New Head Shots

I hate being alone in pictures.  I don't know what it is, but I just get awkward and everything looks so inauthentic.  So last year when Sycamore Street Press came out with a new website, my about me page ended up with a weird picture of me standing in my friend's kitchen with Ollie standing in the sink in front of me.  I kept thinking that I had to have a better picture of myself in recent years somewhere, but after searching, I came up empty handed. 

Luckily, just as the Sycamore Street Press team was updating the about me pages, Candice came to town and took some new pictures of me while we were in the midst of a family photo shoot.

Even though I don't love being in front of the camera, I try to remind myself that it's important to have these pictures. I want my kids to be able to remember me at this stage of life (Heck, I want to vividly remember this lovely stage of life).

Sycamore Street Press updates the inspiration boards regularly, and I love seeing what's inspiring the rest of the team. And as an added bonus, for a limited time you can still spot me with a row of knives behind me with my child in a sink that doesn't even belong to me, and a little friend's hand holding a treat in the corner of the photo. Alas, I already sent in one of these new pics so it won't be up much longer.

The latest from Sycamore Street Press

For stationery designers, this time of the year is sort of like tax season is for accountants because it's time for the National Stationery Show, and this is the time of the year when Sycamore Street Press releases their new additions.

It's sort of funny for me to see these just being released because I've already finished designing another collection since then that will be released in the fall, and I have another project that's already printed and will be released soon (I cannot wait to share it with you!).  Even though I worked on these designs a while ago, it's still so exciting to see them in print.

So here are my latest designs, which are all available on the Sycamore Street Press site.  I had five new cards.

 And we rolled out a new fortune teller to predict your baby's future career.  You should take a look at it, because it's pretty funny.

 And I have two new 11" x 14" prints.  I can't wait to hang this first one in Ollie's room that I'm in the middle of putting together.  Figuring out how to make the text with one continuous line was tricky, but I love how it turned out.

I am so lucky to work with this group.  Kirk and Eva are the best printmakers out there and did you see Eva's new prints with gold foil? Swoon! And Kristin and Amy have the best new series of flight prints. Really, if you have a second, you should head over to check out all the new products.  I heart them all!

I'm feeling pretty fab

Do you shop at Fab.com? It seems there's something to tempt me every single day.  Today, I was pleasantly surprised to open my email so see some products from Sycamore Street Press (Eva mentioned the sale was coming up, but I forgot about it)

Happy shopping!  The sale lasts until Tuesday morning at 11AM E.T. Let me know if you need an invite or you can find one on the Sycamore Street Press blog.

Sycamore Street Press Giveaway

Did you see that Sycamore Street Press is giving away a big batch of letterpress cards?  You really should head on over there and enter.  You don't even have to jump through any hoops, just leave a comment on their post here.  You have until Monday.  Good luck!

Sycamore Street Press 2011

I love seeing all the new stationery that is released this time of year during the National Stationery Show.

  Kirk and Eva, of Sycamore Street Press fame, stayed home with baby Ingrid this time, but they've been really busy putting together their new line.  I truly feel blessed for the opportunity to work with them.  This year, I added three new art prints and three new cards to the Pop Line and we're working on a few surprises to be released later this year that I can't wait to tell you about.

 You would laugh if you saw the first rough drafts of the So Happy Together poster and the You Make Me Happy poster because they were so bad.  Maybe a post for another time?  Luckily, the designs came together at the last minute and Kirk did such a beautiful job printing them.

Can we talk about how complicated lining up the plates for the camera print is?  We weren't sure that it could be done because plates that big are hard to line up and there is no room for error there.  We all held our breaths and crossed our fingers and Kirk really pulled it off!

It's funny to think that people out there ordering these may see them in person before I do because we've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to get together with Kirk & Eva to check out all the new prints. I get a few prints each time Sycamore Street Press prints one of my designs so I usually have my own little stash of all of my designs (and I often trade them for items from the Lark and Folk lines so you should see the letterpress hoard I have.  Heaven I tell you!) 

If it wasn't too late at night I'd be tempted to post all the new additions to the Folk and Lark lines too because they really are amazing.  Here's a sneak peak of a sweet new poster from the Lark line that I'm excited to get a copy of.

