or at least their basement. Many many people were stranded in their cars, homes, neighborhoods and away from their loved ones for days.

To see some photos of the devastation, this is the best website I've seen for photos that tell the story. What's not being said is that most people and businesses didn't have flood insurance. Because the word "flood" has never crossed their mind. It's just mind-blowing.

I've been putting off this post because I don't know if I can really do the subject justice. Suffice to say that Nashville is in need of serious help. Here are a couple of things you can do.

Donate to Hands On Nashville. This is a FABULOUS organization that gets a lot of people volunteering efficiently and fast. They get it done.

Text the number 90999 to Donate $10 to the Red Cross (or click here)

Buy some jewelry! Freshie & Zero's in-stock shop is offering to donate 50% of all May Etsy sales to the recovery effort.

Say some prayers for all the poor and the lower income children of Nashville. My old neighborhood was hit hard, and while a lot of the coverage has been about suburban houses underwater, the poor and indigent will need so much more help. It's one thing to lose your possessions when you have a job and friends with money and insurance. It's another when you make minimum wage and no longer have a car because it was flooded out in your parking lot.

Beth, why are taking photos of your bread? Part 2

2010-05-01T11:22:00.003-04:00

Further explorations of my new breadmaking book: English muffins.

They were simply amazing. Not a time saver by any means, but a good Saturday morning treat. I caved and bought myself some crumpet rings to cook them in, and it was a great investment! Now if I just had a griddle and could cook more than 3 at a time!

Here's the recipe, from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Everyday (click here to go to the amazon page)

The best English muffins you've never had:

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 Tbsp shortening or butter (at room temperature)
3/4 – 1 cup milk (at room temperature)
cornmeal for sprinkling

1. in a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast. mix in the shortening and 3/4 cup of the milk. add the remaining milk if the dough is too dry.

2. transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes. place in a lightly oiled bowl and roll to coat. cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour. divide the dough into 6 equal pieces and shape into balls. lay parchment paper on a baking sheet and spray or lightly coat with oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. move the dough balls to the baking sheet evenly spaced apart (giving them room to rise more). cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and allow them to rise for another hour.

3. heat the oven to 350 F and heat up a skillet on medium heat on the stovetop. brush the skillet with oil and gently transfer the dough balls to the skillet a few at a time. allow them to cook on the skillet for 5-8 minutes, until the bottoms are nicely browned. carefully flip and cook the other side for about 5-8 minutes more. they should flatten as they cook.

4. when the muffins look as if they are about to burn, remove them from the skillet with a spatula and transfer quickly to a baking sheet. bake at 350 for 5-8 minutes. do not wait until all of the muffins have been cooked on the skillet before moving them to the oven – as the first batch is baking, move the second batch of muffins to the skillet.

5. transfer the baked muffins to a cooling rack and let cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing or serving. serve with lots of butter and jelly. store them as you would muffins you buy in the store – in a sealed ziploc bag in the fridge or freezer.

Beth, why are you taking pictures of your bread?

2010-04-28T08:26:00.002-04:00

I have a goal of baking my way through the Artisan Breads Everyday book that my cousin gave me. This is the classic French bread. I may or may not have a sourdough starter on my kitchen counter. I say "may not" because I'm not sure if it's looking like it should. After a week of work on it, I'm a little worried.

This French loaf was super easy, though. Jason and I have been taking a hunk of bread, cheese, lunch meat and fruits & veggies for lunch this week and feeling very European. The best thing is that I made the dough on Sunday, and baked half then, and baked the other half last night. This way, we have fresh bread on multiple nights. And I dare say, I think the Tuesday night loaf turned out better. More time to rise in the fridge, I guess?

Up next in the bread baking extravaganza: English muffins. I'm just waiting on my little metal rings to come from Amazon!

New Prints up in the shop!

2010-04-25T16:00:00.003-04:00

After several weekends of printing custom print jobs--wedding invites, cards, etc., we had a free weekend to catch up on some of our own neglected prints.

We printed 4 of my states series.

We're starting to phase in the states printed on the big press, as opposed to the ones printed on my small letterpress. The impression and overall print quality is far superior!

I've still got the drawings done for several of these that I haven't printed yet.

Look at that impresion! And our color choices have gotten SO much better after we bought the Pantone color book. Even when our recipe isn't quite right, it's so much closer than we used to be able to get it. Transparent white is the secret! I'd really like to try layering some colors that use a lot of transparent in the future--like maybe a cool plaid or something?

New letterpress business cards and wedding invitation

2010-04-21T08:54:00.003-04:00

No time to write. I'll just post a couple of our latest projects.

Coasters are here! Letterpress Coasters and Coaster Posters!

2010-04-11T22:03:00.004-04:00

After a mild delay last week to pick up our new press, we finished printing our letterpressed coaster series this week!

"Things that are Round" and are fun to draw, too!

We also printed a logo and title on some little cotton bags that will come with the set of 9 coasters. It's all about the packaging!

**Click HERE to buy the poster ( a limited edition of 38--get 'em while you can!)

**Click HERE to buy the coaster set. (Limited edition of 200 sets)

We've gained some weight

2010-04-02T23:20:00.004-04:00

This could also be called: "We Bought a Guillotine Paper Cutter and Got a Free Letterpress" I'm so freaking exhausted from my day, but I wanted to share a timeline of events with you.

Last Friday: insomnia led me to a Craigslist ad at 4am that resulted in me calling this guy 3 hours from here.

Monday: Carrie's dad gives the go-ahead to get a new press and a paper cutter. He says he will help us. He will regret this.

Today:
7am: meet at the barn to throw all imaginable tools into the truck.

8am: Take off in the HUGE 26' dock-height truck for Southern Missouri

11am: drive up to a very ramshackle building with this terrifying dock. Yikes.

11:05: realize that the forklift doesn't work, the pallet jack doesn't reach high enough to lift the press, and there is a 6 inch tall, jagged edged step which we must get the press up.

12:00: Seriously rethink getting the press. Maybe we just get the paper cutter

12:15: Carrie's dad finds a 1/4 inch steel punch, chips away at a concrete crack, and threads the punch through part of our paper cutter in order to jack the press. Look at all thos printing blocks!

12:15-2:00: Alternate wedging old print blocks and the ill-fitting pallet jack in order to get the press up the step.

(There aren't many photos here because I was busy biting my nails.)

2:00: Carrie and I stand on the paper cutter for more leverage to pull the press up the ramp.

2:30, move the paper cutter into the truck

2:35: move the press onto the lift gate, which promptly sinks 6 inches. Carrie's dad says "Crud" and we all nearly had a heart attack. The owner said "Well, that would be a bummer". The motor held, though, and we put it up in the truck, strap everything down and blow that poop-filled chicken coop. You think I'm kidding.

6:00: get caught in traffic because of rain

7: Arrive at the barn finally, Carrie's mom brings us fresh iced tea, and Carrie's brother comes up to help us out.

7-8:00: Unloading, anxiety over height of truck to door, width of new pallet jack, and much pushing.

8:15, move everything into place. Go home. Collapse. Write blog before I forget everything.

I don't want to ever move ever again. The funny thing is, Carrie's dad says that it really wasn't that different than any other day on the farm. Well, I'm sure glad that's not my job. I would need to be on blood pressure meds!

The new press needs some work, but the paper cutter should work right away. I guess now we have a backup! We'll have to pour a little money in to the new press, and the previous owner hadn't used it in 10-15 years, but never cleaned up the ink, so it has melted one of the rollers and dripped absolutely everywhere.

It's Spring!

2010-04-01T20:36:00.006-04:00

I'm so HAPPY that Spring is finally here. For me, there are only 2 seasons: cold and Summer. Spring is just early Summer, and Autumn is just late Summer. I'm already thinking of all the warm weather things to do. Is it too early for watermelon? Margaritas? Flip flops? I think not.

I have a flowering shrub of unknown origin by my driveway. Anyone know what it is? The blooms are sort of magnolia like, but there are no waxy leaves or cones.

This week has been unseasonably warm. I've done so many "firsts of the season"
1) Turned on my car air conditioner
2) Slept with the windows open
3) Worn flip flops
4) Eaten our meals outside
5) Fired up the grill
6) Drank a Corona on the wide steps of my deck

We're off for the day on an exciting adventure which I'll post about later. Here's a hint: One has moving parts, and the other is very sharp, and they're both very heavy.

Happy Friday!

Hello, Baby Girl!

2010-03-30T06:36:00.000-04:00

Our first birth announcement is for Carrie's new niece. Carrie drew out the flower design and the writing and with the help of our new Pantone color formula book, we mixed the ink and printed them on Saturday.

I gotta say, this Crane's Lettra is pretty much a dream. We like to print on French paper a lot, but the Lettra just gets such a beautiful impression.

I just kept thinking that they were so pretty! We hardly ever do such girlie and delicate work. I'm pretty sure we've never printed anything pink. Pretty exciting!
The photos will be attached by Carrie's sister-in-law, so I didn't have a perfect photo.

A new project!

2010-03-28T09:02:00.005-04:00

We spent a record 11 hours in the barn printing yesterday. We printed some birth announcements for Carrie's niece, which I'll post here later in the week, and we started printing our new "Things That Are Round" series on coasters AND 16x20 posters.

We were pretty excited to print in some colors that we haven't tried out before. Pretty much every color in the rainbow, actually.

And, we bought some silver metallic ink for the tin can image. Super exciting!
Anyone have any suggestions about what else we could use silver for?

Here's Carrie's cousin, Ian being our wheel turner for the posters. We hand fed 42 of them, so it will be a VERY limited edition.

We still have 3 more of the 9 designs to print, which we will probably do next Friday, so you'll have to wait a week or so for the full reveal.

what we're printing this weekend

2010-03-26T06:37:00.004-04:00

I usually try to keep our printing projects in the closet until they're ready for the shop. And indeed, we're printing a new project this weekend that is pretty bad@$$, that I'm probably not going to show you until it's done.

BUT we're also printing some birth announcements and business cards that I don't have any problem showing you.

Exhibit A: This is Carrie's design for her new niece. The big block in the middle is for a photo.

Exhibit B: business cards for this great Columbia, Missouri photographer.
We're excited to try out the blind embossing

And we have more printing than we have time for coming up on Saturday! I'll post some photos when these are all printed!

The thought process of a doodler

2010-03-25T07:42:00.004-04:00

I'm working on several wedding invitation designs at the moment. The last couple of days have been so beautiful that I've gone to the park on my lunch break with my sketchbook and nothing short of 6 different black ink pens to doodle some flower designs.

Here's the progression of drawings. I FINALLY got it drilled into my head: "pencil first. then ink" by my smart husband. Things do turn out so much better that way.

I forced myself to try to squeeze whatever I was drawing into a square, then erased the lines after it was done. This is what I learned from quilter Jane Sassaman. She taught me how to draw!

The moral: 2 hours of drawing, and a few that are okay. I really like one of them for the invites I'm working on right now. It's going to be a graphic element at the top of the invitation.

Press, Twitter and Gals about Town

2010-03-24T08:15:00.005-04:00

We're on Apartment Therapy! Sweet Kimber from the DC staff wrote a great little piece about us. Check it out here.

And we're reluctantly joining Twitter. I would complain more, but we've already got some custom orders out of it, and Julia Rothman follows us. She is pretty much my illustration idol.
Follow us here. I can't promise lots of tweets, but it's pretty fun, actually. I've certainly seen some great links from other people, and it's nice to be able to chat back and forth with people I have so much in common with. And okay, so I might follow @johncmayer. Sue me.

Here's the link for our Twitter feed.

Finally, we're gals about town...or world. Universe is next! Here are all of the brick-and-mortar stores where you can find 1canoe2 goodness!
--Little Otsu, San Francisco
--Greenwich Letterpress, New York City
--Ephemera, Des Moines
--Paper Love, Brooklyn
--Cube Marketplace, Los Angeles
--Papel Paper & Press, California

and we're working on more! I have an order from a store in England right now, and inquiries from all over--Germany, Texas and beyond!

Pros and Cons of Running a Letterpress in a Barn

2010-03-14T22:21:00.006-04:00

First of all, there are mostly pros.
Second: this is our motor. It's older than anyone at the barn has ever seen. And that's pretty old, because farmers are expert mechanics. Especially these guys.

So a couple of weeks ago, Carrie and I walk in to find our extension cord missing. This is not unusual because, as my co-worker says, extension cords are like socks for a farmer.

What was out of the ordinary is the length the robber went to to get to our brand-new extension cord. See, our motor, being ancient, had a plug that was hanging on by a thread. Eventually, Carrie and I had to duct tape it, vice grip it, and then duck tape again to the the connection to stay in place. The actual prong was in the extension cord and not attached to the cord from the motor.

Needless to say, we were none too happy. There are about 7-8 guys who work out of the barn, and I have one prime suspect. The rest of them have been questioned and have been relatively believable when declaring their innocence.

But for the most part, they're super helpful. Especially Carrie's dad and Chris, the fix-it guy. Last weekend, Carrie's dad helped us find all the (37+) oil points and get it all greased up. "Girls, this is how you take care of a machine like this. You don't want metal touching metal because it will wear it out. It takes 2 hours to oil up a combine every morning, but you gotta do it."

Here's a link to the Chandler & Price Oil chart.

Well, turns out we greased it so well that even on it's slowest speed, it was cranking too fast for us to print!! And here we thought we had really gotten good at printing pretty fast. So then the guys took the motor partially apart, and now the whole thing runs backwards! Apparently, that's okay, but it seems pretty weird to me.

I guess if/when it does go out, we'll be in good hands to get it fixed. Let's just hope it doesn't happen during planting or harvest.

More Etsy Happiness

2010-03-11T06:41:00.000-05:00

For a Thursday morning:

I'm super proud of this treasury! doesn't it just make you happy?

New Wedding Invitations!

2010-03-10T07:25:00.003-05:00

Last weekend Carrie and I printed another set of wedding invitations! I think we're working our way up to doing our own design, but this time the bride, Jill, did the illustrations.

Aren't they great? And she did the lettering too. Black prints so beautifully. It's the best behaving ink by far. Nothing like the original, I guess.

We printed them on more of the Cranes Lettra 220 lb paper, which takes an impression like a...like a...memory foam mattress? Like mud? No, not quite. Anyway.

Chad and Jill were thrilled! They actually came to the barn to see us print, so that was fun. We could ask them if such-and-such was okay, and then adjust accordingly.

I'm not sure what we're going to print this weekend, but I'm thinking it will be the Home Sweet Home print, because we're selling them like hotcakes!

School turned into a Loft! (Fulton, Missouri)

2010-03-07T08:28:00.009-05:00

Just for all of you out there who thought Fulton, Missouri was not a cool place to live:

Exhibit A: an old school turned into apartments. Very cool apartments.

Our friends Justin and Cori moved into the coolest apartment in town. I had to take a moment to still my beating heart when I saw both of these apartments. And with rent around $500, it's just pretty disgusting all around, don't you think?

First, Justin's original apartment on the 2nd floor:

It was an old classroom, and still had the blackboard, and also a dry erase board, which I doubt was original.

I love that light fixture. Those are so popular and in style now, but this place is just rockin' it old-school.

Now for the new, huge apartment. It used to be the auditorium. Yes, really. Now the bedroom is up on the stage. That's all I'm gonna say about that.

The natural light in this place alone is just breathtaking. Yeah, so the view might be of the back of an Autozone and Movie Gallery, but still.

Again with the light fixtures, and look at that bar! It came out of a saloon in Kansas. For real.
I asked the owner of the building, Mr. Lee, and he said that his contractor found it.

Oh, to have such natural light! Jealous doesn't even cut it really. On the way home I was having serious "we could sell our house" thoughts. Why did we buy when we could have rented such greatness?

Again with the light fixtures, and check out the built-ins put in by the owner.

The apartment also comes with Mr. Lee's adorable pajama-clad children.

And the tile work!
Oh, the opportunity for greatness that lies in this place.

In honor of the Barenaked Ladies:
If I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars)
I'd buy this old cool school (and all the windows that go with it)
If I had a million dollars (if I had a million dollars)
I'd have this natural light (no more 8ft dark room ceilings)

My Etsy Favorites for a Saturday morning

2010-03-06T08:13:00.003-05:00

You all know the best way to find the good stuff on Etsy? Find a seller whose work you like, then go look at their favorites. They've already done all the work for you by curating! Then you can hop from seller to seller via favorites. I've found my favorite shops this way!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade
1canoe2.etsy.com

Letterpress Neighborhood: the Process

2010-03-04T08:38:00.005-05:00

It took us 2 months from concept to packaging to make our Chandler Lane Letterpress Neighborhood. It all started over a sandwich at Uprise Bakery in Columbia. (serious yum).

We started sketching ideas, then having meetings to practice folding and trying things out.

There were so many decisions to make along the way: paper, size, would they fit in our mailers? How many houses? Really the easiest part was the drawing. Carrie and I split up the drawing--she did the background, I did the foreground, and we each did a house and she did the trees.

This is my first drawing for the cape cod house. After I had all of this done---I decided it was too much detail and that I needed to redraw it. Because these were so tiny, we were worried about the tiny details showing up.

We also decided to move away from solid areas of color like you see above here. We wanted a lot of white, so that it really resonated with letterpress lovers, since so much of that is about lines and crisp white paper.

Here's one of our testers: Caroline.

One of many non-registered houses. We used these for test-folding. Overall, we are pretty excited about how well we can register things now. About 375 of 400 prints are perfect.

After we were done with all the sketching, planning, digitizing, printing and testing, we had to make a package. It now looks like a real "thing"! Our moms both came to the barn to help us package. Gotta love free laborers!

