If you want to get organized, sometimes you gotta make a mess first.

In the midst of changing the office from 70% Jason and 30% Holly to 10% Jason and 90% Holly.
Don't worry, he has 100% of an office in the city now, in addition to the server room down the hall. You read that right, we have an entire room devoted to a server in our little ranch. Although we also have an entire garage devoted to a letterpress machine, so I guess I can't complain too much.

&

Amazingly, I made it through design school without ever learning how this little bugger got its shape. Finding this tidbit of information while flipping through Polk's classic "The Practice of Printing" just reinforces my undying love for the ampersand.

Well hello there, cupcake!

Tara is THE luckiest girl in the world. Not only did she recently get engaged to a hot doctor (well... she's a hot doctor too, so he's just as lucky!) but he also proposed WITH CUPCAKES.

In preparation for coming showers/bachlorettes/and all those other things associated with weddings that require a thank you card (enfianced: take note! you will need lots and lots of thank you cards) she commissioned me to design something special to celebrate the cupcake-laced proposal. Don't you think everything should be cupcake-laced? Cupcake-laced traffic! Cupcake-laced dentist appointments! Cupcake-laced jogging! That would be awesome.

And that last photo, the one that's probably a little too busy for a product shot? Total accident. I was using that chair (yes, that crazy pattern is a chair in my house) to prop up a bounce board and I couldn't help but notice that the colors in the card matched perfectly. The fabric is from Anna Maria Horner, I found it in CO on a trip with Jason's parents. I've been an admirer of her work for a few years now, and I picked up this bolt without even knowing it was her. At least I'm consistent, right? Anyway, you should check out her site and especially her blog. She's insanely talented, her house is crazy colorful, and she has like 16 kids.

Letterpress printed on Ivory 110lb Lettra in "Red Velvet" (the cupcake du proposal) with Blossom envelopes!

Now THIS is multitasking

Cleaning roller riders AND getting a tan at the same time. This is the best job ever.

Love:Holly & Bill

Not me Holly. A different Holly. I'm already happily married. And his name is certainly not Bill.

I pretty much had free reign with this one. I had just started thinking everything I do is completely unoriginal and lame (which I tend to do, like, everyday) when this little diddy popped into my head. I am butt-crazy in love with the logo I whipped up, and how those lines feel when you rub your nail across.

Letterpress printed on 110lb Flo White Lettra in Good Ol' Black ink with Peacock envelopes

Woot!

Love: Krissy & Steve

I always like to chat with the bride (and groom! if he's willing) a bit on the phone or in person before a start a design. The internet can be so impersonal. Through our initial email exchange Krissy said the theme of the wedding was "Wine". Wine? Like, just booze? Errr... okay. BUT through further explanation over the phone I discovered that Stephen proposed at a vineyard in California, Bella Vineyards to be exact. Aaaand they are moving from boring ol' Mass to California- sunny, glorious, sunny, vineyard-filled (did I say sunny?) California- after the wedding. Okay, now I get it. I did a little internet sleuthing and surprised Krissy with a custom drawing of the famous caves at Bella Vineyards and incorporated it into a simple design reminiscent of a wine label. She loved it!

Letterpress printed on 110lb Pearl White Lettra in a custom-matched Eggplant ink with Plum envelopes.

Love: Kim & Billy

The bride & groom wanted modern & simple & not something they'd look back on in ten years and say "HELLO 2011". Fait accompli methinks.

Navy & Poppy on Lettra 110 Flo White. Matching Navy envelopes with custom liners. Return address in Silver. Hopefully my last mag on wood job EVER.

So how are my pictures looking? Good? I am loving this depth-of-field shit. Every time I mess with it I think back to my one photo class in collage and how I totally bombed the depth-of-field project. I just could not grasp the concept for some reason. I'd like to blame the 20-ish year old camera I was using, but in hindsight it was probably just a hangover. Do you think they could be a bit brighter? I'm finding it hard to draw the line between "bright" and "blown out".

Happy March 4th! Here's a Christmas Card!!!

Printed on Flo White Lettra 110, blind emboss (deboss? the jury's still out) and a custom mixed brick red ink. The always fashionable Sarah paired these with a lovely Gravel Paper Source envelope. More photos here.