And I can't believe the detail on the new Folk series of fruit art prints. Eva's drawing skills always leave me in awe.

I work with such a talented group.  You can pop over to check them out here.

All photos by Nicole Hill Gerulat

Ollie's birth announcements

Speaking of Ollie turning one, shall I post his birth announcement? Yep, I'm really that on top of blogging.  I almost didn't post about it at all, but I really love how it turned out so I think it's still worth sharing.

Our dear friends, Kirk and Eva of Sycamore Street Press, offered to letterpress whatever I could come up with for Ollie's announcement, and I couldn't resist an opportunity like that.  I decided to experiment with a large block of color, which is not really suited to letterpress printing which indents the paper, but I've been curious to try it and I never get the chance when I'm designing things for clients or the Pop line because I can't afford a disaster.  I figured that I would give it a try, and the worst scenario would be that I'd be out the price of the plate and have to start over.

 Luckily, thanks to Kirk and Eva's hard work, it turned out beautifully!  It was legible and still had a great indent.  The color was a little uneven and salty, and we knew it would be before we tried it.  I actually like it that way because I think it really highlights that it is handprinted.

 We are very fond of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are around here, and since Ollie is known for his loud growing noises, it seemed a suitable tribute.  That's another reason doing a personal project like this is so fun, I couldn't have used licensed characters as inspiration like this on anything that I'm paid to design.

I cut the envelope liners from Paper Source wrapping paper because they didn't offer that pattern in the size that I needed.  I love the pop of color it added.

 The pool-colored envelopes are also from Paper Source.

 I added a wrap-around address label that I designed and then they were off (six months late, but it's never too late to send out a picture of an adorable baby, right?)

Once Upon a Time, Long, Long Ago . . .

Amanda, Kristin, and I threw a baby shower for Eva.  If you read the Sycamore Street Press blog, you know that sweet baby Ingrid has arrived!  I have yet to meet Ingrid since Creed's been sick, and now I'm sick so I'll just have to make due with posting about her shower and looking forward to holding that little one when we're all better.

We knew Eva wanted something simple and relaxed so she could chat with all her friends so we put together a cookies and milk baby shower.  We held the shower at Kristin's house and Kirk insisted in pitching in by letterpressing the invites that Kristin designed.

We all made a few different kinds of cookies and some of the guests brought cookies too so it was a feast!

I was happy to finally have a reason to test my new message cookie cutters and I loved how well they worked.

 Two days before the shower, Kristin and I realized that we had no activity planned for the shower, and we thought it might be nice since a lot of the guests didn't know each other so she picked up some onesies and trim, and I picked up ribbon and brought sewing supplies, and we let Eva's crafty friends decorate onesies.

 I wish I would have taken pictures of all of the onesies because they turned out really cute, but I did get a picture of my favorite made by Susan.

It was so much fun to watch Eva open all of her gifts because there were a lot of lovely homemade things.  She really has some clever friends!

And thanks to the bounty of cookies, we were able to let each gift fill a box with cookies to take home.

I borrowed this last photo from Eva's sister-in-law, Kirsten's blog.

Kirk and Eva are such great friends so it was really nice to be able to help do something for them.

La La La La Letterpress

Kirk and Eva are teaching what might be the last Sycamore Street Press letterpress class (they are moving the studio and having a baby girl this fall so who knows what the future will bring).

I assure you that they couldn't be lovelier people so if you are interested in learning to letterpress, you should sign-up. You can find more info here.

PS- We recently had the opportunity to meet up with Kirk and Eva and the rest of the design team for Sycamore Street Press to celebrate Kirk's birthday and it was magical. Seriously. The evening involved hilarious stories . . .
bocce ball in a field on the top of a hill surrounded by breathtaking views
Homemade pie

and the evening ended with fireworks.

