Presenting Our Bundle of Joie!

Presenting our new bundle of joie!

Sorry to have disappeared for the last couple months! I have good reason, though! Our baby boy arrived six weeks ago, and it's been an adjustment period ever since. Above are pictures that I took about 3 weeks ago. Baby Joie arrived May 28th, right on his expected due date, weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces and measuring 21 inches. He's kept me on my toes ever since, but my husband and I are working out the kinks to our schedule, and I'll be back in the print shop sooner than I thought I would! More soon!

Scenes from Unique Los Angeles

First, thank you to LA-Story.com, et al., who have been so good as to plug Joie Studio's attendance at Unique Los Angeles this weekend. I've been super bad at plugging our own events. I am over 8 months pregnant at this point and was wondering if Baby Joie was going even let me attend. Joie Studio is splitting the booth with our friend Blue Note Press. Here's a pic of our entire booth:

Here's another shot of Joie Studio's side of the booth:

Our clearance table:

And our table, filled with some sneak peeks of new products as yet only available at craft fairs:

I'm prepping another post in a couple minutes with more close-up shots of our new products.

I Covet...

This is definitely a non-letterpress post. I was clearing out my email when I noticed one from Bed Bath and Beyond with a gorgeous set table and immediately thought, "I want it":

It's Lenox Simply Fine Chirp collection, which is just beautiful. I only wish it wasn't fine china, with fine china prices. Here's a place setting:

It's such a great design composition. It's very rare that fine china moves me, but heck, maybe I'm just being all hormonal and pregnant, maybe it's a great balance of colors and vintage design.

Happy Spring to all!

Another Design Project...

So my husband and I have been working on our spare bedroom for the baby. I am so excited by how it turned out that I needed to share a pic. Here I am with our cats and Romeo, my dog, in the redone baby bedroom/guest room. The picture's a little blurry, I know, but it's so rare to have a picture where all my animals are all together. I've been blogging about my experiences thus far and other baby goodness, including redoing the room for baby, on another blog called Oh Baby! Now What? if you want to check it out. There are in focus pictures of the room there for those interested. Enjoy!

Happy Girls Day

Happy Girls Day!

In Hawaii, March 3rd is Girls Day, and the tradition comes from the Japanese hina matsuri, where, if I recall correctly, girls showcase their doll collection. We made a whole letterpress collection inspired by Japanese dolls and this festive day, and what better day to give you a preview of the design than Girls Day?

Here it is in production:

And here's a closeup shot of the A2 card:

We've yet to score and fold the cards, but here it is in all its cuteness.

The design was lovingly illustrated by yours truly and is a 3-color letterpress registration nightmare to print. But I do love the design so so much. I can't wait to finish it and pack it up so it can go to new homes! In the collection are Ready-to-Write Letterpress Invites, the A2 card pictured above, flat stationery, and gift enclosures. I've also been toying with thank you cards but we'll see. There is also a limited edition 8x10 art print that I'm working on with this collection. More info to come as I complete the collection! Enjoy!

Joie Studio's 2009 Calendar in the LA Times Today!!!

Picture taken from Los Angeles Times

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! Joie Studio's 2009 Letterpress Desk Calendar is featured in the Home section of the Los Angeles Times today! It was very very exciting to go and get the paper from my doorstep this morning and open it up and see my very own creation staring back at me!

I'm so excited! Check it out, and if you haven't gotten a calendar yet, go to Joie Studio's Online Letterpress Shop and pick one up!

Congratulations, too, to Christine of Flora & Fauna (who we had the pleasure of meeting at Bazaar Bizarre in May) and Krank for their inclusion in the same article!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Okay, so today is Christmas eve, and I figure I would give my blog readers a little gift. Here is a video that I took recently of a print run of envelopes so you can see what the printing portion of letterpress entails. In this video (it's all of one minute, 46 seconds), you'll see me feeding envelopes into the press. It was actually a lot more effort than I thought it would be to take a video of myself. I had to find a tripod and set everything up so you can see what I'm doing. One of these days I'll do one where I'm actually talking, but for now, I hope you enjoy!

What I'm printing are envelopes for a recent custom letterpress order for Bourbon Steak Washington, DC. The press is running at my "usual" speed, and every now and then, you'll see me use the throw-off lever to throw-off the impression - usually when I misfeed or I'm "off-time." The plate, in case you're interested, is a magnesium plate mounted on wood, and the ink is a metallic bronze color. The envelopes are a gorgeous gold metallic.

Let me know if you have any questions! Happy holidays!

Last Minute Gifts...Joie Studio Style!

To help out last minute holiday shoppers, I'm offering free gift wrap on our 2009 letterpress menagerie calendars! So you can grab a calendar, sans gift wrap, which looks like this in all its packaging glory:

OR you can order it gift-wrapped, in your choice of gold foil or metallic green, complete with your choice of one of our letterpress gift tags:

The calendars (gift wrap or no) are available in both the Joie Studio Letterpress Shop and the Joie Studio Etsy shop.

I'm also offering exclusively in the Joie Studio Etsy shop Menagerie notecard gift sets, which are a set of 8 notecards of the animal of your choice, boxed in a sturdy kraft gift box. Here they are in an open box:

If you're sending the box set as a gift, I can close it up for you and add a letterpress holiday tag for the finishing touch, like so!

And, if you like the letterpress holiday tags, they are available all by themselves, in a variety pack of 4. I'm unsure I will reprint these, so get them while they're around!

Survey: Which Animal is Next?

Okay, so those of you who were at Felt Club and Bazaar Bizarre know that the baby monk seal is the next letterpress card in the Menagerie collection. But we had so so many requests for other animals in the 2009 Menagerie desk calendar to be made into cards, coasters, etc. So I put a survey up on the right here on the blog for my readers to choose the next animal to get its own letterpress card.

Here are the contestants:

Fox

Giraffe

Panda

Octopus

Let me know what y'all want to see next, and I'll get started! Democracy works - vote!

Back in La-La Land!

Whew! We're back in Los Angeles! Bazaar Bizarre was a blast on Sunday! Thanks so much to the organizers for putting on such an awesome event. Dena and I had a blast in San Francisco! We went to the CLOCK BAR Saturday night, which, as you might remember, Joie Studio made the pre-opening reception invitations for, and had the most delicious truffle butter popcorn there. It's a super fun place right across from Union Square -- check it out when you get the chance!

Now for some exciting news! You can now find Joie Studio products in the Bay area at the following locations:

Indie Industries
218 Columbus Ave.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415.986.7043

Studio 4 Art
1133 Grant Ave.
Novato, CA 94945
415.596.5546