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.