Creed said it was the best night ever (because he loves Kirk and Eva, but oddly, he calls them Kirk and Kirk & Eva (he thinks Eva's name really is "Kirk & Eva")

Our 2009 Christmas Cards

This year, our friends Kirk and Eva offered to letterpress our Christmas cards at Sycamore Street Press, an offer that we could not possibly refuse. I've been so excited about our cards so if you haven't received yours, please just skip this post because I couldn't wait any longer to share. They are about 5" x 14" and then I scored them and folded them up.

so when you unfolded them, they looked like this. I used the heads from our Craft Pudding custom stamps and then I altered them a bit (especially mine) and drew the bodies.
Sycamore Street Press used really thick luxurious paper that really showed off the beautiful impression the letterpress made. I think it was the perfect way to share our happy news with any of our friends who might have missed it.
I knew I wanted to use wrap around labels on the envelopes, but I didn't have time to design my own so I found a really cute free download here and I just adjusted the size a little to meet my needs.
(sorry the color on these photos is a little weird, it's been stormy around here so the lighting was not the best)

Birth Announcements

I have quite a few creative projects to update you on too. It sad really that it's taken me so long to get around to share this one. This year my friends Nikki and David had a beautiful baby girl. Eva asked me if I'd like to help create birth announcements as a gift to themi (Eva is ALWAYS thoughtful like that). I came up with the design and Eva handprinted them on her letterpress.

Nikki and David like to keep things fairly simple with clean lines so this is what we came up with. (I wish I had switched my camera lens to one that would catch the whole thing in focus).

I actually sent them a few designs to choose from and their daughter Audrey immediately fell for that little penguin family.

Sycamore Street Press Letterpress Fortune Tellers

If you know me, you know how happy I am to work with some of my best friends, Eva and Kirk at Sycamore Street Press.  It's so fulfilling to have a chance to work on creative projects and thanks to all of Eva and Kirk's hard work, I get share that with so many other people.  Eva has said to me several times that if I ever wanted to take my designs and have my own stationary line, she would understand.  What I keep telling her is that designing a little bit here and there for Sycamore Street Press is my dream set-up; I only work during Creed's naps and if I had my own line, I would be too busy with paperwork and accounting and shipping things too ever have time to actually design anything.  Eva and Kirk work so hard and have created exposure for my work that I never would have obtained on my own. Plus, let's be honest, it's just fun to work with friends.

We recently collaborated on a new project that I've had swimming around in my head for months; a letterpress fortune teller! My sisters and I used to spend hours making paper fortune tellers (or cootie catchers).  Now you too can have a way to predict the future.  

I love these so much that I think everyone I know might be getting these this year as a present topper or a stocking stuffer.

Eva, just added them to her shop so you can see more pictures here.

Big Sale!

Sycamore Street Press is moving to Utah!  I can't wait to have Eva and Kirk close enough to hang out with again! And you get to benefit too because they are having a huge sale to lighten the load before they move.  From now until Monday, June 15th at 5:00 p.m. just enter the code GOODBYECOLUMBUS at checkout to get 35% off your entire order.  After that they will be closing up shop until they move and then they'll have lots of new products to sell.

Glitz and Glamour

Right this very moment, Eva and Kirk are standing in the Sycamore Street Press booth at the National Stationary Show. It's a big investment and they have been working like CRAZY (while Kirk is in the midst of finals and his thesis defense).  I'm so proud of them for taking this leap of faith and I love having a behind the scenes glimpse as their business begins to grow.  They certainly deserve to be a success.

This morning Candice told me that she saw a post on Sycamore Street Press on Design Sponge!  I know that it makes me sound like a dork (and a little bit prideful), but I felt a little thrill of joy at seeing something that I helped design posted there.

ABC's and 123's

Eva just finished printing a new product that I designed for Sycamore Street Press and I am so excited about it!  She asked me if I was interested in designing a number print to go with the alphabet print that I designed, and of course, I jumped at the chance.  I love the new color combinations that she chose to print them in.

And she reprinted the alphabet prints in all the new color combinations too. Water and tulip, apple and chocolate, watermelon and rose, and then she reprinted the charcoal and orange.


You can find them on the Sycamore Street Press website or in the Sycamore Street Press Etsy shop.  both prints are 11" x 14" so you can use a standard size frame.  Eva cranks each one by hand through her letterpress and her hard work really makes them beautiful.

I think the water/tulip and the apple/chocolate colored prints would also look really lovely hanging in combination with the frame mats printed in matching shades of water, apple, and tulip.