Fusion :: Watercolor and Letterpress Wedding Invites

My client asked me for an illustration of roses on her wedding invitation with more nuance than I felt letterpress was able to do. We decided watercolor was the best direction to take. I discovered letterpress even more wonderful when fused together with watercolor.

I set out to find the right materials from watercolor to paper. The first question I had to tackle was whether to use watercolor or gouache. The color red had to stand out on the invitations, and at first gouache was the obvious choice, but later watercolor had the advantage of layering color and having a more luminous quality.

WATERCOLOR ILLUSTRATION
SAMPLES ON ARCHES PAPER

Young Wild & Three: Toddlers birthday party

                                           
Summer quickly turned into fall and suddenly a lot of party planning begins. Among the obvious, there was Maya’s third birthday to plan for too. I decided to do my own take on “Young Wild & Three”. I just love that fierce little slogan and couldn’t resist.

Dig It :: Kids Play and Printing

When you add meaning, be sure to equip with water for making mud pies and washing up. Spring is on and I have been working on designing a play space for the family. While doing so, I’ve made some parallels between it and printing in the studio.

STATIONERY ELEMENTS

Creating Value :: Paper

Paper choice. It's an important part of what pushes your work towards sophistication and something your client can value. Some of the considerations when choosing paper are its weight, color and texture, or/and taking it a step further by understanding the paper manufacturer's history and culture.

Letterpress Insert Covers :: Traveler Notebooks

NOTEBOOK INSERTS FOR TRAVELER NOTEBOOKS
LETTERPRESS COVER

I’ve been delving and developing notebook inserts. It all started with a bullet journal article I read. Like many of us we have a note book or ten floating around us at any given moment. They are promisers of taking a load off our brains, getting things better organized and the added bonus of sitting pretty on a table, but after a few pages filled they can be like an old toy left alone.

Letterpress Planner and Methods

Paper, thinking and writing come hand in hand in planners, notebooks, calendars, journals...  I wrote in an earlier post of the newest wave, the bullet journal, bringing note taking all together. It’s a creative and tidy method to put all your projects, to do lists, sketches, calendar of events into one place rather than having sheets of paper, numerous notebooks or even bookmarked links all over the place. What’s is more, you have more control over what goes into it.

i.e. ABOVE ALL, ME
CUSTOMIZED LETTERPRESS COVER - PLANNER

Bon Ton :: Classic Wedding Invites

Maria and Fulvio have officially tied the knot and I had the privilege to print up their wedding invites. In the design process I got to learn a thing or two about etiquette; wasn't the Emily Post type, but the Italian version Donna Letizia painter, illustrator, writer and perhaps better known for her commentary on how to be polite.

IL SAPER VIVERE

Style Your Next Party With Paper Goods

DIY PAPER GOODS: FOXY BABY
FEATHERED HATS, WOODEN CAKE TOPPER,
LETTERPRESS BUNTING & ORIGAMI FOXES

Seems like forever since I last posted, and it’s not for idleness, and actually I like the fact that I don’t have to post (despite the rules of social media), but want to post. My baby girl turned a year and I had a very full couple of months preparing for her party. As the usual, there were some obstacles, like finding the right decorations, cake and outfit. The rest and certainly most importantly fell into place when friends and family arrived and enjoyed the day with us.

I initially started by thinking up of a theme. I turned to Pinterest to gather some birthday themes for kids and created an inspiration board to gather ideas. I really liked the woods animal theme, but I also loved the origami theme too, and I knew I wanted some sort of photo backdrop. I figured out how to fold a fox, a bear, a rabbit, but as time permitted I could only project and letterpress one of them. The deer would have won out, but I couldn’t find a simplified origami version of it, and so my Foxy Baby was born!

We got a cake made, and made a calligraphic cake topper ourselves. I did some freehand calligraphy and my hubby carved it out of 2 mm aeronautic plywood--a nice keepsake for the coming years. The cool thing about this is we didn’t have to stop short with style choices that on-line businesses offer you for calligraphy cake toppers. If you’ve got a flair for doodling, I’m sure finding a laser or wood cutter could help do the job.

