DIY Best of Show! (West Coast)

DIY magazine did a special section in the winter issue of the magazine devoted to small time crafters. Lucky Bee Press was included in the mix of letterpress crafters! Thanks DIY! Congrats to all the hard working crafters who also were listed—about 50 in all! And a special praise to the other letterpress gals! Yeah letterpress!

Getting Organized (Midwest)

I completely blew off celebrating the Nation's birthday this year. Why? My little people and my husband went up North and I stayed home to finish up some work and letterpress details. I spent 8 hours in my office yesterday and today, so far, I'm at 7 hours. I designed, invoiced, printed, stuffed envelopes, babysat the neighbors cat, went for a run, photographed new products, reorganized my Etsy shop and cleaned my office! It feels so good to get organized. This week all I need to do is find a big box and ship my wares to California and then I'm all ready for Renegade.

Speaking of Renegade, I believe I now have 7 new products to display there. I have scads of new mini notepads:




And, I have other goodies fresh off the press already listed in my Etsy shop.

I can't wait to travel back to my old digs and hang with Laurie.

Spring Where are You? (Midwest)

I can't believe March is almost over. If you were to look outside my window you would understand why. We have a couple new inches of snow covering the grass that was beginning to turn green. The crocuses must be wishing they had waited to come up. And, I'm sure the birds are annoyed that the nests they have been building are snow covered.

I find myself mildly discouraged by the snow, yet optimistic because it feels warm and things sound like spring.

This last week I have been in and out of frame shops trying to find the right frame for the letterpress print that I'm donating to our preschool's silent auction. I found a frame that has a weathered barn wood look to it. I liked how the texture of old wood relates to the wood type I used to create the print. I'm so pleased with how it looks I even listed a print in my Etsy shop. I haven't been listing many new items and hope to post more prints soon.

Speaking of Etsy, Laurie and I have been discussing consolidating all our cards at our joint shop. I may keep amyb13 open for fine art prints and more limited run cards. Change is a brewing.

Alright, it's time for me do a little house cleaning...

Having Fun (Midwest)

This is a photo from a shipping box I got in the mail this week. It made my day for two reasons. First, I love that someone spent the time to draw up a personalized message for me. This particular scene is right up my alley (love the breasts on the woman and the ice cream cone). Second, within the box was my latest Etsy find. I ordered a very interesting art object titled "Stand by your Striped Man" from Minnesota artist, gilhooly. If you have time check out her etsy shop.

Below you see my Man sitting on my mantle next to another art piece by Leslie Dill (some info that here). The pottery is from Madison artist, Gloria Van Dixhorn.



I'm sure my Striped Man will migrate around the house, but right now he has me thinking about displaying a little collection of images of the human form on my mantel. I must go dig out my life drawings...

Well, I'm off to get a jump on my week. I leave for Mexico in two days! Hooray!

Say Cheese (Midwest)

Last Sunday Kate picked me up and we headed downtown to do a little photography shoot/walk. We sneaked into the Hilton and headed up to the top of the building. From there we discovered that the top floor party room was left unlocked and unattended! We had to enter. The room had a bar, a bookshelf with arty vases and vintage books, and an amazing view looking down onto Monona Terrace and the lake. My first thought was to mix myself a drink, but then I remembered the task at hand which was learning to take pictures.



I'm still in the initial stages of mastering my camera, so I mainly just try to take a picture that isn't blurry. I do consider the composition as I line things up, but it's pretty much an unplanned let's see what happens approach. Kate talked about where to stand to catch interesting light, and about background color and scenery. It was very interesting. Lots to consider as I continue practicing.

After we exhausted our Hilton photo opportunities we strolled outside and shot flowers. The evening sun was low in the sky and seemed to get tangled in the petals and grasses. Very pretty.



The evening was perfect for strolling, chatting and taking pictures. It was such a nice little outing. I'm glad to have a friend who shares her creativity and skills with me.

Finally, I'd like to send a thanks out to Diana of Pravina studio. Diana creates simple and modern bags and accessories. She also maintains the blog, Heartland, which highlights her discoveries in the Midwest. I met her this summer at the Craftacular and she sent me a note several days later asking if I wouldn't mind being featured on her blog. Hello!?!?? Of course I wouldn't mind. Here is the post. Thanks again Diana. I'll see you at Renegade!

Lucky Bee Gets Lucky! (Midwest)

Laurie called me yesterday with some exciting news. Lucky Bee Press has a card featured in the September Issue of Family Circle Magazine! Here is a photo of page 25. Right under the "25" you can see our (small) Koi Card. They even linked our Etsy shop. Whoohoo!