Now we're in the marketing phase, which is probably the least exciting, but oh-so necessary part of the job. We got on Scoutie Girl today! And I could have gotten us on Design*Sponge, (she said she really liked them!) but I jumped the gun and submitted it to other blogs at the same time. Even though we hadn't actually GOTTEN on those other blogs, they didn't want to risk not having the exclusive scoop on our project. I have mixed feelings about that. I understand her wanting to be original, but it's hard not to try to market to as many (quality) blogs as possible.

NEW! Launch of our newest kit

2010-02-28T11:46:00.003-05:00

For the last 2 months, Carrie and I have been working on a monumental project. Actually, it's a teeny tiny project in size, but was a mammoth undertaking.

It's a origami house set. It's a paperkraft letterpress diorama small town you build it kit. We need to work on our "Elevator Pitch". It's a kit that comes with 2 sheets--one for the background and one with lots of things to cut out and assemble. Specifically, 3 houses, 7 trees, and 2 background corners to make it stable.

There's so much work that has gone into this that it's hard to know where to start. I hope to post up some process notes here later in the week. Let's just summarize by saying it started with a business meeting on a frosty afternoon, included several drawing/cutting/folding sessions. Then came a weekend marathon of printing 4 colors on each of the 2 sheets.

Here's the background. We drew this first, and printed it first, before we were totally skilled at the registration process on our press.

Here's a house from Carrie's neighborhood. It's from the cut-apart sheet, and as you can see, the registration is pretty flippin' awesome.

Looks good on a mantel, right? You can get yours right here!

And this is only the beginning. We've already been plotting/planning for the next kit. All I can say is "mooooooooo".

Fancy-pants letterpress wedding invitations

2010-02-25T08:36:00.002-05:00

Carrie and I got a call from Ginger at Serendipity-Beyond Design 2 weeks ago. She was desperate for someone to letterpress print these tres-elegant invitations she had designed. So we obliged, we ordered the most expensive 50 sheets of paper known to man and proceeded to print.

That Lettra paper by Crane is simply amazing. I ordered the 220lb, which surprised me by being almost as thick as matboard. It's sturdy. When it was on the press, it took them most amazing level of impression. Carrie and I were just blown away, and the client is super happy as well.

As we were printing these, a couple of Carrie's friends came out to the barn to talk about printing their invites in exchange for some web design help. This is a great deal for all parties involved, and we'll be working on a new 1canoe2 website very soon! (The current one just forwards to our etsy shop).

A new letterpress project...and a guy at the press!

2010-02-15T07:41:00.006-05:00

Saturday and today Carrie and I have been up at the barn printing. We have a super fun and super challenging new project in the works. Like a project so big that it has taken up most of the time that I could have spent blogging. Yeah, that's it. I haven't been blogging cause I've been scheming. And baking these delicious strawberry cupcakes. And working overtime at my real job, and etc. etc. etc.

This mystery project involves 8 print runs of 400 prints. It's huge, but not as huge as the 26 runs it took us to do the calendar. (Which we only have 3 out of 300 left of! Amazing that we've come so very close to selling out!!) Carrie and I split up the drawing responsibilities, and there was a fair amount of logic involved, so 2 heads were better than one.

You may not be able to tell from these photos, but it's the beginning of something pretty big and awesome. It's going to be an interactive kit! People will buy them, and the put them together.

Heres the background of the kit, before we put the brown ink on there. We hope to finish printing these today, but it will still be a week or two before they're in the shop because we have to do some other stuff like figure out packaging, photograph them well, and write the assembly instructions.

Carrie's brother Dustin is in school right now for Graphic Design, and he wants to learn the press, so he came over and printed some thank you cards for his work. I'm excited about having someone else know how to run the press, but Carrie and I were overly anxious that he was going to get his hand smashed!

I'm off to the barn now. I'll post some more photos of progress. If you're lucky.

Winter on the Prairie

2010-02-13T21:30:00.005-05:00

Carrie and I met at the barn thinking we would print our newest top secret project on this frosty winter morning. She came in and said "I'm going out to take pictures. Be right back."

Well, I couldn't be left behind, so we struck out in her Jeep on the dirt roads around the farm. It had been a foggy, but freezing cold, morning, so the fog had frozen on any solid surface. Beautiful! None of these photos was even photoshopped (okay, I sharpened a little. My camera is full of dust from harvest, and doesn't take the most sharp photos. Need to get it cleaned.)

A little Philanthropic project

2010-02-08T06:35:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the hilarious and lovely Julie from Dinner with Julie.
She is an amazing woman with an equally awesome food blog. And she decided to take on a monster project: a cookbook to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti.

What this has to do with me is this: I designed the cover! Julie found my recipe card box on Etsy and sent me a convo about using the image. With a little tweaking, and a little calligraphy, and a few different versions, the cover was done, and the real work of finding recipes and designing the cover was in the hands of the lovely Julie and Cathryn.

I really did very little work in the grand scheme of things, but it was great to do what I could.

You can buy the book in hardcover or softcover format by clicking on this link.

Thanks to Julie for seeking me out! They've already sold more than 1000 copies, and raised over $20,000 for Haiti!

Letterpressing Fabric

2010-02-01T07:41:00.004-05:00

Carrie's mom wanted us to try printing some fabric for future tea towels. She brought several samples of different fabrics up to the barn where we were printing.

And then she took them home and ran some scientific experiments on them.

These were all printed with our standard rubber based ink. And of course, we didn't have the motor going, we just hand cranked it. Still faster than inking by hand and printing!

The result: a lovely weathered look. I think the one with the iron first looks the brightest, but it all looks pretty cool! I think the best fabric was old tea towels and old sheets. We also tried corderoy and something else.

Now we'll have to think of a cool use for this fabric. Tea towels would be fun...anything else?

Thanks to Carrie's mom, Neda, for facilitating our experiment.

Jason's letterpress work

2010-01-21T07:31:00.004-05:00

I'm always trying to talk Jason into drawing some things for me to letterpress. I stole this drawing off his stack of papers and made a plate out of it.

Pretty cool, right? Again, not exactly my look, but that's what's cool about it.
I asked him if he wanted to sell them in our Etsy shop...he says "Yes. For one dollar." So I might just do that--list it in the shop for $1. And ship it in a standard envelope for 43 cents or whatever a stamp costs these days.

Now, everyone leave a nice comment so I can motivate him to draw more.

the Beth and Jason Co-Lab

2010-01-20T07:07:00.000-05:00

This is the second edition of the Beth/Jason collaborative painting series (see the first episode here).

To say we have two totally different artistic styles is an understatement. Jason= zombies, bloody beasts, ninjas, etc. Beth = flowers, leaves, Tuscan scenes

But we have one thing going for us in that he likes to draw, and I like to paint.

This is Jason's drawing, on super heavy watercolor paper. Notice the mushrooms. That would be a detail I probably wouldn't have thought of.

Here is my first layer of paint. It was like coloring in a coloring book! This is the best part as far as I'm concerned.

After I was done painting, Jason went back with some pens and watercolor pencils and added details.

Ta-Da! This was Jason's mom's Christmas present. Last year, Jason painted her a robot with a machine gun (link here), so I'm thinking she might like this better. Although, she did laugh when she first saw this, so I'm hoping that's a good thing. . . ?

New Fabric up in the shop!

2010-01-14T08:33:00.004-05:00

I've put up the newest fabric in the 1canoe2 shop!

We have Scissors.

We have Hexes. Wouldn't this be cool to quilt around the shapes? Maybe in a pillow or something?

We have Kitchen fabric. This pattern is pretty big, so we're selling it in 1/2 yard sizes.

All of these fabrics are 100% high quality cotton, and are washable in warm water. It's just like REAL quilting fabric! It IS real quilting fabric!

Please let us know if you would like a different size than what is listed. We'd be happy to cut a different size and set up a custom listing.

Watch this! Or: it's about the simple things

2010-01-11T07:46:00.003-05:00

Jason gave me a really great watch for Christmas. It's not this one. I took the one he gave me back (feeling bad, but I'm just really picky about watches) I got another watch--the only one I liked in all of Macy's, which I also took back because it wasn't just right either.

I ended up with this beyond simple Timex. It cost $150 less than my original watch. I have a terrible fear of things being out of style. I just wanted the most simple, as timeless as possible time piece. I just love the straightforward feel of it. It's no frills.

Random cooking from 2009

2010-01-08T06:36:00.005-05:00

Over the New Year's weekend, Jason and I got some weird hunch to cook all kinds of random food we wouldn't otherwise undertake. I think we were getting a mild case of cabin fever!

Here is Jason making his first batch of cookies ever. (Monster cookies. The batch of dough was so huge that we didn't have a big enough bowl.) What? That's right. He didn't even know about the creaming the sugars and butter concept. This may not seem terribly strange, but for a guy who likes cookies as much as Jason, you would think he would have tried this out before. And check out his house slippers! And that manly stance. I think he was trying to tell the universe that he's still a man, cookie making or not.

I tried my hand at homemade donuts. Not worth the effort. First, a huge vat of oil is a giant mess. Second, after you eat 2 donuts, you're done, and then we had 20 left! The don't exactly keep very well.

