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
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Happenstance
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
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Our Name in Lights!
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!
Friday, March 04, 2011
From one friend to another..
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
Saturday, January 22, 2011
That's My Baby!
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
Monday, January 03, 2011
There's a baby in there!
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.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Renegade Holiday Fair! Chicago
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!