TEEPEE WITH STAR RIBBON & POM-POM
BIRTHDAY CAKE WITH WOODEN CALLIGRAPHY TOPPER

My color choices were salmon, gold and a watery green (best way to describe it). The watery green was hard to find in paper. Actually I did find an awesome Japanese paper in just the right color and did get it shipped from Denmark. I absolutely love it, so much I decided not to use it! So, that’s how watery green got nudged out of the design. Surprisingly gold paper was easy to find and got some shimmery sheets in thick card stock by Favini for half the price.

The idea that these party paper goods inevitably get taken out with the biodegradable paper plates and excess cake frosting made me a little uneasy. But that’s what party paper goods are made for, for the sole purpose for party. So I thought it important to weight in equal parts function, design and cost. Best not to spend a fortune on specialized paper for kid parties, but still find the right paper, design and printing technique to make it look good!

PARTY HATS & ORIGAMI LETTERPRESS FOX

I wanted party hats, but I knew I would never find them at any stationery store here. Yes it’s true, online everything is a cinch, but as noted before, most of these novelties come from America...and living in Italy you must tag on shipping costs and the like and decorations alone can push you over budget! The obvious solution was to make my own (with a little help from my friends). After looking at a few tutorials online, party hats, festooning and bunting was made.

For the photo backdrop, we got an Indian teepee custom sewn by a local tailor. We chose a cotton linen blend material for the teepee and some pretty trim and cotton star ribbon to embellish it from La Boutique, a modern old fashioned haberdashery in town.
It was to serve not only as a backdrop, but a cubby hole for our growing girl that can last her long after the cake’s been eaten.

Letterpress Chalkboard :: Beer On A Curve

My recent explorations in chalkboard paper for a client has been satisfying. On an earlier post I wrote about making your own chalkboard paper rather than downloading a digital file. At first I started off with hand lettering and a paper wire bound construction for the drink menu, but with the client we thought it wouldn’t survive the wear and tear. Back to the drawing board...

MY VANDERCOOK MAKES BEER ON A CURVE

DIY :: Chalkboard Paper

I was doing some shop comparisons and recording results. What a fun challenge to find not just the least expensive paper route, but also authentic. I needed to find some chalk paper and realized that most of the chalk paper sold are digitally mastered pdfs. Which got me thinking... Why pay for a digital file when the possibility to make my own shouldn’t be that difficult? After all, I only needed a small quantity and the essentials I already have: black card stock, white chalk pencil and a fixative to prevent my work from rubbing off. It worked!

PENCIL SHAVING ON BLACK CARDSTOCK,
CHALK PENCIL & FIXATIVE FOR ADHERING
DIY CHALKBOARD PAPER

Is Graphic Design Art?

So there’s a question older than “why are we here”.  Is graphic design art? Some say it depends on whether the project functions for the sake of monetary gain versus existing for its own sake. But maybe it’s about the scope.

PROTOTYPE, PLAY AT WORK.
EXPERIMENTS WITH HANDLETTERING
DRINK MENU 

How to Sketch Ideas

For some of us sketching might mean doodling on a napkin, for others it means saving visual inspirations on a mobile application (Evernote comes to mind) or perhaps Pinterest. But it all starts with an idea and then evolves into visual form.  Brainstorming the big idea is the hard part, but it’s also the most stimulating for me.

After the big idea and visual doodling, mock it up.

Print tests: checking out lay out and best paper for this project :: Stay Tuned!

Turntable Tuesday :: Letterpress Seed Packages

This post is long overdue, but hey really relevant come next spring! I organized a letterpress seed project with other European letterpress gals, except for two ladies who came from California and Mexico City. There is a brief description of the concept and list of participants here. It was fun collaborating with these talented people. I even managed to eat some of the fruits of our labor and have seen some of the plants come back to flourish again in 2015!