And is there some magical blogging formula I'm missing? I'm finding this all very frustrating. It seems everything I try gives me some sort of other problem. Oh look, the left half of my photo has been cropped off! Why the eff is my text centered now?!? How did this space get here?!?!?? WHY IS THIS PHOTO SO SMALL!?!?!?! And it's not even like I went and fancied up my blog, I mean LOOK AT IT. It's basically the default, I'm guessing this is only going to get harder once I start pretty-ing it up.

Maybe one of my 2 readers can help? I'm not asking for much, I'll break it down to bullet points because my anxious nature requires organization:

• I would like larger pictures, even when I hit the "large" button they're still only the size of my fist on the screen.
• I would like all my photos to be the same width, preferably the same width of my text. Is this something I need to do myself in p'shop or is there a magic "make all my pics the same damn size" button?
• I would like to link up with flickr so people can see a larger version of my photos, but also because flickr is where all the cool kids are. I really don't have the desire to manually copy and paste a link for each photo. Where is the magic "flickr" button?

It's not helping my case that I have no html experience. And apparently I really have a thing for buttons.

Update!!!! Now with LARGER PICTURES!!!!!!

Is this thing on?

pazxmas20105 a photo by for the love of letterpress on Flickr.


Update: Not exactly the blogging epiphany I was hoping for. Lets try this again...

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This past week or so has been pretty amazing

Here's the random smattering of events.

First of all, I recieved two wonderful gifts from my sister:
1. Zoe Patricia

Jason and I have already decided she's going to grow up to be a hipster, or whatever we'll be calling the cool kids in 2030, and she has my sneeze.

2. A Canon G7

It's a hand me down, but I'm already taking immensely better pics with it compared to my old point & shoot with the scratched lens. And I'm super excited about all it's quasi-SLR functionality.

ALSO....
We spent an entire weekend with Paige & Emily while mommy and daddy were busy at the hospital. They are such good girls. There were lots of snuggles and giggles and only one huge meltdown.  When I woke up Saturday there were little feet in my hair, and when I finally got home on Sunday I took a four hour nap.

I discovered I can feed southpaw, not as efficiently as the right but in a pinch (i.e. when I'm too lazy to redo make-ready) it works. And I still have all my fingers.

I smashed my first plate, not a good thing, but it taught me that all those other printers weren't kidding when they stressed over and over again "DO NOT PRINT WHEN YOU'RE TIRED"

Two lovely books came in the mail, I should practice using my fancy-dancy new camera and capture some of the loveliness.

An unexpected (especially unexpected since we just celebrated our first anniversary) wedding gift arrived on our doorstep: a weighty, warm, and soft hand-knitted blanket with a beautiful ombre stripe pattern. A sweet handwritten note that accompanied it explained it's tardiness; my aunt had been working on knitting this blanket for over a year, she experienced a few hiccups and with each one she did what most in my family would do: throw it in the closet and wait for it to fix itself. The eventual result was worth the wait, it fits just beautifully in our living room, even complimenting the paneling and the black leather sofas (we're just working with what we've got here, folks, but trust me, it's working). I'm surprised by the emotional attachment I've already formed with it.

It was almost 60 (!!!) here on Friday, which just happened to be a vacation day for me. I ran a 5k in a t-shirt then sat on the front steps with Wookie soaking up the sun.

My Boxcar base is on it's way! Everyday I've been running home to hoping to see it sitting quietly on the front step just waiting for me. Alas, not yet.

AND... this I'm really so excited about. We found our new kitchen table. It had been under a tarp in my Dad's basement THIS WHOLE TIME!!!!!

Wow. I am so screwed.

Reading My So-Called Freelance Life's section about dealing with distractions when working at home.



I'm a business...MAN!

Props to all my homeys who got the jay-z/kanye reference.

Thank you, Interwebs

For making today a little more tolerable.

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/

A little late but....

Here's our 2010 Christmas Card!!! They obviously went out a few weeks ago, but things have been crazy 'round here lately. Holidays, birthdays, and one very sick kitty who's scheduled for surgery on Tuesday (yes, we are those people) equals little time for blogging. Not that I was ever good at it to begin with. I am SO proud of these babies, check out that registration! I do not screw around. It's kind of a curse. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you! I have FOUR working rollers now!!! All just kissing the plate beautifully.... life is good.