Poppy Cards x 4

I've been so caught up with new ideas lately that I've been neglecting the important and very practical step of making my finished works available online. Therefore, tonight's Sonnet & Mayhem activities were focused pretty much exclusively on putting the first of five new card sets up on my etsy shop. I'm hoping to have the rest up by the end of the week.


I also had the pleasure of filling my first cross-Atlantic order this evening and I couldn't help but feel a little awe at the fact that one of my humble little cards will soon be heading to Europe. Definitely a moment that re-confirmed my desire to keep experimenting and making better prints and cards.

I have the apartment all to myself for the next few days and I'm planning to take full advantage of the extra space and solitude. I'll definitely miss having T around to torture with my endless crafting questions (Would you call this cream or eggshell...?), but I'm hoping that some quiet time will translate into some serious productivity. Either that or I'll spend the next few evenings singing show tunes really loudly while eating mustard and pickle sandwiches and watching Glee. You know, the usual gal-at-home-alone stuff.

Oh, Letterpress... This Might Be Love

I headed out bright and early this morning to attend my first letterpress workshop and boy am I glad I decided to sign up! Not only did I finally get to see, understand, and operate an antique tabletop press, but I also got to meet some amazing Toronto-area artists and find out a little bit more about some of the fun, artsy things going on in the city.

Having long followed Tanya's Snap & Tumble blog, it was great to meet her in person and see the detailed and complicated process through which she creates her letterpress cards. I also got to meet Tanya's lovely best friend, photographer Ingrid Punwani, and fellow letterpress admirer Adrienne.


After agreeing on a striking shade of blue ink, we moved on to a huge tabletop full of letterpress text pieces and started planning out our experimental phrases. Seeing all of the blocks lined up ready to be placed into endless combinations - heaven!


I loved working with the full sets of metal type, but I must admit that I have a soft spot in my heart for the jumbled set of wooden blocks that Tanya has as well. Matching up the misfit letters to create little words was almost as much fun as printing them out.


However, in the end I opted to use the metal sets for my prints. I had a bunch of little ideas written down and chose to print out the ones that not only worked as their own phrases, but could also be used for some other projects and gifts I have flitting around in my notebook.

I'm hoping to actually add pen and ink drawings to some of the 'Pen & Ink' prints I made and my favourite print of the day, the 'constellations' print pictured below, just might end up being the cover of a new little writing collection. Oh, the potential!

My letterpress mates produced some amazing prints as well (and shared a few samples with me), including a great 'Yarn!' text print using the woodblocks and a sweet 'XO' image that might go into hiding until I can give it to T for Valentine's Day.



After spending a few hours with the press, it's not hard to see how one could quickly become obsessed with printing this way. Lining up and printing the text by hand is incredibly gratifying and the end result has such a polished, tactile beauty that it almost makes you wish everything was still printed this way. (Although, this would make my job as an editor decidedly more complicated).

The workshop just flew by and I could have easily spent three times as long just playing with the type. Now I'm back at my own decidedly smaller work space (i.e. my kitchen table) with a stack full of beautiful letterpress prints and a huge amount of inspiration for other projects. Definitely an excellent way to spend a Sunday!

Paper Shopping... My Favourite!

Today was a busy day running around the city. T bought new glasses (black framed nerd glasses - so cute!) and I had my own adventure buying paper for tomorrow's Letterpress Curiosity Workshop by Snap and Tumble. I needed to find a very specific type of paper (hopefully, I picked up the right one!) and then cut it down into manageable pieces. I can't wait to check out Tanya's press tomorrow and will definitely post the results.

Now I'm off to brainstorm some text ideas to print!

Snowflakes... Too Soon?

I wasn't going to post pictures of my snowflake card experiment, but my sister saw them today and reacted to them far more positively than I anticipated (Thanks, TJ!). I printed this card with my other card sets on the weekend, but they were relegated into the 'test' pile until tonight.


It's a bit hard to tell, but there are actually three different colours of ink on the print (the three colours show up better when you're physically holding the card). I thought they looked a little amateurish, but maybe there's still hope for the print.

Card, Set, Match

Disclaimer: I've been advised (by my not so helpful husband and my no-good best friend) that this post title is too ridiculous, but I'm going to stand by it.

I went a little crazy with my poppy print today. Yesterday, T and I went to a friend's wedding and, with only seconds before we had to head out the door, I printed up a quick poppy card for the gift. The card turned out so well that I devoted the entire afternoon to creating new cards sets with the print.





I was really happy with how the sets turned out, especially the aqua/greenish colour set with the orange poppy. I'm still working out how I'm going to package the sets of four though. I really want it to be something special, but the ideas I've tested out so far obscure the actual card too much, so I'm going to have to brainstorm a little more.

Step One: Colour Inspiration

The perfect remedy to my apartment decorating angst arrived last night in the form of two gorgeous pillow covers that I ordered off of etsy from milk & cookies canada. The shop features a huge array of pillow covers made with stunning fabrics. It was definitely difficult to choose just one favourite to work with.


We've got a brand new grey couch all picked out for our post-painting furniture buying spree and these pillows are not only going to work perfectly with the charcol grey fabric, but will also be our colour reference when making other decorating choices (Accent wall!). Now if only we could get some white on those windsurfer walls...

Full Days

Lately, I've been feeling that there simply isn't enough time in each day to work on all of the things I'm trying to do. Between my job, the gym, keeping the apartment in a somewhat respectable state of cleanliness (don't even get me started on when we're going to finally get the chance to re-paint and decorate it!), and assorted social functions, the amount of time I have left for working on art projects has been getting slimmer and slimmer. This isn't meant to be a complaint because I love having lots of things on the go, but it does get frustrating when I can't move forward with creative ideas or get through more than five pages of an amazing book without seriously compromising the amount of sleep I need to remain pleasant and functional.

I think part of the reason my time is feeling a little condensed is that I've been daydreaming up all sorts of potential mixed media projects in which I could incorporate my prints. Before I started this particular project, I was dabbling in all sorts of other things - bookbinding, concrete poetry (any b.p. Nichol fans in the house?!), my beloved pen and ink - and inevitably some of my older ideas have started resurfacing. Linoblock print meets concrete poem! Huge potential. Stamped print plus hand drawn ink illustration. Could be amazing. I can easily think of a dozen projects I would like to try... if only I could magically have enough time (and, if I'm going to dream about ideal situations, a huge studio space) to actually make these things. The cost of the materials isn't even that high, it's just the time it takes to assemble them.

Hopefully, I'll have a few opportunities to get some serious work done in the next few weeks. Sadly, I just found out that I didn't make it into City of Craft. This wasn't totally unexpected as I'm such a new participant in the craft scene and I know it's extremely competitive to get a spot. I'm definitely disappointed about not being able to participate as a vendor (although, I'll be there with bells on as a buyer come December). Luckily, my alternative fall plan involves registering for Open Studio's printmaking workshops, so I've got a whole new project/learning experience to work towards.

All this fussing aside, and with a brief pause to acknowledge that I am responsible for more than a few wasted hours myself (Mad Men and Glee episodes anyone?), I'm pretty excited about some of the random new ideas I've been jotting down in my trusty pink notebook. Also on the horizon... Christmas presents! (And, no, it's not too early to start!)