I seriously burned the first 3. I like that you can see the progression.

The donut holes in cinnamon sugar were pretty good. That might have been better than the whole donut. Jason enjoyed them! After the donut session was done, the next day I used the oil to make fried cheddar bites. Also a rounding failure. I think my deep-frying days are through. Wait. I still want to try to make a funnel cake.

Here are some random photos from our holiday celebration. Food is so much more fun to photograph than people or presents, right? My cousins Erin and Paul made the delicious desserts for our "shooters" style holiday feast. Everything came in bite sized amounts! Buffalo dip, seven layer dip, meatballs, all in tiny shot glasses!

Actual STITCHING!

2010-01-05T08:02:00.002-05:00

I took advantage of the long holiday weekend to do some long-awaited sewing. I know. There was a time this fall when I thought I would never turn on my sewing machine ever again.

I've been meaning to so something with my very own fabric!
And I thought this was the perfect opportunity. Originally, I was just going to make a zippered pouch, but of course I got carried away. I still want to make a zippered pouch, but maybe I'll use my garden fabric.

I'm still trying to figure out how to sell these pieces of fabric. They're so expensive for me to purchase! I have a few pieces in my shop, and need to take photos of some of the others.

And I have plans to make so much more fabric! It's just a matter of having the time. It's always about having more time. Doesn't help that I most cooked random food and watched movies for the 4 day weekend I just had. Hey. Sometimes you just need to veg.

I have so many unfinished sewing projects hanging over my head! A states quilt which I did work on, and a round robin mystery quilt for quilt fest, and 2 unfinished quilts that are even sandwiched together and need quilting. I just don't have the time. Maybe the craft fairy might help me out. Hmmm.

The last good picture of last year.

2010-01-01T08:20:00.003-05:00

If I wasn't such a baby, I would have stood out here all night and driven all over farm country to get a better photo. But it was windchill of -5. Probably. And it was too dark for my camera to focus.

I did have the advantage of my giant trash-bucket car, though, because I actually had my tripod in the back seat.

Just because I'm me, I'll feel better if I admit what's wrong with this shot. Here are the things that make this unviable as a cover photo:
1) ISO way too high=grainy
2) there was probably a better vantage point somewhere, but I almost got my 2 wheel drive car stuck getting to this point, so I wasn't feeling brave
3) It's a little soft on the focus

There. I just needed to say those things. I was thinking that it would be great cover potential, but alas, I was too cold and hungry to stick it out.

Happy Twenty-Ten to you all!

2009-12-31T08:01:00.004-05:00

I'm going with Twenty-Ten this year instead of two thousand ten. It just rolls off the tongue better.

We've had a ton of snow here in Mid-Missouri. Not keep you inside for days type snow, just a steady 2 inches or so at a time. Yesterday Walter and I went out and played in the morning for a little while.

Carrie and I are spending the day doing 1canoe2 business. Now that the holiday shipping rush is done, we need to come up with another brilliant idea!

Have a great long weekend!

'Twas a very Etsy Christmas

2009-12-30T06:43:00.008-05:00

This Christmas, I was sort of stern with my family about my gifts. (I just accidentally typed "fits" maybe that says something? Nope, can't be that.) Anyway, I requested repeatedly that they purchase things for me off my Etsy favorites list. Mostly because the things I truly want that I won't buy for myself come from there. And they really came through!

First, here are a couple of things I bought for my sisters:

Two clutches from LittleEllie. Adorable! And so super well made. I never could have sewn them such lovely things myself. At least not without hours of ripping out seams.

And now for my loot!

This Regency screenprint from Alphabets (Thanks, Allison!)

This butterdish from CreativewithClay (Thanks, Al!)

This purse from asaborake (Thanks, Mom!)

These earrings from schlomitofir. Thanks mom!

These letterpress coasters from 12fifteen and also
these earrings from BenandOliver. (Thanks Larny!)

It was so lovely to get handmade gifts for Christmas. Having my own shop makes me realize how much work goes into each item. Even if it's just the shipping and packing, I know some little one-woman-outfit somewhere packed up this little gift which my family thought I would love. It's a win-win situation.

Christmas: Given and Received

2009-12-28T18:26:00.005-05:00

Jason and I played nicely together on this painting of the house I grew up in. Even though we're both artists, we've never collaborated before. It was really fun! Jason did the original drawing, I watercolored it, and then he went back and did the fine ink lines. We gave it to my mom and dad for Christmas.

Then my mom returned the favor and painted a picture of Walter! She got a ton of art supplies for Christmas this year, and that worked out well for us!

Mom, you can't tell me that you're not warming up to this little guy just a little. Come on, you know you love him. I know that he does love his Mee-maw! Hahahahaha!

Fun from Renegade

2009-12-21T22:01:00.001-05:00

Just to show you that Renegade wasn't all work and no play:

And now to show you that we--I mean I have no shame or sense of pride:

This photo booth was so awesome! It's the one thing I really wished I had at my wedding. If I had an extra $1000 in my budget, which I didn't. I don't know how much this one cost, but they brought props, and you can really get some good laughs here on the page from the show.

More press!

2009-12-19T08:05:00.003-05:00

photo by ESTEN HURTLE

The University of Missouri has a world-class journalism program. It happens to be my alma mater, and even though I've been working in journalism (first tv, now magazine) since I was 18, I graduated with a BFA in graphic design. (and I'm so glad I did!)

A few weeks ago, right before we went to Chicago for Renegade, Carrie and I were interviewed and photographed by some students who work for the student run paper. It's not the student paper, but a real, grown-up, community oriented weekly paper. It used to be a daily until budget cuts, but alas, that's another story.

Here's a link to the final product

So the barn was really dark, I had spent 4 hours in below-freezing windy weather in a corn field that day, but the photos turned out great! And Christina did a wonderful job with the writing. The editor, Lauren is a tiny bit obsessed with letterpress :), and the photographer, Esten performed photographic miracles in terrible lighting conditions!

Just a few things

2009-12-17T06:17:00.003-05:00

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade
1canoe2.etsy.com

These here are a selection from my Etsy favorites. Hopefully I made enough of an ass of myself to my family this year that they got the hint and bought somethings off here.

A few of the items, like that yellow necklace from SofiaMasri, are from people I met at Renegade in Chicago. A few I've found browsing around Etsy.

I'm hooked on using Etsy's favorites and browsing my favorite shop's favorites too because it's yet another way to narrow in on the cool stuff and bypass everything else on there. Etsy is getting more and more popular, and therefore more crowded. I'm pretty sure if we had started our 1canoe2 shop back 4 years ago we would have blasted off. As it is, we're doing great! Almost 600 sales, and I'm not complaining at all! But I've had to work my butt off marketing, instead of it all coming to me. Just an observation. It's working for us either way.

This holiday season has been jam packed for me. Jason and I did stop to make several batches of cookies last weekend and put up the tree. I'm so thankful for a business that doesn't require me to be producing things right up to the last minute. All my prints are finished, signed, and in the "warehouse" ready to be shipped. I've been coming home and eating dinner and sitting on the couch with my 2 favorite guys for the last 2 weeks. I've even done a load or two of laundry and wrapped some presents. It's been great.

Enjoy the rest of the season! It only comes once a year!

Renegade Chicago, our Letterpressed goods booth

2009-12-08T20:00:00.005-05:00

It was a wonderful weekend. We met so many awesome people!
And I think our booth looks pretty darn good, too.

Well, we survived. And we succeeded. Thank you to everyone who came out and said "hello"!

Some of our neighbors: OrangyPorangy and Souldier

Tart Heart and Elisa Schere

It was a wonderful time. On our way out on Monday, we woke up to an inch of beautiful snow.

Scenes from days just before a show

2009-12-03T09:02:00.002-05:00

No time to write! Must sign, cut, stack, assemble, tie, box, and oh, yeah, ship out holiday orders!

Life is good, if busy. Thank you to all of my sweet friends and family who have sent me messages and phone calls with encouragement! I'm sorry I haven't returned all those messages, but I promise I will after this weekend.

Please come see us this weekend! Renegade Chicago is going to rock your holiday socks off. There'll be great vendors there to buy gifts for everyone on your list, and probably a few for yourself as well. Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 7pm, Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, Chicago, IL. RENEGADE HANDMADE!

Printing all day everyday

2009-11-30T07:23:00.007-05:00

Will you please look at that impression? Amazing!

This is a sneak preview of a brand new item! It's not quite done, so it's not up in the shop yet, but I'm super excited. I should be getting the tab cards in today, and will print letter dividers on them and get them ready for RENEGADE CHICAGO this weekend!

I've once again enlisted my dad to make me some boxes. And these are in oak! So very pretty. I think I'll have about 10 of them for sale in Chicago this weekend, and will take orders for more on my etsy shop. I'm cutting it close!

We tried out all kinds of things on our new press this weekend--this was a vintage Santa and reindeer cut from Jerry at SOS Linotype in Nashville. It printed so beautifully on the C&P press!

This is very exciting: Carrie's Chicago print. It's 5x7, and in 2 colors! We hope to post it on Etsy this week.