Ok. Enough horn tooting. I'm now returning back to regularly scheduled weekend plans...

The Good & the Bad (Midwest)

Well, May is just cruising by. I'm stunned to look at my calendar and realize that it's the 20th already. Summer approacheth.

Our good news: Laurie and I received a convo last week from an Etsy admin letting us know that one of our cards (above) over at Lucky Bee Press was requested by a main stream magazine. We shipped it off and are holding our breath that it gets published. I'm hoping not to jinx it by posting, but this news is too exciting not to share. Also, I applied and was accepted for the next Craftacular, so I have a summer craft fair to look forward to. Here's a link to the vendor list. I just ordered two new folding tables and am thinking about sewing some sort of table cover. I'll have to look through my fabric stash and see if anything I have on hand will work. Also, I'm ordering some card display racks, and will make a sign.

Ok. Bad things, there really aren't any, I shouldn't complain. I guess my big issue is I have NO TIME to print these days. Joey is away on business, so I'm kinda busy with the kiddies. And, the free time I have fills up so quickly. I'm thinking that this weekend I'll get an opportunity. Laurie however has been giving her press a workout. Every time I talk to her she's printing. She is definitely the lucky bee at Lucky Bee these days. :)

Ok. I must dash off to run errands.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun (West Coast)

I am lucky to have a great pal that keeps up our blog so reliably. I am not as good at recording the daily ups and downs of our world. I have the best of intentions, but my days just fly by. I keep waiting for a lull. Some quiet that will leave me time to collect my thoughts. All is good, very good, just very busy.

Lately, I have been trying to get up to speed on my new press, printing labels, stickers, and everything else to get my cards ready to sell. Thank you Amy for helping me through these crazy few months of letterpress 101. I couldn't have done it without your treasured advice! Thanks!



I had my first Etsy sale yesterday. Very exciting news around here. I shipped it off today, carefully wrapped and ready to open.



A little while back we made our way up to a cool bay area store in Daly City (south of San Francisco). It is a Japanese Dollar Store called Diaso—a chain similar to Dollar Tree. It is filled with everything Japanese from paper, to baskets, to kitchen tools and storage, to craft supplies. Very, very cool craft supplies. Great papers, pens, sewing, knitting, ect... I literally could spend hours in there just searching out that perfect find. On this trip we had just 20 minutes on our way to visit some family across the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, we were late for lunch, but my family is a sucker for a bargain. Here are a few of the cool crafty things I found. You can't tell by the photo, but the paper is kraft color, and has nice texture through it. I plan on printing something onto it with my letterpress or maybe Gocco.

Murphy's Law (Midwest)

Laurie knows that I am a true believer in Murphy's Law. The true definition of Murphy's Law is pretty bleak: if anything can go wrong, it will. Over the years, I have adopted my own definition for Murphy's Law. Mine is sort of a when it rains it pours approach to Murphy's Law. Y'know, if you are on a deadline (me) more work will fall onto your plate. Or, if you have all the time in the world you will have nothing you need to get done. This week is a Murphy's Law week for me (in a good way). I'm on deadline. Almost done. But, all this extra work is coming my way. Also, I've had several Etsy orders and one wholesale order to Malaysia. Sheesh.

I owe one of my Etsy orders to the beautiful treasury above by hhopper. It hit the front page and brought me an immediate sale.



On the Etsy front, today I photographed 3 card/tag/misc stuff sets to list on Etsy. Sort of an inventory reduction idea I had. I'm having fun picking out items that fit together based on color, and texture. Here's a photo of my first listing that went up today. The theme is red and yellow. I priced the set so it would be a good deal.

Alright, I've been up since 4:30 working. I must now go choose between caffeine or napping. I'm leaning towards the caffeine. I'll have to re-evaluate my situation in a few hours.

Busy Bee (Midwest)

Twas a busy weekend full of the typical kid focused activities and hanging out at home time. Joey and I reorganized my office. My press got moved for the third time. Now it sits on vintage farm cabinet just large enough to house all my inks, chases, letterpress furniture, blocks, etc. A sturdy beast for sure.




I also had two hours to print. Thinking back, I'm really beginning to streamline the printing process. I have the set up stuff down. I can clear a work surface, set out papers, mix ink, lock a chase, mark the print area and have my press ready in about 15 minutes. Next it takes about 1/2 an hour to get my ink and impression to a passable point. That means I can do a modest (maybe 100-125 items) in 45 minutes and clean up for 15. Anyway, I ran a fiery orange color on several different stocks and a couple different blocks. I really like how the above Koi Fish and Bubbles letterpress & gocco combo came out. I'll have card sets and tags to list at Lucky Bee Press in a day or so.

