Thursday, December 10, 2009

Letterpress Holiday Card Class

The holiday letterpress class was fun! Thanks to all who participated. Here's a sampling of the cards we printed using vintage holiday cuts. Everyone was printing like maniacs and ended up with 20 letterpress cards that were all ready to be sent to their favorite people. Yay!

Folks had fun even embellishing their envelopes. These are the kinds of envelopes I open first when I get the mail.

We still had all the stuff out for tee shirt printing so here's the shirt I printed. You can definitely go crazy printing tee shirts. So many possibilities!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Making Holiday Paper Ornaments



I'm re-posting...is that like re-gifting? I'm re-posting a link to our Making Paper Holiday Ornaments Video. We did this video a couple of years ago and I still love making these ornaments! We have two very busy kitties and concrete floors - a complete recipe for ornament disaster. That's why we love the paper ornaments. This is a fun project to do with your kids! It's so funny what goes around comes around--I  found these ornaments in a 1970's craft book. The paper was pretty awful back then but the structures and shapes are still fun today and we have way better paper. Yay!

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Time for Holiday Cards!

Tis the season for holiday cards! I did two segments for the local NBC television station on holiday cards--at 5:40 am and 6:40 am. I had to get up at 4:00 o'clock in the morning! I NEVER get up that early unless I have to catch a plane. Bleary eyed and all, Gary and I trotted over to Phoenix. The positive thing was--there was no traffic! Gotta admire the news anchor Tram Mai from channel 12--she is so delightful and nice even that early in the morning.

I love handmade holiday cards. I love to get them in the mail. It's the first thing I open and always the ones I keep. When I was a kid in our local 4-H group, we made piles of them every year for the local nursing homes. I have really fond memories of drawing, gluing glittering & creating the cards and distributing them to the residents. Creating cards is a fun activity to do with your family or friends.

However, some folks get all stressed out about cardmaking. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind to reduce your stress:

1. The cards do not have to be perfect (you'll make yourself crazy). It's great to see the artist's hand in the finished work.

2. You don't have to give everyone on your list a handmade card. Give them to the people who will appreciate them!

3. You don't have to do all unique cards. Create something that resonates with you and make several of the same style.

4. You don't have to create cards from scratch. You could use a kit as a starting point. The cards on the left are from a Basic Grey Cardmaking Class Kit. The fun thing about a kit is that you get loads of materials to work with and instructions. I think of instructions more as guidelines since I always seem to veer off the path of doing it by the book. You can make the cards according to your own style. Plus, you have lots of left over materials to make more stuff!

5. Use fun materials in making holiday cards. Wrapping paper is a great element. There are so many styles and colors and it is readily available. These cards use wrapping paper and ribbon as a decorative element on pocket cards. Cards don't have to be just the traditional folded card so think outside the box!

You can also use the leftover paper to create your own gift tags! I prefer handmade gift tags over the mass-produced tags any day!


6. You could take a class and get all your cards done at once! Our holiday letterpress card class is one of our most popular classes. At The Paper Studio, we forage through our array of vintage images (called cuts) and set them up in our presses so participants can make 20 cards with 4 different motifs. Here's a sample of the cards the class made last year. We have different images selected for this year!

The class includes everything you need to leave with 4 sets of letterpress cards. This year we'll also be inking up some wood type so folks can bring a tee-shirt to print. Think of a word that describes your favorite person, print the shirt and give them the shirt as a present.

Happy Creating!

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The Paper Studio Papers in Better Homes & Garden Magazine!

We love the conifers papers. Obviously so did Better Homes and Gardens! It's so funny, magazines buy holiday papers during the summer for their holiday layouts. We were delighted to see The Paper Studio credited for the source of this conifers paper. Creative ideas on ways to use the paper are featured in the December 2009 issue of Better Homes and Garden Magazine.


We knew something was up when we sold out of this berries paper in just a few days! (No worries, it is back in stock!) Love the layering and how the blue pops with the berries.
Here's a fun red and green combo using the lovely scarlett paper.


Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Collage Calenders by Randel Plowman



I love the work of Randel Plowman a Kentucky Artist who's Collage a Day Blog is read worldwide!


 Randel has done a limited edition of two calendars--one featuring his bird collages and the other featuring an assortment of collages. I couldn't decide which one to get so I got both of them!

The calendars are printed on premium matte finish 61 lb photo paper using 8 color archival pigmented inks. Each image is suitable for framing.  There is a total of 13 pages that  make up each calendar including a page that provides information about each image and is hand signed with edition number and assembled by Randel.You can get these calendars at the Collage A Day Blog.

