Un-Baby Shower

Baby showers can be fun (especially when you replace games with wine) and baby shower invitations can be fun too.

This is the latest custom shower invitation I've designed – it's flat printed, but it would be fantastic letterpress printed in just one or two colours.

{I hardly need to say it, but the actual invitation doesn't have gaps in the phone number or email address. That's just me bestowing privacy via Photoshop...}

Winter Wedding: Chantal and Dave

At last I can show you all the pieces I designed for Chantal and Dave's wedding reception in D.C.!

I designed the invitations around their wedding theme: peonies, fuchsia, navy and lime, and then I created a complete wedding stationery suite to match. Chantal sent the photos from the reception this week.

These are the menus...


The sign for the Vice & Nice table, with chocolates, liqueurs and cigars...


The Bride and Groom seat signs...


Sign for the 'love notes' table...


Countless escort cards...


The menu again...


...and the table numbers.


It's such a thrill to see the way everything came together.

{Images: Roman Grinov Photography}

Cut and paste!

You don't even want to know (and nor do I) how many hours I spent on this design, but I was really happy with the way it turned out.

Kristen and Brian wanted another custom Christmas card reflecting their lives and pets and passions, and I was a long way down the making-a-collage path before I realised I was in pretty deep.

I spent days scrapping various drafts and living in a blizzard of paper bits. Eventually I dug my way out of the photos and magazines and catalogues – Crate & Barrel, J.Crew, Paper Source, Land of Nod – and put the finishing touches on this scene.


(I should say: these cards were finished back at Thanksgiving, but I didn't want to spoil any surprises by posting them here too soon.)

Orange, pink

This email from my sister-in-law Shelley, in London, made my day:

"I accidentally bought orange flowers, when I knew I only had pink wrapping paper at home. For a few moments, I thought my present would clash... but then I went to my card drawer. I am chuffed, chuffed, chuffed."

(I should tell you the Vespa on the card is bright pink; for some reason it's looking decidedly un-pink on my screen...)

Une petite fille...

Here's a custom baby shower invitation I just finished. I loved this job – one of those times where everything just clicks. Of course by the time I was done I wanted to leap on a plane to Paris....

(Oh – the mama-to-be is an amazing musician who lives in Paris... I wasn't just applying random Frenchness!)

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Peonies

Chantal and Dave tied the knot on Saturday – hooray!

I've been working on custom-designed pieces for their wedding all year, and now that they're married it won't spoil any surprises to show you some of their stationery here.


Chantal chose peonies as the inspiration for her entire wedding stationery suite, with her wedding theme colours of fushcia, navy and lime.


The picture above shows the wedding invitation and RSVP card... they were enclosed in navy folders along with menu selection cards and direction cards. Here is the menu...


It's so long that I didn't manage to fit the end with all the cakes in the photo!


Above – the escort cards... and here's the wedding program...


... the peony design extends on to the back cover, and the text inside is navy. And here's the sign for the groom's chair:


(There was also a Bride sign, which was much more ornate!) The sign below invited guests to write down their best advice for the newlyweds on small notecards...


The table numbers (below) were framed ...


...and Chantal had a brilliant idea for a "Vice And Nice" table, with cognac, cigars and chocolates. The sign below was framed and placed on the table.


There were Welcome stickers and Thank You stickers (I don't have pictures of those) as well as these little notes for the welcome baskets...


...and finally, the brunch invitations!


Hopefully when Chantal gets back to D.C., we can show you some pictures from the big day...

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Bright idea

With Kickbaby collecting 'loot' before he even makes his debut, sending thank you notes has constantly been on my to-do list lately.

This weekend I had a happy wave of inspiration and finished a brand-new design – the Oh-So-Euro "Merci" notecards! I got very absorbed in making them and now I'm feeling quite excited about sending out fabulous new thank-yous.

They're in the Thank You section of my Etsy shop right now, and will also be available on the Pepperina Press web site soon.

Letterpress: Evolution

Above: my 1902 Chandler & Price Old Style 8x12 letterpress "in the wild" in a little town outside Yakima, Washington, when I bought it on April 28 last year. Even before it got outside (it was only in the elements for about a week) it had accumulated a substantial coat of dirt, oil and grime, and was showing its age.


Ten months and 4000-odd miles later, the letterpress emerges from climate-controlled storage and undergoes the "Dad treatment". My dad used 'down time' during his visit from Australia to whip the press into shape: new motor, new pulley, new belt, gear rebuild, comprehensive oiling, and more cleaning than it had probably seen in decades. The photo above shows it without its upper feed table (which tends to obscure some of the work). The photo below shows what it looked like before Dad came along.

See? It was a bit scary. And deeply dirty.

The picture below shows the press after Nathan's Dad got going on it last week. Among other things, he cleaned and shined the ink disk, fitted a kill switch (which my Dad lamented not having time to do before he left) and attached the upper feed table after a minor repair.

You'll notice two of the three rollers are missing in the photo above. The previous owner had apparently been getting by on two rollers, but I've ordered three new vinylith rollers from NA Graphics in Colorado, along with trucks, California wash, tympan and packing.

Above: another "before" photo, showing years of accumulated grime.

Now that's better... lots of olive oil, fine-grade steel wool, 3-in-1, marine grease, compressed air, fine-grade sandpaper, kerosene, WD-40, and two Dads later – I have a letterpress to be proud of.

I still need to order grippers (just last week I realised they were missing, not just packed elsewhere) and a new bail to replace one that looks like it broke off years ago... but I'm getting scarily close to having no excuses not to use this monster! It's exciting and daunting.

But mostly exciting.