I Snagged One (Midwest)

Quickly, because it's Sophie's 6th birthday, and I need to not be late collecting her from school today... I snagged a treasury spot this morning over at Etsy. I will probably mix up the images a little bit over the weekend just for fun. Of course the main theme would be my pool and red color combo, but this treasury has quite a bit of black and some good movement. It was hard to limit the list to 12 items. I could've doubled that!

Next week I'm planning on doing a card give away so stay tuned for more info on that.

Have a nice weekend all!

New Etsy Shop (Midwest)

My client, friend, fellow craft fair buddy, Chrissy at Boh Bon Soap Co. has set up shop over at Etsy. I helped her with her packaging, shop banner and avatar. I think her shop looks very unified with the photography and signage all working within the graphic language we established with her packaging system. Go check her shop out. Her products are absolutely wonderful.

This is a timely post because just yesterday I sent off a 5x7 print of the Boh Bon soap packaging as my entry into a packaging design competition. Laurie and I have entered and been recognized in various competitions and design annuals over the years. I miss the prestige that comes with publication and plan to start entering contests as I start taking on more design work. I hope the judges like the packaging as much as I do. It's fun just to participate and put personal value on my design work.

A (Midwest)

As I await the start of another school day I just had to take a minute to post this photo I took yesterday. This is a shelf in our bedroom. Of course it features my favorite color palette. The two letters "A" and "A" I bought from the happydashery on etsy. You have to at least go look at her shop banner and avatar. They really make me smile. Joey has always been the big collector in our house. I've been on a roll as of late collecting some things of my own like, letterpresses & vintage type. I am starting to think about organizing our home to showcase our found objects and small collections. We have had neglect a lot of decorating because of little hands. Our kids are getting older and I'm looking forward to having a more "grown up" home.

Yesterday I printed for a short while. I have a new work table (vintage from Germany per Joey on Valentine's Day) and my press isn't bolted to it yet, so there was too much creep. I had to stop. It would be terrible if that press slid off the desk and onto the floor (or me - yikes). It's a couple hundred pounds.



I did get a few impressions. I hope to do a larger run soon. This is "scribble bird".

No Spring Yet (Midwest)

First my whine: It's flippin' -12 degrees outside! WHY!?! I think extreme snowfall records should be quite enough to deal with for one winter. Mother Nature what are you thinking? I do thank you for the lunar eclipse last night, though. That was pretty dope. Ok. Moving on...

I finished the promotional card for Kate this week. I love how a beautiful picture can make a design. Isn't this photo fantastic? I have more cards to complete for her if/when Sam is not tugging on my leg or driving his trains across my desk. We'll have to see how today goes.

I'm fighting some sort of kid initiated illness (again). My throat is scratchy and my voice is about an octave lower than usual. I sound like Kathleen Turner. Weird. I think I will take Sam out to buy some lemonheads today. (To help my throat in case you missed the connection.)

Finally I'm thanking a few blogs who have posted about my cards or mentioned my shop name. Thanks go to etsy-love, orangebeautiful, Haute Innovations, Indie Fixx, and mydesign scout. I'm very grateful for the support. And, I am enjoying reading new blogs.

Ok. I'm off to pack lunchboxes.

Stuck (Midwest)

Today we have ICE. And rain, freezing rain, and sleet. Did you know that hail, freezing rain and sleet are all different things? Who knew. We have them all today. You could skate and swim in our driveway. Ice with a layer of rain. It's 20-something degrees out so I'm not sure why it's raining. But, it is. We can't go anywhere. At some point the rain is supposed to change to heavy snow. Oy.

This week I look forward to finalizing some graphic design work for Kate. And, starting a new project for The Madison Trust for Historic Preservation. I am loving having some design projects on my plate. Using my brain to think about things other than what to put in a lunch box. Finally!



Lastly, I checked my quiet Etsy shop this morning to find some major new views and hearts. Seems as if I was in another treasury that hit the front page. Exciting, and again, a very interesting grouping of products. Check out the crocheted cuff by irregularexpressions in the second row, middle. In fact, look at her shop. I love her method of free form crochet. Great colors and technique. Inspiring.

Happy Valentine's Day! (Midwest)

So today, to celebrate Valentine's Day, we start out with an 8am trip to the kid's dentist.

What was I thinking?