Friday, November 20, 2009

THE CURIE CURE Original letterpress poster



"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals."  Marie Curie

Jessica Spring, Springtide Press and Chandler O'Leary, Anagram Press just released their latest print. Get it while you can, they always sell out!!  You can purchase the poster on etsy.

It is hot off the press! This BRAND NEW, hand-pulled letterpress print is printed from hand-lettered original typography and hand-drawn illustrations and patterns (in fact, everything was done by hand, the hard way!). This piece is a collaboration between Chandler O'Leary of Anagram Press and Jessica Spring of Springtide Press, inspired by efforts nationwide to obtain equal, affordable health care for all.

The illustration is inspired by laboratory equipment, molecule diagrams and the Periodic Table of the Elements. To symbolize Curie's revolutionary work with radioactivity, "The Curie Cure" is printed in glowing, atomic colors.

The poster was printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press. Each piece is printed on archival, 100% rag, recycled paper, and signed by both artists.

Edition size: 138

Paper size: 10 x 18 inches

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Artist Kate Timmerman at Modified Arts


The very talented Kate Timmerman has a solo exhibition titled Then and Now (1998-2009) that opens at  Modified Arts in Phoenix on Friday November 20th, 2009 at 6 p.m. Kate is a mixed media artist who has created an impressive body of work over the years. I cannot wait to see this show!  The closing reception Friday December 4, 2009 at 6 p.m.

Here' the amazing thing--you can win a painting! Visitors to the exhibition who make a donation of pet food will be entered into a lottery to win a painting. All food collected will be donated to Poverty's Pets a downtown Phoenix group that rescues, neuters and places animals.

407 E. Roosevelt St.
Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-462-5516

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Wayzgoose Fun!

 photo by Rhonda Lewis
We were thrilled with the turn out of the first AZ Wayzgoose!  The fun thing is that it seemed like everyone did a little bit of everything! Lisa described it as a 7-ring circus and she was right! It was so much fun, that none of us even remembered to eat lunch.

We started off with magnetic poetry. Jeryl and Lisa did a great job helping folks lock up words in the little proofing press. The favorite line of the day was: She said go loosey goosey be silly cheese and Be a dingbat slug letterpress printer.

Photo by Rhonda Lewis

Letterpress was buzzing with coaster and bookmark printing.Mike was on the go most of the day.



 Photographer Rhonda Lewis made my favorite bookmark of the day and she also took this fab photo of the press!


Donna kept things humming in the papermaking studio where everyone made handmade recycled paper.

Gary led the making your own envelope session. Notice the festive Halloween Hat!


The hit of the day was the tee shirt printing. (see Gary's shirt above) Below, Lisa helps the Labyrinth guy with his design.


We concluded the day's activities with a little pochoir on letterpress.


It was really a fun filled day! A great chance to connect with old friends and meet new ones as well.

We'll definitely do the Wayzgoose next year so stay tuned!photo by Rhonda Lewis

You can see more photos of the wayzgoose on our flickr sites: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisatakata/sets/72157622581803607/  and

STREB: BRAVE


If STREB tours in your area, go and see their show! They were in Phoenix last week and we decided to catch their show on the spur of the moment. Thank goodness we made it to the Friday show because with all the tweets and texts about the event, it  sold out on Saturday. I didn't think we'd be able to take photos but we were allowed to. The photos are blurry but the show was an amazing combination of performance, sound and video.

STREB is a little hard to put into words. It is a company based in NY that is a combination of dance, gymnastics and sheer athletisicm. Elizabeth Streb, the Action Architect and Choreographer received a MacArthur Genius Award so that gives you an idea of what an innovator she is. In the falling piece, the dancers litterally fell off beam that went all the way up to the top of the horizontal structures. It was heart stopping!

In this piece, the video projection is the moon and the dancers (those blurry orange spots) are suspended horizontally. It was breathtaking!

Botanicals & Butterflies

We are finally out of our record heat so it was lovely to stroll around the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. We don't see many butterflies in AZ so I wanted to post photos of the Monarch butterflies and other botanicals at the garden.

Cactus in bloom.

Wildflower garden.

Lovely lantana.

Dia De Los Muertos Exhibtion

Here are some photos of our alter in the Dia De Los Muertos exhibition.This was a collaborative effort with Lisa T, Marshall S, Gary and me to create the intial piece. The community was invited to contribute thier own memorial cubes.


Marhsall did lovely pieces with patterns, cards and photos. This one honors his dad and his grandmother.



This one is a tribute to Eartha Kit, oh that origninal Cat Woman!


Ode to the most recent building imploded in Phoenix.

This year All Saints Day was especially meaningful because we attended a funeral that day for a friend of ours who was full of life and he died way too soon.