EUROPEAN LADY LETTERPRESS PRINTERS 
FROM GERMANY, ICELAND, BELGIUM, ITALY, NETHERLANDS, CALIFORNIA AND MEXICO

Turntable Tuesday :: DIY Kraft Wrapping Paper Tips

There’s a flood of cool wrapping paper on the market today. A simple home printer and ordinary kraft packing paper can be all you need...well almost. Kraft paper is a good choice for home printers, because it already has a rustic lack-luster look to it. Often times with home printers, color prints aren’t as vibrant as one would hope. After you’ve created or found artwork, you need to use graphic design software, in particular layout software to print the way you want on your home printer.  An alternative are the tons of savvy blogs or sites (heard of pinterest) today with free pdfs that you can print directly from!

DIY KRAFT WRAPPING PAPER 

What I Love About Letterpress :: Messy & Wonderful

What I love about letterpress.
Playing with paper-its colors and textures that come in direct contact with ink. The results are often surprising and even the mess ups are wonderful. They often times encourage your creative impulses. I think I’ll dedicate a few posts to the messy and wonderful!

Baptism Letterpress Invites :: Inviti di Battesimo

Battesimi (baptisms) are a pretty big deal here in Italy. A Sunday lunch out in a nice restaurant is customary to celebrate after mass. I printed up our little one’s invites for the special occasion. It had been a while since I’d used my metal type/decoration opting many times to use cliches.

INVITI BATTESIMO | BAPTISM INVITE LETTERPRESS SUITE
METAL TYPE COMPOSITION | TWO COLOR PERIWINKLE & HOT HAUS ROSE

Organic Food, Italian Markets, Gardens and Printing Inspiration

Juggling a new little being in the house has made getting back to the studio slower than I first imagined. Actually just getting out the door can sometimes be tricky. Having said that, I do add on more responsibility to my “to do list” that increases the workload and perhaps marginalizes time in my studio.

It’s baby food making mode here lately. It’s a bit of a paradox finding organic food living in Italy, and you’d clearly expect for every Italian mother to make her own baby food (yeah, 25 years ago). I mean, EXPO is being held this year, and everyone should be conscious of healthy eating habits (that should start at birth) right? Still, there are two main producers of canned baby food and a lot of mothers opt for it. Actually I think it’s probably more of a trend in America making homemade baby food, but I could be wrong.

Another paradox I’ve found is locating organic food here. Yes, we have farmers markets and yes families in rural areas generally have plots dedicated to food for big folk, but living in the north means there are pockets when there are no veggies growing in the garden and all depends on the weather. This year, for instance we have tons of cherries! And like the weather, studio time comes in pockets when I can sit down to sketch or typeset and start to think about what colors to use on the next project. 

Valentines :: Doodling, Hand-Lettering and Coloring Book Style

Valentines must be one of my favorite holidays...a day set aside to just say I love you and share something nice. Yes, I know everyday should be so sweet. This year, no printed cards! My little Maya has consumed me and I’m alright with it. Actually it’s given me the time to practice doodling again and creating things “handmade”. Typically, I think of my cards as handmade, and they are, but sketching entails no machines.

Pushing myself, or exploring the romanic and softer side of things too. Botanicals are a theme I’ve been wanting to play with and here I drew tons of tiny rosettes which could be colored in to your liking and varied--kinda like a coloring book.

Bathroom Redo :: Hooks

I first wrote about our bathroom redo a long time ago and tonight was the first night I actually got to step into that shower! We worked with a lot of artisanals and you can’t really give these folks deadlines. The bathroom door was custom, left nude then painted our choice color--it only took about three months to get that one done.

Letterpress Seed Exchange: DIY Mini Envelopes

I made some mini envelopes for a letterpress seed exchange project I did with gals from mostly Europe. I’ll post more on that project later. Here’s a simple illustrative how-to make your own.

TRANSPARENT MINI ENVELOPES WITH LETTERPRESS STICKER