Vintage Letterpress Look

My pal Lisa and went thrift store rummaging a few weeks ago and we scored some fun vintage items with letterpress imagery on the covers.

 This is what letterpress can be like BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS!!! Oh so true..well sometimes a project can be a bit maddening.  Gosh I remember my dad playing this album when I was a kid. It has really great songs on it.

The backside is set in metal type. So fun!  I need to get a turntable because the album is pristine! I knew we shouldn't have sold ours 10 years ago at a garage sale. Isn't that always the way?  Look out when we find a turntable--we can sing our lungs out while printing!

The next item we found is a kid's spelling book with painted wood type one the cover. It's from the 70's and obviously before photoshop. So cool.

Hello Again!

Hello there! It has been a while since we blogged because we have been moving into our new space. Elliot our tortie really likes the yard (the space is a former daycare site).

He has figured out how to go under the interior fence. Although he won't be able to do it much longer as he is growing so rapidly.

The other thing  Elliot has figured out is that he likes to come into the building and cruise around the letterpress shop.

At least he could do is help us unpack!

Our Katazome Papers - December Instyle Magazine

We are very excited to see our Katazome papers featured in InStyle Magazine's December Issue!

We love that the papers they selected were inspired by fashion! The katazome papers really wonderfully graphic and make such an impact. You can click on the link to see more styles of our katazome papers.

What a cool way to step up your gift wrapping and make it totally customized! 

Combat Papermaker & Pulp Pedaling

I met Drew Cameron with the Combat Paper Project at the LA Printer's Fair a couple of weeks ago while he was doing a papermaking demo. I kept missing connecting paths with the Drews (Cameron and Matott) for the past several years. These guys have a really interesting project.

The Combat Paper Project uses papermaking workshops to assist veterans in reconciling and sharing their personal experiences as well as broadening the traditional narrative surrounding service and the military culture. Through papermaking workshops veterans use their uniforms worn in combat to create cathartic works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Veterans use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniform as art and begin to embrace their experiences in the military.

Drew was demonstrating basic papermaking for folks at the printer's fair. He had the most amazing set up for beating pulp utilizing bicycle pedal power to beat the fiber.

Could this be a greenest method of energy? And it keeps you fit, how awesome!

Having a portable beater is really fabulous especially for these guys who work with veterans all over the country and travel all over the world.

The Combat Paper Project does lectures, exhibitions and workshops across the country. Check our their tour schedule and go see them in person!



Got a pencil?

Goodness knows we love all kinds of alphabets and letters and working in letterpress we work with a lot of lead type. Well here's a lead alphabet of a different nature--a graphite nature! How cool is that? 

Dalton Ghetti is a talented artist who creates micro sculptures out of pencil leads.

I guess folks have been blogging about him for years but I just recently came across his work.

The level of detail is amazing. I love he incorporates the wooden handled saw into the wood of the pencil.

Google Dalton Ghetti's name to see more of his awesome work! It is all over the web. Now you will think twice about throwing out those old pencils, won't you?

Hamilton Wood Type - Cool Never Fades

Of course we are all gaga about wood type. I love the way it looks, feels and prints  -  imperfections, dings and all .  I was interested when I heard Target had partnered with the Hamilton Wood Type Museum to design some of their fall clothing. Here's a cool video about the project.

I  got Gary a couple of the wood type inspired shirts for his birthday. This ochre one is my favorite. I love the western wood type in blue!

We just listed several sets of wood letterpress type for sale so click here if you want to get some for your letterpress shop!

 NOTE: the letterpress wood type sets we listed on August 16th have all SOLD.

We may be listing more type in the future, so check back with our site. Thanks!



Lovely Invites According to Carey

We got a nice note from Carey with According to Carey about our fabulous Japanese papers.

Carey also shows you an inspiration board that helped her with the Japanese themed decorations for her event.

Check out her site to see the wonderful invites she created. Thanks Carey!

Elliot is NOT a Desert Tortiose!

Well, we were a bit shocked to learn that Elliot is not a desert tortoise. He's an African Sulcata Tortoise which is the 3rd largest tortoise in the world. Gasp!

Elliot emerging in the morning from his rosemary turtle cave. He warms himself in this pose for about 20 minutes every morning.

I kept reading about desert tortoises and thought that Elliot's legs looked so different than all the images I was seeing. What are those pointy things on his front legs? (they are scales)

Thank goodness for google images. I finally found a site called The Sulcata Station and emailed a photo of Elliot to them. Yep, that is what he is, they confirmed. Once Gary and I got over the shock that this tortoise is going to be over 100lbs and live 80-100 years we've been working on getting things set up for Elliot before he gets too large! He definitely has a voracious appetite. We are working on switching him to Bermuda grass hay--it is a slow process. Because he was raised on mixed greens.

May I help you?

Elliot likes to hang out most of the afternoon snoozing by the front door. It is so funny to see a tortoise at your front door staring in. He mostly likes to watch the kitties. He's a really friendly tortoise and follows you like a dog. My father-in-law thinks it is the funniest thing to watch him come when you call him.

Such cute elephant-type back leggies. Definitely a creature of habit. Retiring to the rosemary bush turtle cave around 4:00 pm.

Amazing Underwater Sculpture

My dad sent me the link to the most amazing underwater sculpture site by Jason deCaires Taylor. His work is installed all over the world and he is currently founder and Artistic Director of the Museo Subacuático de Arte (MUSA) in Cancun, Mexico. Taylor is a classically trained sculptor and certified scuba diver instructor. He blends his talents amazingly!
Taylor creates artificial reefs from materials that are durable, secure and environmentally sensitive. These reefs appear to have been successful in that they have attracted coral growth which, in turn, can support an entire marine ecosystem.
This installation is called Silent Evolution and is installed in Mexico and this is only a tiny glimpse of the 400 life-size statues in the installation. He has a great slide show on his site.
The installation below is titled the Garden of Hope. It is also installed in Mexico.
Really fascinating to see how the coral grows and the installation evolves.
The short film below that is visually sumptuous! In the second part gives you a glimpse of his process.

Maps, Maps Baby!

We are crazy about maps even though refolding them can make us crazy! We just added a Map Category to our shopping cart so you can find them easily. We wanted to show you some cool things you can do with maps!

First up are map pendants from two talented designers.

Kimiko of The Green Daisy uses our pendant trays to make gorgeous map pendants. Kimiko lots of really lovely styles and designs so be sure to check our her etsy site at:

http://kimiko611.etsy.com/

Kristy of  Daisy Mae Designs also does map pendants in lots of styles, colors and shapes. She also does custom work so check out her website at ww.daisymaedesigns.net

These map pendants make a terrific gift for that special person in your life as a memento of a trip you've take or one that you hope to take or for someone who just loves travel. The pendants would make a fantastic graduation gift! (really fabulous if you include plane tickets!!)

Maps Part II

Oh the love affair with maps continues! We made some fun map poppies. Visualize a room filled with map bouquets for the the couple who loves to travel!

 We used the flower pop up design for these poppies (posted in an earlier blog post)

 Then we lined envelopes with maps which were were gaga over! We letterpressed a vintage ornament on sumptuous lettra paper and used hemisphere maps to line moss and gavel envelopes.

 For a more colorful pop, we took vintage map pages and line a variety of colored envelopes. We all would be delighted to get mail that looks like this!

To make these handmade journals, we used the Americas, Globes and Hemispheres maps. At 3.25 x 5.5 inches, they are perfect for taking on a trip to record your journey.

While we didn't make these soft sided mini notebooks, we are crazy about them and the set of 3 for 10 bucks is a great deal!

New Addition to the Family - Elliot the Tortoise!

Nothing to do with paper or letterpress but awfully cute!

Here's the newest addition to our family--Elliot the Desert Tortoise. Desert tortoises are found in in southeastern California, southeastern Nevada, southwestern Utah, western Arizona. We got him from a school and he is 2yrs old. He is about 6-8 inches long and weights a couple of pounds but can get up to 10-12 lbs. He like blueberries--and still has the blueberry stains on his chin--he definitely has a sweet tooth for fruit but can only have it occasionally.

He is acclimatising to the outdoors very well considering he lived in a cage inside a 4th grade classroom since he was a hatchling. He lives in our yard and he cruises around the place like he owns it. He sleeps under the rosemary bush so he now smells like rosemary! Gary built him a burrow/shelter but he seems to prefer the rosemary bush.

I brought him inside last night because it was pretty cold. Desert tortoises start hibernating if the night temps are below 60 for several days and he is definitely sluggish in the am when it is still cold. They can survive heat up to 140 degrees and they cannot swim.

He's a pretty funny tortoise because he comes up right up to the glass where our cats can watch him. Because the kitties never go outside, they are fascinated with him. Elliot the Tortoise makes a beeline to cats if he sees them watching him.

In addition to the Elliot in our yard we also have a dove nest with 2 eggs. The nest sits low in the tree about chest level (didn't even have to stand on anything to take this picture) so the mom dove startles the beegeebers out of us when she suddenly flies out. Doves build the most scattery nests, I hope it doesn't get too windy.

Flower pop ups!

Oh happy spring!

I made these pop up cards as a result of the current issue of Martha Stewart living. She did hers in pinks (of course!) but I decided to go for a mixed purple bouquet! I used our Lavender Bursting Blooms, Purple Floral Stream and Green Charming Flowers and the leaves are Leaf Green Lokta. The card is A7 Plum.

 This card was done with our Natural White Lokta on our A7 Chartreuse Card. The black dots are made with a sharpie marker.

Here's the link to Martha's Card. Most of the time I find MS projects complicated and this was the first time through. Definitely test and prototype with plain paper. I found the assembling of the card more helpful at this site: http://extremecards.blogspot.com/2008/05/seven-flower-pop-up-card.html.

Other words of advice: use pva glue instead of a glue stick--it is stronger and pop ups need strength due to the opening and closing of the card and use strong but flexible paper. The Japanese Chiyogamis/Yuzens work great and so did the lokta. The single flowers that you make before gluing them together are cool as well. I can see other possibilities with them. So get busy flowering; you'll definitely make someone's day with this card!