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Love and Letterpress

Usually when I tell someone I've bought a letterpress they'll say, "Awesome!" and then, "...what is a letterpress, exactly?"

If you click here, you'll see the mini-documentary on letterpress that still gives me chills. The first 10 seconds tipped me from "I'd like to have a letterpress" to "I must have a letterpress or I'll surely die".

The documentary is type-focused and doesn't show the actual machine that I own (a Chandler & Price Old Style), but it's wonderful, and fascinating, and well worth watching. I promise there are no diagrams.

Right. I'm off to clean more "historical grime" off my press.
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The Letterpress Saga: Part Four

It wasn't as hair-raising this time.

On New Year's Day, Nathan suddenly decided it was time to get my century-old Chandler & Price Old Style platen press out of storage, where it's been snoozing in climate-controlled comfort since our move from Seattle, and into our garage.

He called a few tow-truck/wrecker companies before he found a guy willing to tackle the job. We learned from bitter (and terrifying) experience that you need a forklift or a tow truck to get this monster from one level to another. We've also learned not to tackle it alone.


This time Nathan and John-the-tow-truck-guy used a pallet jack to get it on the back of the truck and used ratchet straps to tie it ten ways to the bed. Then we held our breath all the way from D'Iberville to our house, with Nathan saying helpful things like "It's gonna come off this corner for sure" and "There it goes".

At home, they strapped the press base to the pallet jack, raised the bed and used the winch to inch the press down to the garage. I was holding my breath, but not having conniptions like last time.


It's now safe and sound in my soon-to-be letterpress workshop in the back half of our garage, ready for its grand makeover. There's a lot of work ahead involving drill bits, oil holes, 3-in-1, fine-grade steel wool and WD-40, and no doubt some silent swearing.

It'll be worth it though. I've dreamed of this forever.

Whiskers on kittens

I had to gaze at the walls and pace around nervously for a long time before I came up with this design.

It's a custom Christmas card project I completed earlier this month, and it needed to show: Kristen and Brian; their cats Dusty and Maisy; a lot of holiday spirit and some moving boxes (they're in the process of relocating from Manhattan to a riverside home of their own, north of the city).

Kristen loved my retro cards, so I pulled all the details into a 1950s-ish design full of off-register colours, melamine shades and boxes and kittens. We actually ended up with more kittens than originally planned — Kristen had sent me photos of herself and Brian and their two cats, and when the card was nearly done, one more photo came in. It was Oliver, a tiny little bit of a kitten they'd rescued.

Who can say no to a brand-new kitten at Christmas? So Oliver made his Christmas-card debut just in time, playing with an ornament near Kristen's feet (you can see him in the picture below).

Custom projects make me nervous at the start — every time. Staring at a blank page (well, screen) with every idea and option untouched is daunting. And sending the completed design to a client for the first time feels, to me, like walking out on a stage. But the process is inspiring, and the rewards are great. I love knowing that little drawings can help capture the spirit of a moment — big or small — in people's lives. I love the feeling of having done a great job, and breathing that sigh of relief.

It's always a little stress at the start and a lot of happiness at the end. A bit like Christmas.

Ta-daaaaaa!

I've been promising forever that I'll post photos of my new studio once I get it finished and organised. I think my last promise was quite a while ago.

Well, I've realised this is as organised as I'm going to get in the foreseeable future, so here's the guided tour!

First, a reminder of what it looked like when we moved in (on a much sunnier day, as you can see):


And the photo at the top of this post shows what it looks like from the doorway now – mainly my work desk and some storage shelves, and the edge of the block-printing table around the corner. This (below) is the trimming and packing table, which Nathan's dad made at a nice standing height so I don't have to lean awkwardly over to do all that fiddly stuff anymore.


In fact, Nathan's dad is responsible for this entire room. Seriously. He made both the tables, he painted the walls (you do not know how long it takes to tape and undercoat and paint a room with this many angles – it's insane). He mounted the wall shelves. He assembled the floor shelves. He put up the clear memo board and the white noticeboard and he made every single thing fit perfectly. And did I mention he drove down from Dallas to do all this? The man is a saint.


There's even this little corner for when Berry wants to join me (see above... she was working on a sticker-collage that day), with a play mat and amazing hand-stitched cushions from my sister in South Africa. The areas you can't see are the extra shelves by my desk, and the huge and excellent store room full of shelves (to the left of my desk) where all the endless boxes of blank stock and coloured envelopes live.


This place makes me happy every single day.

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Brightness

Splash of colour for the rainy day we're having here: an Etsy treasury called Mod Madness by modsandminis, with my Bella Figura Birthday Thrills card at top left.

The Vespa girl kind of got her head out of frame, but you get the picture...

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Sleighbells in summer...

In the world of cards, it's never too early for Christmas.

Rephrase: for highly-organised card-givers, it's never too early to buy Christmas cards. I've heard of people who are already addressing their envelopes (yes, in August).
So... drumroll please... for all the highly organised types, I present the first-ever Christmas/holiday cards in the Bella Figura collection. Festive and fun, guaranteed to brighten even the chilliest December – and available on Etsy now (yes, in August).

Oddly, despite my card-and-stationery-obsession, I'm not a highly organised Christmas card giver myself. I'm more "ruh-roh, is it November already?" My excuse is that I'm too busy making cards for other people to be early with my own. You don't have that excuse.

More holiday designs and Christmas card sets coming soon!

"Before" (Part 2)

You've seen the studio empty and full of promise – now here it is, full of boxes, functioning (very basically) and ready for its own Extreme Makeover.

We're working like crazy to get it perfectly organised for maximum creativity and efficiency – two of my favourite things – and of course it needs to be pretty.


I'll have "After" pictures in a few days!