And here is Carrie's mom, Neda assembling calendars for us at the barn while we printed. I think we're finally done with the darn calendar. Next year, we're doing it differently! But first, we still have about 150 to sell!

What I'm Thankful For

2009-11-26T07:42:00.001-05:00

This guy who turned out to be a better husband/friend/personal comedian and chef than I ever thought possible, and certainly more than I deserve. And I'm also thankful for Jason. Hahahaha.

Day One of Printing on the 10x15 C&P

2009-11-22T09:37:00.005-05:00

It's been a long week of waiting for all of the pieces to fall into place. We had to order rollers and trucks (they cost more than the press!) tympan paper, gauge pins, ink, a new Boxcar base, and assorted hardware store items. All week long we knew our press was sitting in a barn, waiting for some attention.

This is the counter. It only counts when the prss is impression mode. Pretty cool, right? No more counting on our fingers!

It takes quite a while to get set up and start printing. The gauge pins are great, but require careful placement so that they don't hit the boxcar base and get all smashed up.

The first time we pulled this card out of the press and saw the impression, it was the best moment. I am so sick and tired of trying to get a good, even impression on my kelsey 5x8. This just does it effortlessely.

It may not be the prettiest girl in school, but she sure can print. The press. Carrie and I are plenty pretty. Maybe some time this winter or during a downtime we will clean up and give it a new coat of paint--wouldn't red be awesome?

Our wheels are really spinning now with the possibilities that improved speed and quality of printing that we can have now. The game has been changed!

Thanks to Carrie's mom, Neda for taking photos!

Snapshots and a new print!

2009-11-20T06:51:00.006-05:00

Busy busy busy here.

Got some new fabrics in--they'll be up in the shop soon enough.

And here's a brand-new letterpress print up in the shop right now! I'm pretty proud of this guy. I drew it while I was supposed to be watching a movie. Hopefully I'll be able to print it on the new press when it's all up and running, but right now I'm hand-pressing it. So it has that extra little bit of love.

We're working on the press this weekend! I'm sure Monday will bring many photos, and hopefully success stories!

Our biggest day. So far.

2009-11-16T06:58:00.002-05:00

We have big news--literally! We got a new press!!
Carrie and I drove to Iowa with my uncle Richard yesterday and picked up our new press. I can't tell you how excited we are!

Here's how it all went down: I saw a listing on Briarpress for a small Golding Pearl. That would have been awesome because they don't take up that much space. Alas, it was already gone before I could get in touch with the owner. He was a super nice guy, though and gave me the phone number of another pressman also in central Iowa.

After several several phone calls, we figured out that he did in fact have a press for us. It was a 10x15 Chandler and Price, and he agreed to put a motor on it and clean it up for us.

Lucky for us, my uncle Richard has a big ass truck. And he is a candidate for sainthood, because he drove all the way from Kansas City to pick us up, and then all the way to BFE Iowa, and back. Oh, yeah, and he did a lot of the lifting and moving. Carrie and I never could have done that ourselves. He's a saint, I tell you!

A few words about the state of this little print shop: holy crap. It was like a printmaker's boneyard. There were parts and pieces and rollers everywhere, presses in all stages of disrepair, and some things fully assembled.

The owner is retiring to start up a small-town newspaper using his linotype machine that you see here in the front window.

After much pushing and pulling back and forth, we got the press in the truck and started back home.

Around 6pm, we arrived at our new destination. Carrie's mom and dad met us and forklifted the press off the truck at their barn and put it in place. Forklifts come in handy, I've realized.

I'll have to take some more photos of the big red barn where we'll be printing later.

Here it is in it's new home! And here's a quick video of it working:

New print!

2009-11-13T07:23:00.001-05:00

Now available in the shop!

I love to carve blocks of linoleum. Sometimes I choose to have plates made from my drawings to preserve the line quality, but the carving is pretty fun.

For this print, I used a really blocky typeface that I found on DaFont. Have you been there yet? Tons of cool free fonts. Use at your own risk!

I love love love the bright sunny yellow. It's sort of tricky to line up the grey for the tires and windshield wipers, but I think it will work out.

I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve for the upcoming Renegade Handmade Market in Chicago....so I'll be rolling them out here.

And coming this Sunday, Carrie and I have a BIG, HEAVY surprise for you. Just wait. It's going to be an exciting weekend.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

2009-11-09T06:26:00.000-05:00

Coming to Chicago December 5 + 6!! Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, from 11-7. Please stop by and say "hi"!

Carrie and I are happy to announce that we're going to be at this year's Renegade Handmade Holiday show in Chicago!

It's our first show as 1canoe2, and we're busy busy busy printing. We don't want to run out of anything! We know we'll be in good company. Honestly, I would want to go to shop even if we weren't going to have a booth.

Check out these photos from last year's event.

So you 'll be seeing updates that include lots of new printing, and probably some old, and if posts are spare around here, or short, it's because I must be printing!!

Look who's REALLY printing all of our calendars!

2009-11-06T10:21:00.002-05:00

We had a smallish Halloween party last weekend. Really, it was just a reiteration of Fall Festival Fun night, which revolves around soup for supper and pumpking carving. I think the small gathering is my favorite kind--the 8-10 other people casually hanging out.

Curtis and Colin are my co-workers sons. They went as Super C's for halloween. Katie got their costumes from BabyPop on Etsy. They are awesome! Curtis is five years old, and really into art. He was super excited about his "letterprint" bikes. And then of course Colin had to try it out as well.

Hey, I'm doing what I can to pass letterpress printing on down to the next generation!

Marketing Schmarketing

2009-11-05T06:31:00.004-05:00

It's true that being an artist is not just getting paint (or ink) all over your hands everyday. That artwork won't sell itself! Okay, so with the internet and Etsy, you might get lucky, get on a big blog, and it might sell itself a little. With a little effort, however, you can sell a lot. And sales on sites like Etsy have a snowball effect...the more you sell, the more often you're listed at the top of the "recently sold" list, and when you relist you're bumped to the top as well, and therefore the more visible you are.

This month I purchased a spot on Poppytalk Handmade. I don't have hard facts to prove it, because frankly, Google Analytics wisdom eludes me just a little, but I think my sales have already gone up because of it. The first day that our gallery was up I sold at least 5-6 items, which virtually paid for the gallery spot.

The best thing about gallery sites like this is that they are curated. I love the "come one come all" flavor of Etsy, but SHEESH! there's a lot of crap on there. (Sidenote: have you wasted any time on this site yet? OMG!) So the gallery websites really direct people to the good stuff.

Go checkout Poppytalk. It has some really great art and usable items on there. I'm just honored to be a part of it!

Cakey cake.

2009-10-29T08:23:00.003-04:00

This weekend our dear Nashville friends Aaron and Jenn came to see us as part of their 1 year anniversary trip. At their wedding last year, they had the most delicious pumpkin cake. Yum! So I made a mini one for them, and put it on my new mini cake plate!!

This was so moist and delicious!! I traded most of the vegetable oil for applesauce, and next time I think I'm going to use only applesauce. I also used less sugar than the recipe called for. My adjustments are written in this recipe:

PUMPKIN CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE ICING (adapted from cooks.com)

Cake:

4 eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. vegetable oil
2/3 c. applesauce (sugar free)
2 c. canned pumpkin (just a little more than 1 can)
2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp vanilla

Cream Cheese Icing:

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 of an 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
A few splashes of skim milk
2 tsp. vanilla

Combine all cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until thoroughly blended. Pour batter into a buttered and floured 13"x9"x2" pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until cake tests done. Cool.

Prepare Cream Cheese Icing. Combine icing ingredients in a mixing bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth, adding milk and powdered sugar until it's the right consistency. take about 1/2 cup of the icing and heat it in the microwave for 15 seconds. Spread this on the cake as a very thin crumb coat, and then chill in fridge or freezer until set. Spread remainder of frosting on cake!

Makes 10-12 servings.

I don't love cream cheese icing, so I used 1/2 the cream cheese, and also some milk to make it more like buttercream.

Now go get a large glass of milk and a fork. And some friends..because it would be easy to eat the entire thing if you didn't have witnesses!

My love for Blurb continues

2009-10-27T08:37:00.005-04:00

My honeymoon book is finally done, and you can see the whole thing online at fabulous Blurb!

I really love how it turned out. The cover is awesome, and I included my sketchbook pages and watercolor paintings from the trip.

Now for my plee: I know this is shameless begging. I don't ask much for all these pages of delightful drivel ... do I? But I NEED you to go vote for my book.

Blurb is running a competition for the best book, and after you see some of the others on their website, you'll agree (I hope) that I could be in the running for winning $3000!!! You can also go on there and see the whole book in preview mode. And like I said before, I think it's pretty great. The photos look dark, and I hope that it looks better in person.

So just go to this page and vote!! PLEASE! I just need to get voted into the top 15 books by website visitors, then the jury will take over and I won't have any control.

I love you guys! You love me too, right?...right? Uh, guys? Hello?

