Mixing Inks, Roller Bearers, and the Start of a New Year Card

Friends that know me know that I am notorious for spilling things on myself, so it's no shocker than whenever I work with ink, I tend to get it all over my hands, arms, and sometimes, to my great dismay, my clothes. So this past weekend, I decided just to get my hands dirty only once and mix all the different greens and blues that I will be using in the coming weeks. These are (hopefully) all the greens and blues I will need to mix to finish my holiday collection. All these greens and blues were mixed using opaque white, Pantone yellow, Pantone green, and process blue.

I used the light blue today and it came out so beautifully I had to share. If you notice on the press, I'm using two roller bearers on either side of the form to keep the rollers at type-high. The roller bearers are type-high and serve to prevent roller slurs by keeping the rollers type-high before it hits the form. This saves majorly on the pains and sorrows of taping the rails to get the rollers type-high.

And here is the result -- the start of my New Year 2008 card:

I still need to mix my pinks and purples (I am using A LOT of colors) as well as a peach color. But I just needed to share this beautiful blue!

Enjoy!

Holiday Letterpress Card Listed on Etsy!

So thanks to the great feedback I received on my first letterpress holiday card, I decided to go ahead and list them as is on Etsy! I paired the cards with sage envelopes and packaged them in sets of 4. These cards are priced at $8 for 1 set of 4 cards and envelopes, $15 for two sets (8 cards and envelopes), and $20 for 3 sets (12 cards and envelopes). Applicable taxes and shipping not included.

You can also email me (joiestudio[at]gmail.com) with your name, email address, shipping address, and how many sets you would like, and I can send you an invoice.

The Zen letterpress cards are in queue to be sold on Etsy as well -- I'm waiting for the envelopes to come in.

(You can also buy these cards at my upcoming craft fair outing at Handmade for the Holidays November 23rd and November 24th.)

Brewery Artwalk This Saturday & Sunday!

For all my readers in Southern California:

The Brewery Artwalk is this weekend - October 6th and 7th! My friend Michelle will be showcasing some of her riveting photography (check out http://www.afootephotography.com) at the Artwalk, so hopefully you'll get to attend and see her photography!

Oh, what to do about the slightly imperfect?

I'm almost done with my "Ladybug Luck" set, and I think they're coming out really nicely, almost exactly how I envisioned them!

I printed the ladybug in black and the wording in gold. I was going to letterpress the red shell on as well, but I didn't want to lose the emboss/deboss effect of the ladybug's black dots. So I decided to color them in by hand instead. I haven't colored by hand in a really long time, and staying in the lines was never my strong point, so there were a few that are just a tiny bit off...still passable, but I don't want to sell them as they're not up to my standard. But they're not bad enough to throw away or reuse as scrap or anything, so I'm in a quandary about what to do.

Here they are -- only slightly noticeable:

I'm thinking of putting them in a "Slightly Imperfect" basket at my open studio or maybe the next fair I go to and giving them out as freebies or something. I don't know. The bottom line is that I don't want the slightly imperfect to represent my work, but I don't want to just throw them away either! Oh, what to do?

2008 Letterpress Calendar Peek

Yesterday and today, I started on my 2008 Blooming Joie letterpress desk calendar. I'm planning a limited run of 150 calendars of this particular design, so it's quite a bit number of sheets I have to print. Each of the months will have an antique floral illustration in one color and the month printed in another. In the coming days, there will be pink, orange, yellow, lavender, and purple! I'm so excited because I've been planning on making a calendar since March, and now all my planning is coming to fruition! Here are pictures of the first run of three of the months:

Lily (left) and Double Tuberose (right) in sage green

Hibiscus in red

Chinois Set

I finally got around to these cards that I have been planning to print all summer long. They are A2 flat cards with rounded corners, printed on thick Crane's Lettra Pearl White, and will be paired with a red envelope. I am planning on packing these in sets of 8 (2 of each design) in a nice stationery box, perfect for gift-giving!

Here are the closeup pics:

First Holiday Card

Here's Joie Studio's first holiday card of the season! I can't decide whether to leave this alone since it already looks so great or to print a "Happy Holidays" on the card as well. In any case, here are more pictures!

Zen Cards

This is the first card I printed yesterday in my sage run on my Pearl. I love the branches -- it has a very Japanese feel to it, and I call this my "Zen" print. These cards are A2 size, folded, and blank inside. I still have to score them and fold them, but I think they came out beautifully.

Here are more pictures:

What a Run!

Whew! I just cleaned the Pearl. Today's run on the Pearl has been a dream.

Last night I did some practicing on feeding paper on the press -- no ink, no chase, just the press running and me practicing feeding the paper. You might think it's silly, but since the Pearl is motorized, it is important to practice and get into the rhythm so as not to lose paper or, worse, damage a body part while feeding paper into the machine. (ONE HUGE RULE in operating motorized platens: if you lose the paper or misfeed it, just let it go. Once the platen starts closing, LET IT GO. It's not worth losing a finger over!)

Today was just supposed to be a test run -- I thought I would have to make some adjustments on the press, but once I put ink on the press, it was ready to go! Everything was set perfectly. I underpacked the platen as I didn't know how exactly the platen screws were set, locked my form in my chase, set my guides, and pulled a print. Which came out perfectly. No need for makeready, no need for any adjustments. PERFECT. So perfect that today's test run became my first run on the Pearl.

I did a sage green run, printing the flower designs for two of the months for my 2008 letterpress desk calendar. I also printed my Zen design on A2 cardstock and started on some holiday cards. I printed over 600 pieces today, and my wrists aren't sore and my arms aren't tired.

I hit one snag when I tried to print coasters -- apparently the Pearl was set perfectly for paper, but not for thicker coaster stock. It's been over 30 years since the platen screws have been messed with, and I really hesitate to even touch them because it's such a pain to adjust platen screws, especially when it's already set perfectly for paper.

All in all, today was a great letterpress day! I'm so ecstatic over the results! Tomorrow when there's good light again I will photograph all the great prints I made today. I'm so happy my sister talked me into buying this new press!

Joie Studio is on IndiePublic!

I've heard good things about IndiePublic, so I decided to check it out. Check Joie Studio out on IndiePublic! I'm trying it out to see how it compares to the tried-and-true MySpace. I know a lot of people love Facebook, too, so I have to think about whether I want to keep up Joie Studio on three networking site.