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
Monday, December 06, 2010
Thank you notes are here!
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.
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
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
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Jason's letterpress work
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.
Labels: jason, letterpress, printing
Monday, November 30, 2009
Printing all day everyday
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!
Labels: carrie, chandler price 10x15, letterpress, printing
Monday, November 16, 2009
Our biggest day. So far.
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:
Labels: letterpress, printing
Monday, November 09, 2009
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!
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!!
Labels: 1canoe2, printing, shop, shows
Friday, October 16, 2009
Carrie's latest print
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!
Labels: carrie, letterpress, printing, shop