Just because I love you, here's another photo of Walter from the weekend.

He wants you to vote, too. Maybe if I will $3000 I won't make him wear this sweater anymore.

New arrival

2009-10-23T06:23:00.000-04:00

I've been MIA this week because we got a new baby at our house!
Meet Walter. He's an 11 week old Boston Terrier, and let me tell you: he's both a scholar and a gentleman.

Now many of you who know me personally have heard me say that I'm not a dog person. And I'm really not. But we're working out our differences. He sits on my lap while I'm on the computer.

I'm still a little freaked out, just because I'm not used to having someone to watch out for, and I don't know what's okay or not. I am getting better, and he's getting used to his new surroundings also. He's not a barker or a biter, so that helps some of my anxiety. And the fact that he is so darn cute. I mean come on. It doesn't get much better than that.

Well, actually, check out this link to photos of Boston Terriers in halloween costumes. That might be cuter.

What I Did Last Summer

2009-10-18T21:18:00.002-04:00

This is the post where I admit that I can't do everything. I should have spent all the time in my class learning to do at least ONE decent mug, as opposed to thousands of crappy items. I had almost gotten the plate thing down at the end.

Considering how much time I spent obsessed with YouTube videos of pottery throwing this summer, you would think I might have learned at least how to make a decent mug. Maybe not.

This is a decent pitcher, but for the atrocious handle.

I'm afraid that my new brother-in-law will find this cake plate so hideous that he won't let my sister bring it into the house. Hey, when you're glazing, you just dip your precious pot in a bucket and pray for the best. Sort of like finding a boyfriend.

I actually kind of like this cake plate below. When we were carrying all the pieces out of the studio, Jason said "would you cry if I dropped all of these?" I said "If it comes down to your face, or that floweredy cake plate, you better save the plate. The rest I don't care about."

My attempt to be the fabulous Whitney Smith whose work I love but cannot afford.

And what the crap is this? I didn't even think it was worth glazing. Now I don't know what to do with it.

As for the pottery: super super fun, but I'm going to stick with what I do best...now if I can just find the post-it note where I wrote exactly what it is that I do best.

Carrie's latest print

2009-10-16T08:00:00.003-04:00

Check out the latest woodcut Carrie put in the shop!!

On Tuesday night we did some creeping around a certain school that might have a large press. There were some really nice students working, and we didn't get in their way or anything, but we wanted to use that big press! It takes so long to do the printing of these by hand.

It all went fine, but Carrie thinks they look better when printed by hand. I think it's awesome no matter what.

Now I need to get to carving. We both really like the act of carving, then printing. I haven't really done much of it at all since the 2009 calendar last fall, and I got a lot better doing all 12 of those. I have a design all ready in the sketchbook. Maybe this weekend.

Home Sweet Home Print:
9x12 paper
8x10 print
Buy it here!

HOT OFF THE PRESSES!!! FABRIC!!

2009-10-14T07:15:00.008-04:00

Oh my gosh, you guys! I'm so super excited about this stuff. When I was opening it last night after a long rainy and cold day, I actually started jumping up and down. Holy crap this stuff is awesome!

What is it, you might ask? It's bona fide 100% cotton quilting and upholstry weight fabric OF MY OWN DESIGNS. I took 2 of the drawings from our 2010 calendar and colored them in Photoshop, then sent them off to Spoonflower. Most genious idea ever, that Spoonflower.

Of all my skills, I think photoshop might be the most valuable. And my enormous arm reach (but that's more of a side effect of ginormousness than it is a talent). But seriously, I can do just about anything given Photoshop and a scanner. It's so much a part of my way of thinking that I sometimes fo to hit "command+z" in real life, only to find out that I'm not actually able to do that when not on the computer.

I colored these puppies to my heart's content, and then fiddled with them to make sure they would tile correctly. For the garden one, it really hurt my brain, but I think I have the process down now.

I created a login on Spoonflower, ordered a yard or so of each, and 2.5 weeks later, there I have it!! Amazing! It's a little expensive---$18 for a quilting yard, $32 for an upholstery yard, but that's okay. It was totally worth it when I got my package and those bright, saturated hues showed up exactly like I had seen them on screen. There are all these tutorials about how the colors show up purple instead of blue--but in my case, they look totally fine!

I'm posting some fat quarters in my shop--so that I can make more fabric without going broke. Let me know if you would like to see different quantities/colorways, and I'll work on that.

Did I mention I'm super excited!?!?!

My name in print...Beth Snyder 1canoe2 Columbia Missouri

2009-10-12T08:32:00.003-04:00

Newsprint!

This weekend I was the featured artist in the Columbia Daily Tribune's Ovation section.
You can read the whole thing online here on their website.

Aarik Danielson did such a great job with the writing. I wish he had included my web address or etsy shop address, but what can you do? What's funny about it is that the article sounds exactly like the way our conversation went when he interviewed me. I was just rambling rambling rambling, and he took out the crazy parts and boiled it down to the good stuff, put it in order, and polished it up. Awesome.

And by the way, the web addresses are here:
Our 1canoe2 shop
My website
My bhstudio shop

Happy Fall

2009-10-09T08:38:00.002-04:00

It's deadline week at work, and I've been printing like crazy at home. So instead of instructional posting, I'm just showing some photos that I'm pretty proud of.

Welcome to the Midwest. Where soybeans are NOT called edamame.

Oktoberfest Lederhosen Tutorial

2009-10-04T17:19:00.006-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted a tutorial here. In honor of Oktoberfest, a lederhosen tutorial! Well, the cheap and easy way to do it anyway.

You could rent costumes like my sister and her boyfriend...or just grab a long sleeve t-shirt and an iron!

Suppplies needed:
white t-shirt
1/8 yard of black cotton
1/8 yard fusible web
Iron
Sewing machine with a zig zag stitch
1/4 yard of German Awesomeness

Step 1: iron t-shirt and black fabric

Step 2: according to the package instructions, apply the fusible web to the black fabric only

Step 3: draw out 2 suspenders pieces. You may need to measure these on your model to fit properly. Draw out the shape for the yoke.

Step 4: cut out these shapes

Step 5: peel off backing, place black shapes on t-shirt and iron to securely fasten.

You could be done at this point if you don't have time for the sewing machine. We all know how lederhosen emergencies just can't wait some times! You could get a fabric pen or puff paint and draw on the black part.

Proceed if you have sewing potential:

Step 6: stitch around all pieces with a zig-zag stitch

Step 7: Put the feed dogs down on your sewing machine and move the fabric around to create a design or write your name.

Step 8: Use your German Awesomeness or borrow some to make this Oktoberfest the best!

The Grass is Always Greener...

2009-09-28T08:16:00.004-04:00

Today I have a whole bunch of new states plates coming to me, and I will soon be printing 8 more of the states prints! Yay! It's gonna take me a while, though, since they're 3 color runs, but I'm pretty excited. You'll have to wait for the big reveal later this week to find out which states made the cut.

Over the weekend, I finished up another 5x7 print that's been in progress for a long time. And in the background, we're always printing for the calendar. That's just going to be a never-ending process. And that's a good thing!

So back to the print at hand:

And here's another that I did a few years back. I have a few copies sitting around and I've never done anything with them. This is the first woodcut I did several years ago as part of a weekend workshop at the Frist art museum in Nashville.

One of Vanderbilt's printmaking professors taught it, and I stayed up half the night carving this so that I could have something quality to print. I also remember turning my nose up at a husband-and-wife couple who carved a very primitive teddy bear. I'm such a snob.

Family Quilts

2009-09-25T08:12:00.004-04:00

I know I've mentioned it before, but it deserves repeating: my family is quilty. My grandmother on my mom's side spent her lifetime making something out of nothing. She had her very own sewing room (which I suspect may have been more about a quiet escape just a pocket door away from her 9 children--but they were all angels, so I'm sure that's not it).

Last Christmas I went to her house which hasn't been lived in for years and got the quilts out of the cedar chest in her room. They had probably been there for 60 years or more, never used. Maybe she had quilts and used them, but I don't think so. Besides a few glorious chenille numbers in the girls rooms, and denim blankets in the boys' room, I don't remember seeing anything on the beds that resembled these quilts.

Now I'm a pack-rat (my mom would tell you it skipped a generation) but I also believe in using the quilts you have--at least displaying them. I have several up around my house. They're out of direct sunlight, which is important. Sadly, it's hard for me to get direct sunlight in my house. That's another point.

But these quilts are still in great shape because they were put away. Some have a few small stains, or heavy creases, but mom and I are working on them.

We did this photo shoot as part of a larger project. I want to make an album of our family quilts on Blurb--so everyone can have a copy. I intend to have a wide shot and detail shots of each of them, and also include any information I can find on them.

It's so important to have record of these things. With these quilts, we have no idea where they came from except that they belonged to my grandma. Sadly, she's gone now, and we can't ask her. I could just kick myself that we didn't ask her last Christmas.

Here are a couple of quilts that belong to me. First, the black and gold is one my mom made for my college graduation (still my favorite of all).

And then the wedding quilt my aunt made for me. I love color, what can I say?

So here are some tips if you want to make your own family quilt record, whether in book form or otherwise:

Take photos with the quilt as flat as possible. Hanging up is best because you can get the whole thing without being at an angle.

Take the photo with a high-resolution camera in the shade, or on a slightly cloudy day. This way there won't be harsh shadows or washed out images.

Get an assistant!

Gather all the quilts you can whether you know something about them or not.

Document the following:

Name of owner:
Name of creator/quilter (sometimes they're different):
Date created:
Name of pattern if any:
Materials used and where they might have come from (like a child's dress or the flea market)
Any special notes about the occasion, the story of why it was made, or really anything. You don't know what will be important in future generations, so as much information as possible is great!

I'm going to use Blurb to make this book. I hope to make one with the other side of my family also, but it will probably be harder to get those quilts all together. I'm hoping for QuiltFest 2010, ladies!

And you know I'm excited about designing the book. Maybe I'll even do some freelancing books for other people. You could send me your photos and I could lay them out in book form and send it to you...hmm. I'm always entreprenuering!

The only thing out there on the web I can find about family quilt documentation is this site in Australia. You need to save your heritage! When one generation passes away, all the information is lost. I can't bear to think of my hard work being donated to Goodwill or otherwise.

Lunch break in the country

2009-09-24T07:51:00.003-04:00

Sometimes I just need to get out of town. I work in a very rural community where you can't get a good salad anywhere.

So one day I hopped in my car and drove around. There are tiny little hamlets everywhere. This time I drove to Rush Hill, population: Oh, I don't know, 43?

The town had dirt roads. Not a speck of pavement.

Then I photoshopped the bejezzus out of them using my Pioneer Woman actions. Love them!

Potato Soup

2009-09-22T07:03:00.004-04:00

You know that Autumn is coming for the following reasons: it's soooo hard to get up in the cool, dark morning. The leaves and grass, although still green, just seem to have a little more color. I bought my first (and I swear my last) bag of candy pumpkins at Walgreens on a whim last week.

After a long, fun, but exhausting weekend, we decided on soup on Sunday night. My mom has a great recipe for Cheesy potato soup. I have it too, but I'm not so good on the replication. Hers just has a special umphh that I can't seem to achieve. Therefore, everytime he requests it, Jason says "But will you make it like your mom does?" I always say yes, but I know good and well that I can't replicate the cheesy goodness.

Still, this batch was pretty darn close. I used small new potatoes from my Aunt Jackie and I let the mixture simmer for an hour or so.

Saute an onion and 2 ribs of celery (and maybe a little tiny bit of bacon. Do not tell my mother) in a couple of teaspoons of butter in a large stock pot.

Add about 4 cups of milk--I used skim and it was great!
I also added a teaspoon of salt and a generous sprinkling of black pepper.
Add 4 chicken boullion cubes and let this mixture simmer and boil for quite a while. It can even be unattended.

Next, cube up about 4 cups or more of potatoes. I would go for more. Like use 5 large potatoes or so. Cover with water in a microwaveable bowl and microwave in batches of 5 minutes or so until tender to a forking.

Add 5-6 slices of cheese. I used American because it melts better, but you might experiment if you have a husband who is more open to interpretation than mine is.

Add the potatoes and simmer for a while, or eat immediately.

It's DARN good. And really not too fat-laden. Over the multiple serving this makes, there's not much butter, maybe a slice of cheese, and skim milk.

I think I may have mastered the recipe.

Perhaps this is the culprit of my past poor soups: I did not write down the recipe. Seriously? What does any of this mean? I am too ashamed to call my mom YET AGAIN for the real recipe.

Isn't it sad that with the popularity of my recipe cards, I only have my own recipes on these cards? I'm slowly converting. Slowly. I'll have to get the real recipe for potato soup before I transfer this one.

Our dear friend Jenn made us these potholders in our house colors as a housewarming gift. I love a handmade gift like no other! And I hardly ever get them, so these were extra special. They're really thick and soft. Luxurious potholders! Everyone should have them!!

Allison's Wedding photos

2009-09-17T08:28:00.001-04:00

My sister Allison got married 3 weeks ago. She used the same photographer as me, Notley Hawkins, who does just amazing things with a wide-angle lens. I was lucky enough to be his lovely assistant that day, which included him loaning me a super nice camera. The most important thing I can say about his talent is this: I had a camera and stood in all the same places, and my photos are total crap compared to what he shot.

I did have tons of fun bossing everyone around and having all the groomsmen and bridesmaids do funny things.

And I've been having a lot of fun photoshopping the daylights out of these pics that he shot. You can see about 100 of the originals on Notley's flickr page.

I'm totally hooked on photography. But I think I need to keep my job as the lovely assistant, because clearly I don't stack up. And I can't suffer for my art like Notley does. He works his tail off at all times. I tend to think "yeah, that's good. I'm sure there are some good things in the camera."

Howard-Zupon Wedding 8.22.2009
Originally uploaded by Notley

Scrapbook Store Closeout=Heaven or Hell?

2009-09-14T18:58:00.013-04:00

There is (was) a really great scrapbook store in the hamlet where I work. How a town with 10,000 people can support a scrapbook store is beyond me. Apparently, the owner was just worn out. Shocking!

Several of my co-workers got special invitations for the first day of the closeout sale. I cannot miss a good deal, and well, I actually could use some of those tools.

I was not prepared for the onslaught of people. One of the people I "interviewed" in the front of the line said she had been there for more than 2 hours--not just in the store, but IN THE LINE. Makes me break out in hives just thinking about it.

I hemmed and hawed my way around the store for 1.4 minutes before making a dirty deal with a large, white-bearded gentleman guarding the front door.

Me: how much for that card rack in the back with the faux bois base?

Santa: How much is the what-now?

Me: Uh, you know the card rack that's brown.

St. Nicholas: Oh, you mean D-5?

Me: Uh, sure. Yeah. It's about as tall as me.

Babbo Natale: I wouldn't know. (cut away to the 2 of us standing back to back, comparing our gene pool's success rates)

Me: So how much?

Father Christmas: $25 cash only.

Me: Sold. Now get me the hell outta here. (cut to me running and carrying said card rack over my head and pumping it up and down successfully while I run over several ladies holding stamps, paper, and stickers of all manners)

End Scene.

2010 Letterpress Calendar

2009-09-09T22:01:00.009-04:00

Presenting....the 1canoe2 2010 Calendar! Yes, I know it's only September. But we wanted to beat the rush to get this puppy out there and seen by as many of you as possible.

Carrie and I have been working our pens and our press arms to pieces on this calendar. It started with multiple meetings brainstorming concepts and talking on the phone on my commute everyday. After we settled on the basic concept of collections of everyday objects, we split up the month and design assignments and we hit the sketchbooks.

Then came all of the computer hours working up our precious drawings into printable plates.

And finally over Labor Day weekend we printed and printed and printed some more. And after all those joint decisions, hours spent in the studio, and paper cutting, we only printed 24 calendars. Our goal is to make a total of 300 this year. We'll see how they sell and how many we can actually produce. But we only ordered paper for 300 minus errors, so we probably won't make MORE than 300, so get 'em while you can!

Here is the link to the calendar

Cost: $24 plus shipping
Size: 6"x 10.5"
Edition: less than 300

Allow me to take this moment to complain about my house and it's lack of natural light. And also curse the moving process by which I misplaced my cable release. All of this leading to slightly blurry photos.

I think after we were done with the printing process at 9pm on Monday, we were most in love with the posters that we had been making along the way. They were a giant pain in the backside because they require printing of 24 separate plates, but we both really like the way they look. the plan is to make a very limited edition of these and sell them for quite a bit more money. Stay tuned!

Whew! I'm exhausted. But so so so happy! We love it and hope you do too!

Labor Day was Laborious

2009-09-07T22:58:00.004-04:00

Among the tasks completed: house cleaning, laundry (thanks, Jason), photo matting and framing and hanging, walking with friends, and LOTS of PRINTING. Carrie and I had a print-in and spent 2 whole days working on printing our calendar. Exciting stuff! I'm going to wait a couple more days to post it. I want to take just the right photos, and we didn't finish tonight until it was dark.

On Sunday Mom and Dad had a cookout to inaugurate their new deer-riffic fire ring down by the pond.

Nothing like a roasted hot dog and deviled eggs to celebrate the end of summer. Sigh! I love Fall, but I hate the impending doom of winter and the passing of labor day means time to buckle down. As if I haven't been working my fingers to the bone all summer!

Oh well. Here's to a cooler than normal Missouri summer--it's seemed like Fall since about the end of July-- and looking forward to Autumn's crisp air and orangey sunlight!

New York New York day 3

2009-09-03T23:11:00.002-04:00

Our final day in New York was a wrap up of the things we didn't do the previous days. I miscalculated and didn't get to go visit either of the 2 letterpress shops I wanted to see because I had saved them til Monday, and they aren't open on Monday. Bummer.

