Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Amelia's Birth Announcements
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
Labels: birth announcements, letterpress, printing
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Holiday Coasters
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!
Labels: holiday, letterpress, printing
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
New Business Cards
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.
Labels: letterpress, printing
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Hot and Fresh off the Press!
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!
Labels: letterpress, printing, wedding invitations
Friday, April 02, 2010
We've gained some weight
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.
Labels: 12x18, carrie, chandler price 10x15, letterpress
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Hello, Baby Girl!
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.
Labels: birth announcements, chandler price 10x15, letterpress, printing
Friday, March 26, 2010
what we're printing this weekend
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!
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Press, Twitter and Gals about Town
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!
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Pros and Cons of Running a Letterpress in a Barn
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.
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
New Wedding Invitations!
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!
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Letterpress Neighborhood: the Process
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.
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress