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!

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?)

Looking Forward to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Hmm, by the looks of things around here, you wouldn't know that I'm a graphic designer would you?  For instance, the header that is so old it doesn't even have Ollie on it.  My computer time is pretty limited these days so I use it to work on whatever deadline is closest and try to fit in a little blogging time, and everything else has to wait (which is why I'm the worst at responding to emails and comments on the blog, but I love hearing from you, and I will try to be better).

A lot of my work is too boring to share or I have to wait to share it until it's been published, and by the time it's out there, I totally forget.  Anyway, every once in a while, I get to work on something really fun that I can share.  A few weeks ago, I got to do some posters and flyers for my mom for the Alpine Home Care and Hospice movie premiere of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.  I usually just use images from the movies for these premieres, but I couldn't find any images that I liked for this project, and I had a little extra time so I drew something up.  It's inspired by these vintage looking superhero posters by Michael Myers (If Creed loved Comic book superheroes, we would NEED these posters.  It's hard to find non-cheesy superhero stuff).  I should have taken the time to age this like the Michael Myers posters, but I was on a tight deadline.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, but I'm not so sure that my mom liked them. What do you think? 

 

I'm tempted to do a whole series with all of my favorite Harry Potter characters but I have no idea what I would do with them since they are licensed characters and all . . .

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.

The I Dos

My cousin Whitney married Scott today.  Congratulations!

They needed some unique wedding invitations designed to suit them, and lucky them, I happen to design for free when you are one of my favorite relatives that lives close to me and you have provided me with some free babysitting!

Whitney and Scott are a very funny couple and the only thing they wanted me to work with were some mugshots they had my dad take for them (yep, they got an expensive photographer for free too! And they actually knew someone with one of those boards they used to use for mugshots).  Out here people always send engagement photos with their wedding invitations (something my Ohio friends found very strange) so I knew I had to work that in somehow.  I'm not sure that Whitney's mom appreciated the mugshots, but I thought they were brilliant and needed something clever to go along with them.

Whitney and Scott both love some of the wedding invitations that they've seen that look like concert posters so that's the look we decided to go for.  I still wanted it to represent them and Whitney is a vintage lovin' girl so I wanted to do something Matte Stephens/Amanda Visell/Mary Blair/M. Sasek style (mostly Matte because he's my favorite) yet I still wanted it to be my own clean line version so people wouldn't mistake it for the real thing.

They enclosed different cards based on whether you were invited to the wedding in California or the reception in Utah.  I saw a hand like that on a vote poster and I wish I knew the name of the designer so I could pass that info on to you.

I hope they are having the wonderful wedding day that they deserve (and I hope Whitney's mom will forgive me for doing something so non-traditional).