We did manage to go to the home design megastore ABC Carpet and Home. Wow wow wee wow. It was amazing. It must be so fun to work there just to arrange all the goodies. I was surprised that they let me take photos, but they did!

Jason sitting in what must be the world's most comfortable chair.

We went in this store across the street called Fish's Eddy. I had never heard of it, but let's just say it's lucky that I only had a small carry-on suitcase, already stuffed with paper goods and envelopes, because I could have taken the whole store with me. Lots of really cool dinnerware, tea towels, and entertaining stuff. It was just my style. Not stuffy, just fun and well designed.

Jason fulfilled his final New York manifest: a slice of pizza, followed 1 hour later by Katz's Deli. That pastrami sandwich alone cost $14.95, but it was pretty freaking amazing.

Now it's back home and hard at work on calendar stuff and real work stuff. It was such a great 3 day destination. Of course, you know I could stay for a month. Maybe in my next life I'll take a summer sabbatical to New York.

New York New York day 2

2009-09-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

Treasures from MoMA and Asian influences....

Sunday we got up and walked ourselves to MoMA. I love that place.

I didn't really appreciate modern art until I took the hardest course in my college career called Contemporary Art History. I barely scraped a B in that class. It was a very reading and writing heavy course about way-out there theory. But it made me appreciate the value in someone having the cahones to do something first. Like very first. And to realize that it actually takes a lot of work to make that perfectly solid red canvas. Okay, so the red canvas wasn't my favorite, but I can appreciate Jackson Pollock's splatterings because there is an art to the way he moved his arm, to the color choices, to the dedication it took to make people turn their heads at that.

This exhibit by Song Dong was spooky to me because it seriously could have been from my own non-Asian grandmother's house. All it was missing was a garbage bag full of bread ties. The artist's mother was from the waste-not-want-not generation, and that apparently compelled her to say partially used bars of soap and plastic bottle caps. As someone who has a pack rat tendency herself, this is terrifying.

We moved on to Chinatown after lunch. These photos are an exact depiction of what I love about New York...the 5-6 story building neighborhoods and the bustling cultural soup. One street is Chinese, the next is Italian. I love it. And the men whispering in my ear as I passed by "bags. gucci. prada. louis vuitton." So sen-su-al. I always think I'm going to buy a bag when in Chinatown, but I just don't like any of them when it comes down to it.

Day two ended at Five Napkin Burger. Tuna burger for me, and a frozen strawberry mojito for dessert. I was so enthralled, I didn't take a single photo. Cause sometimes, you just gotta live in the moment.

New York New York

2009-09-02T07:58:00.006-04:00

The view from our hotel.

Jason and I went to NYC for a quick 3 day weekend. As of Monday, we've been married for 365 whole days. A lot of that time we were living with my parents, which was awesome in so many ways, but I didn't really feel married until we bought our house in May and had to do real married things like pay a mortgage, cook dinner, and pick out a cable package. They say that the first year is the hardest, and I don't know if that was true in our case. I do know that I'm happier everyday than I was the day before with being married. We just figure out what works and repeat.

Now, notice I didn't write this post at midnight before our 4am trip departure when I had been up packing for 2hours longer than Jason. Somehow, clothes, shoes and toothbrush seemed enough to him, meanwhile I was printing boarding passes, finishing up a load of laundry, searching for umbrellas, doing a load of dishes and emptying out the dehumidifier. Yeah, my answer wouldn't have been the same then.

But I digress. I actually had sort of a working trip. If there's one thing I believe about art and creativity, it's that you have to be constantly inputting information and ideas so that when it comes time to create, you can draw on that library of visions in you head, whether consciously or unconsciously.

So we went about "inputting" all over the city. Natural History Museum (great tribal prints and patterns) MoMA (everything) and countless design stores and more. And I stocked up on a lot of supplies like paper goods and envelopes.

I'm going to break this post up into 3 posts, one for each day we were there.

Day one:
Butterflies at the Natural History Museum

We walked from our hotel on 34th all the way to 81st in the rain. So we took the subway back.

Check out this bead store. Even Jason was really impressed. That's why I love this guy. He didn't complain at all about going into this store. It's Toho Shoji on 6th Avenue. To be accurate, I didn't make him go in any ribbon or fabric stores.

We went to the Rockefeller Center Magnolia Bakery. That icing recipe they have is spot on for the original. I was totally entranced by the people in the back doing the icing. That is some serious skill.

We had dinner at Les Halles for our anniversary. Yum. And not stuffy or anything. It's not terribly expensive, but for our wallets, it was a special treat. I think the steak and fries was $20, so that's not much more than a restaurant around here.

The woman sitting next to us kept taking one sip from her water glass and tossing the rest in the bushes and then smiling wickedly while the water boy was perplexed and filling her up again. I caught her doing it, and she just grinned at me.

Day two: MoMA and beyond.

Sketches from a new project

2009-08-27T09:05:00.006-04:00

This is a tease. But it's a big tease. I'm not even sure if I should post it, but here goes. Carrie and I are working on a new 2010 Letterpress calendar. I plan to have it out by (Gasp!) the first of October.

Unlike last year when I put it out the first of December. Not the best plan on my part.

So these are a few of the sketches. Some are Carrie's and some are mine. It's going to be knock-your-socks-off fantastic.

Stitching!

2009-08-25T08:16:00.002-04:00

What's that you say? Actual stitching on Stitch.Rip.Repeat? That's right. I realize it's been a while since I talked much about sewing or quilting. That little letterpress is just a time monster.

What's that? I did take a few moments last weekend to work on my newest project. I set up my design wall in the studio, and stitched away.

I'm so anxious to see this done, but I'm having a hard time finding time to work on it.

A

I'm in a Magazine!

2009-08-24T08:05:00.003-04:00

First, I should mention why I didn't post all last week. My sister got married this past Saturday, and last week was a flurry of activity on my end. The wedding was a blast. I don't have any photos yet because I was the photographer's assistant, and he let me use his secondary camera. Oh, I was in love with that thing. More on that later when I have photos to show for it.

This week on newsstands is my first published quilt. It's in the September/October issue of Fons & Porter's For the Love of Quilting.

This is one of my landscape quilts that I did a few years back. I gave it to my dear friend Abby and it hangs proudly on her dining room wall when it's not being photographed for magazines :)

I'm still a little addle-brained from the party weekend. I hope to be back tomorrow with actual work and progress!

New Stuff in the Shop!!

2009-08-18T08:39:00.005-04:00

Tree Rings card set here.

I've got a big showcase coming up on Papernstitch starting on Aug 24th. In an effort to get a nice variety of items, I've been ramping up production.

Carrie has added a bunch of new FANTASTIC items. I love how bright and colorful it's looking in there!

blue flowers cards here.

Feathers poster here. (I so want one of these)

And I've finished my Kentucky print...finally. I really struggled with the colors of the lettering, but I can now print YELLOW with my new rubberbased inks! This is a major development.

r

More States Prints!! Finally!

2009-08-13T07:36:00.003-04:00

I've had these drawings done for a couple of months, and I've been printing them during this time, too, but with the ink needing to dry between each round of printing, it has taken me a while to output these.

I'm very happy with Texas. Missouri may need a color change, but I love the design and drawing. Up next for states: California, Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina.

Not because those are my next favorite states, but because those are states that people have requested.

You can see more pics of Texas here.

And more of Missouri here.

And don't forget Tennessee!

It's my Birt-day!

2009-08-12T08:16:00.003-04:00

This post could also be titled "Why I Have the Best Husband Ever"

Take a look at my birthday present! (I'm apologizing for all the bragging right now. If you don't like it, just click yourself away!)

I have been the biggest fan of Nashville artist Trevor Mikula for years. Jason and I even went to a show with the intention of buying something, but couldn't decide which one to get, and walked away empty handed.

Then this year for my birthday, I was convinced he was getting me an industrial sink, or an iPod. This, my friends, is way better than those two. Jason and Trevor had a long e-mail correspondence, and trevor sent him several paintings. I'm happy to say that in the end, Jason picked the one that I loved best out of those.

I'm just in love with it. The best present ... I mean best HUSBAND... ever. I love it!

Weekend exhaustion

2009-08-10T07:42:00.003-04:00

Why do I wear myself out so completely on the weekends? Jason and I got major house projects done. Namely, we changed the faucet out in the kitchen. Sounds easy, but let's just say I've now been exposed to every bad word in my husband's entire vocabulary. We determined that the old, leaky faucet was installed before the sink was in place on the countertop.

I did LOTS of printing with my new rubberbased inks. I don't know if anyone reads SouleMama (and you should because it's great in so many ways) but I sold the lovely Mama/Blogger/Author a recipe card box and when she posted it on her blog, I immediately got 15 sales or so in a week! WHAT!?!? That is awesome, but I had to print all those cards!

Abby came over last night and we had intensive quilting time on her quilt. It's her first, and we now have the front and the back done and ready to sandwich up and baste. I'm so proud of her because it's her first quilt, and it looks stunning! I'll have to post some pics here when she comes back to baste it together.