Whoooaaa! (Midwest)

Ok. Not only is this an unflattering shot of my a**, but it is documentation of me roller skating. Something I haven't done since, what, the sixth grade? There were about a dozen of us. Three grownups and the rest were crazed roller girls. The dj played "YMCA" and an assortment of current pop tunes. The disco ball went around. There was cake and pizza. It was so much fun.

This organized chaos occurred to honor Hannah who will be turning 8 next week. Here she is. Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!

A Marriage of Mediums (Midwest)

This weekend I was able to get on my press and play with my new wood type (see post below). I finally came up with a layout that read "What's Up?". After quite some time setting it up and printing it the first time completely backwards (you need to have a mirror image on a clamshell press), I rearranged my type and ran some prints on various papers. I used a hand mixed yellowish green ink, the color of new leaves. I must've been influenced by all this rain. It is so, so green out again. Printing was very satisfying, yet I felt that the type looked a little unfinished. So, I sketched an illustration this morning and gocco'd it on top of the letterpress image. Whalla. I've got a few other sketches going that will use both presses.

Type (Midwest)

Aren't these pretty?

I recently purchased a batch of old wood type blocks on eBay in assorted fonts and sizes. It's a good mix of letters with most of the alphabet. I've been playing with them, rearranging them, stacking them, making words, etc. I'm thinking they will make a debut on a letterpressed greeting card. Or maybe a print? The big question is what to say? So far I've configured "What's Up?", "Hey" and "Hello" (and a few swear words, yes, I'm immature). As I play I find I only have one W. No X, Q or Z. This is not such a big deal. Toddler Sam (he refers to himself as such) has been helping with the rearranging part but isn't much help on the what to spell part. Any input?

Speaking of letterpress. I got some great press practice in this last week working on a "Save the Date" card for Joey's work buddy, Gilbert. He designed cards, sent them out for plates to be delivered to me, and I inked the heck out of them. I really like the calla lily illustration that Gilbert drew, see below. Gilbert, I hope your sistor likes the cards.

Logo Project (Midwest)

I'm writing a quick post here about amazing and award winning, local photographer, Kate Huntington. I met her through Sophie's preschool. Y'know us networking moms. I'm designing a new logo/identity system for her. Here's a peak at one of her business cards. Each card will utilize a different color on the front and have a photograph that compliments it on back.

Kate photographed our family last weekend. I'm really excited to see what the shots look like. We were able to see one shot thus far. Here we are doing our "family cheer".



If anyone near Madison needs a photographer please check out Kate's website. She's easy to talk too, affordable and really talented.

It's All About Etsy These Days (Midwest)

Second row, second from the left...

Etsy recently had a contest where they invited the Etsy community to create Treasury lists (these are the lists that you see on the Etsy front page of 12 images of products created and for sale by Etsy sellers). Etsy Admins would be picking 20 (they said then) of these Treasury lists to print and use as promotional posters. I figured, what the hey, this sounds fun, so I composed a list for poster entry. They had 901 submissions. They picked 60 winners, these will become posters, and 160 honorable mentions. My list got an honorable mention. Wheehoo! I win nothing except the feeling of accomplishment and pride in my layout and justification that the images and products that I liked were likeable.