Flamenco!

Linoleum on the press again! I love the hand-carved, quirky marks that come off of a linoleum block. Last week we had the opportunity to print for a local artist, Leo Debruyn. Leo's wife, crafter Maria Debruyn, brought the linoleum and helped to pick three bold colors and fine, velvety papers to match. The cards are available in their etsy shop, Crafty Mamacita. The cards are shown here before they were folded.

looks too good to not eat

These are (to the best of my knowledge) flowers growing in the center of collard greens. They are so exquisitely proportioned and geometrically perfect and my favorite color that I set them up on my window sill and photographed them. There must be millions of tiny flowers in there.

Then we ate them in salad- taste like mild broccoli. The vegetable fascination called to mind a letterpress card by Pancake & Frank that our friend Anne had sent a few years ago. I found it on their site along with several other lovely vegetables.

Steamed

This card never fails to bring a giggle to the recipient- especially if they suspect their cute behind was the inspiration.

Originally conceived as a Valentine greeting from Keith to Ron, “Steamed” is a limited edition of 80 and will never be printed again since the antique printing block was only in our possession for a few short hours. Cam paired it with Kaufmann and Engraver's Bold typefaces to place it in a 1920s idiom when steam (aahh) was still used as a source of power.

Give this card as a subtle hint to the one you admire or to remind your domestic other that way back you were just stealing a hopeful glance…maybe wishing you were at the bath house!

This card is available for purchase at Etsy.

Stationery Show Friends

I wanted to put up more on some of the great designers, printers, and shop owners we met at the Stationery Show. One of the highlights were the very warm and friendly people at Night Owl Paper Goods, whose cosy booth featured a set of exquisitely thin wooden notecards. The colors were all warm and had a great 70s feel.

One of the new stores that will be featuring our Lettre Sauvage wedding book is Convier Design, a boutique shop located in Redmond, Washington - our first northwest location! They were very friendly and knowledgeable, and we were so pleased that they were willing to share so much of their expertise with us. We trust we're in very good hands with them. 

We were also visited by Maginating, a new letterpress company close to home in Los Angeles. They had great bold patterns and colors, and we were especially impressed by their lovely blue burlap booth. 

The owner of Pretty Bitter had a wonderful story about receiving his booth space as a Christmas gift and coming up with a stationery company in time for the show. The result was an energetic and witty line of greeting cards. We especially like the awkwardly verbose "Sentimental Journeys" which playfully demonstrate how attempting to say it all never really gets the job done.

Finally we were thrilled to be visited by Urban Mercantile, a home accessories store that we'll definitely be visiting (and shopping at) the next time we're in San Francisco. We were excited to have a positive response from the owner, but moreover it was great to get constructive feedback based on shoppers' tastes and other letterpress offerings out there. Look out for our stationery and new matchbook sets at the store!

Stationery Show Part 2

We had a really successful time at the National Stationery Show, placing our wedding books and stationery in a number of stores around the country and meeting a lot of really great and interesting people. The giant matchbook noteset, which has perforated cards that tear out, was a big hit, and the little matchbooks that we gave away always made people smile. 

The stationery show was massive. Besides just stationery, there were pens with flowers on top, wrapping paper, ribbons, photo albums, Japanese decorative paper, and trinkets of all kinds. There were the big companies with massive booths, like Crane's and American Greetings, and then a lot of smaller companies like us. One of our neighbors, and some of the nicest people at the show, was Bald Guy Greetings, and their bright and quirky illustrations won them a Louie award. We hope they publish a children's book sometime soon.

Being surrounded by so much great work at the show, we were inspired to design an upcoming broadside and a few new wedding invitations during our spare time. All in all, we had a wonderful time and will definitely be back next year.

Lettre Sauvage at the National Stationery Show

Our first National Stationery Show experience has been great so far --we've brought with us new stationery lines, wedding invitation sample books, a handful of our literary editions, and a highly regarded matchbook noteset (more on that soon). Though it's a big trade show with thousands of people milling about, people who love paper tend to very friendly and open. We've learned quite a lot from kind buyers, wedding and event planners, store owners, creative directors, and other printers/designers like us. 

If you're in New York and plan on attending the show, we invite you to visit us at our booth #3346! 

More details and pictures soon.

minimalist holiday card

Available in a pack of 6. On sale at Etsy.

MOO mini cards

Being enamored with all things small, except maybe fleas and lint, here's a link to MOO mini cards. They're really inexpensive, lovely "widescreen" name cards in a very adorable size. And you can choose any number of images to put on them as well, so you can have lots of different cards. We like in particular the fact that you can put any text on them, so these would make an affordable complement to, say, a wedding invite or announcement.