I scheduled this appointment 6 months ago, and I guess I must not have considered the date. They are gonna love me for this one for sure. The day will be better later. Joey and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day umpteen years ago with a carpet picnic. There was this colossal snowstorm and we had Italian deli treats on a table cloth on the floor. We did this every year until we had kids, and then we started to include them. So, tonight we will build a fire, lay a tablecloth on the floor and eat expensive picnic foods with some goldfish crackers thrown in for good measure. There will be chocolate. It has become a much loved family tradition.



I have decided that part of my enthusiasm for lettepress printing needs to be tossed monetarily back into the community of small letterpress businesses. So, I'm starting by making quarterly (and then some) purchases from other letterpress vendors. Here is the first item I bought. It's a calendar from Don't Press Me. Each monthly card has a different color graphic. They all slide neatly onto this wooden base. It's very nice and the perfect size for my cluttered desktop.

Trying Something New (Midwest)

Yawn. Sigh. I have nothing I have to do today. Well I do, but I'm taking the day off. After this post you might find me watching tv, in the tub or maybe even at the mall. Uh huh uh huh. Bring it.

Yesterday Hannah and I went skiing at Cascade Mountain. I'm amused that ski places in Wisconsin can call themselves "mountain". Really big hill is more appropriate. Hill or mountain doesn't matter. It was a blast. I wish we could do that more often. Next time I want to get Sophie on skis. She's 5 and (I think) old enough to learn.

Tomorrow my table at Poppytalk (see above) debuts. My main goal is to get more traffic to my etsy shop. We shall see how it goes. I need to pay off my mega paper order, so that I can justify buying more. And, I'm fantasizing about buying a larger press.

Ok. Short post. Leisure stuff to do. Enjoy the rest of the weekend all.

Checking Things Off the List (Midwest)

From Saturday's letterpress print session. Laurie, the sage ink came from mixing opaque white, process blue, red, yellow, and black. I'd say 4 toothpick dabs yellow to 1 each of the the others, and of course mostly white. This is the sage above, and below.




So, here I am for my Sunday morning weekly post! It seems that by Sunday our family has settled into the weekend and the kids are not at my feet, giving me some time on the computer. Today I hope to spend a couple hours working on some stray design projects. I have three type changes to make to the brochure below, then it can go to the printer. I have an Etsy banner to design for a friend (not ours Laurie - that's still a secret - shhhhh), various print marketing materials for a client, and some gocco cards to finish up. Ambitious for the amount of time I have available today. It will be good to cross these items from my list. How I long to have an 8 hour day to work. It's really hard to schedule these things in for an hour or two here or there. I shouldn't complain. I'm very fortunate to be able to stay at home with the kids and work (if I want).



Tomorrow I will print more items for my shop. Also, I've been a busy bee preparing some cards to debut in my booth over at Poppytalk Handmade Market to start on Feb 11th. This is very exciting for me. I may post a sneak peek next week, but I'm planning on keeping the final products under wraps until they go up for sale. :)

Friday (Midwest)

After a smallish bout of insomnia last night (from the adrenalin from LOST?), I find myself blurry eyed and behind this morning. I was planning on going to the gym. But, since I didn't get back to sleep till well after 4:30 I was too tired. Maybe next week. After I haul all the squirts to school I will have an extra cup of coffee and hopefully some success on the letterpress and my day will start to look up. I need to get those thank you cards done.

Yesterday, I received my delivery from Paper Source in the mail. On Monday I ordered new Gocco bulbs, screens and ink with my gift certificate from Gilbert (aka GI, aka Gilboat). I had some extra room on my gift certificate so I indulged in some rubber stamps and pads. It was quite the haul. Of course, when the box came yesterday I ripped it open and got busy. All the bits and pieces of paper in my house got adorned. Now I have a stash of little cardlettes to put into my Etsy shipments.

Friday (Midwest)

It has been a nice week here even though outdoor temperatures have made my office super cold. Old houses with old windows. You get used to it. The kids had indoor recess at school every day this week. That makes for some crazy end of the day behaviors in our house. Today they had early release so we went to a local indoor pool, the one with 88 degree water, and got enough exercise to make up for the extra time inside. We are back now with pruney fingers, nibbling on bunny crackers and having some down time. Ah.

Earlier this morning Joey and I went to a local estate sale. I'll post photos of the items I scored after I have a chance to photograph them. I bought two prints by an artist named Gabrielle Brill. I tried to google some more info on her, but maybe I have her first name wrong, because I turned up nothing. Anyone?

Oh, I'm posting a photo of a treasury that I was lucky enough to be included in. The individual products look so good together. I like the graphic nature of the subjects. It's fun to see what people put together in treasuries. Gotta love Etsy.