Work in Progress

photo - knit scarf in progress




*tap. tap.* Is this thing on? Testing. Testing. *ahem*

It's been more than a while since I have blogged. Today just happens to be one of those days were it seems like it should be done. Now, what to say? It's difficult to jump back in after such a long silence. How about an outline of life since my last posting in May?...

Summer happened.
I worked.
School started.
I worked.
Fall happened.
I worked...

Most of my work has been freelance graphic design and consultation work, and I've had quite a few projects for the food industry. I have worked on milk cartons, pasta boxes and sliced cheese packaging. I even landed a job so large that I had to outsource some of the work. Luckily, Laurie is still my trusted design sidekick and she saved my a**. We met the most ridiculous of tight deadlines...ON TIME. I'll be able to post photos of projects I've worked on when they "go public".

So today, as I finish the last of my projects for 2010 (hopefully), I'm wondering how it became almost 2011. Crazy. I plan on taking the next few weeks off to hang out with my family, shoot photos, knit, ski, sled, and relax.

Hope all is well with everyone out in bloggerland.

- Amy

Portfolio Work (Midwest)

I have been a busy bee these days. I have been building a local client base steadily for the last 6 or so months. My plan is to have a pretty full plate of design work come September of 2010. That's when all three of my kids will be in school full time! (No time to cry about that today, but it's a comin'.) I could spend my days getting manicures and watching Oprah, but I can't wait to be working again. Yes. I'm a design dork.

Anyhoo, I find it so interesting how my photography is working it's way into my graphic design work. Yesterday, I photographed some packaging samples for my portfolio. I have no studio lighting, so I had to work with available window light and white foam core for bouncing that light. All this time I spend behind the camera is really paying off. Though these aren't perfect, I feel like I was able to work with what I had and make a presentable solution.

Also, It was fun to go through my file cabinet and leaf through labels, boxes and other samples. When I pull out a sample I have all these fond memories of my old clients and the times Laurie and I spent working for them. I miss those days. And Laurie, I miss you the most. I'm glad we are going to be together in New York for a whole week!

Quite Quiet (Midwest)

I've been a quiet blogger as of late. I thought I'd better post a little "me" update...

Here is the laundry list of my life's current events...
- 4 business trips since September (Oy)
- weekly freelance projects (I'm so happy to be working)
- 2 week family battle with H1N1 (all 3 kids plus Joey, I was spared)
- approaching winter and cold (we are outside as much as possible for now)
- jury duty (I was excused after one day)
- camera love (I'm back to daily photo taking and so happy about it)
- Craftactular this Saturday!

Today I print and get signage ready for this weekend's craft fair. I will take the camera so that I have some things to blog about next week. :)

News and Notables (West Coast)

This Apple Picking Cardigan from Anthropologie would be a great addition to the working wardrobe. Amy and I were having a conversation about the lack of inspiration in our daily clothes. This sweater paired with a cute blouse might add that extra flair that we need... And so would that shopping trip over to Anthropologie!

Thank you Jodi at the Creative Jar and Cassadra at Metallo Bianco for including us in your posts today! Also, Cassandra let me know that the new issue of DIY Magazine is out, and it includes a feature on etsy and it's sellers is the winter issue. I haven't seen it yet, but we were featured as one of the sellers in their "Best of Show" section. Thanks!

Roll Me Over (West Coast)

This week I opened a special package containing new rollers and trucks for my Chandler and Price. It is sort of like Christmas in September, without the any needles to vacuum up. I have been running my press with two older composite rollers and I finally decided to take the plunge, and splurge on some new rollers. While I was spending anyways, I thought I would just be brave and purchase the third roller that has been missing on my press since I purchased it earlier this year. With all this came the need for the additional trucks too. I decided on composite rollers for my press. I have been using them for the past few months, and they seem to work really well in my climate out here. I had tried rubber rollers before, and they caused me a lot of grief. So I am now operating with new rollers and trucks. Pretty cool!



Some birdy treats for my shop. I have been working on keeping some sets of notecards in the shop, and decided to do a themed set of goodies. Mini notepads, cards and hangtag/bookmarks.

One more thing, thanks to Paper Crave and Paper*Cakes Finds for the nice write ups!

PMS (Midwest)

I'm checking in with nothing super new to report. I'm almost finished with one of my big freelance brochure projects, and the second one is well under way. I'm hoping to have printed pieces to show you soon.

Busy day today, my brother is in town from Cali with his group and my mom is around, too. Gotta run.

Oh. This photo is one of my new mugs from the Museum Shop at the Art Institute in Chicago. I wish I had bought a couple more colors, but they were very pricey.

TGIF (Midwest)

This was a long week. We had lots of rain and Sam was off school for 4 days for parent teacher conferences. Sophie was home for a day sick and now Joey is complaining of a sore throat. I'm trying not to panic and run through the streets screaming "Run for your lives. The swine flu is here!" Instead, I'm going into preparedness mode. I have spray hand sanitizers in all the kids backpacks and we are washing hands again and again and again...

Now, I need to simmer down and focus on my design work. I am behind on invoicing and if I could finalize my projects that will allow me to clean my plate a bit and maybe even earn me some time on press.

Also! I feel cheerful because May is here. May is my birthday month and for as long as I can remember the arrival of may was always bright and colorful to me. It meant flowers and leaves on trees. Sunshine, cake and presents. Then, summer and swimming pools.

Welcome May!!!

Coming up for Air (Midwest)

I've been a pretty lame blogger as of late. I'm smack in the middle of spring break and the kids are keeping me very busy. Since, I'm heading out of town for a couple days I figured it would be a good time to post before I dash off...

I have a couple design projects running right now. I'm quite pleased to have print projects on my plate. I was sketching brochure ideas the other night and it was so fulfilling. I plan to work as much as I can this weekend (around Easter activities) to get a jump on the work I need to get done.



Oh also, I was able to do another photography assist gig last Monday. I helped hold reflectors, talk to the model and even shoot a bit (see photo above). I'm really enjoying my camera. Every day (well, most days) I look forward to taking my picture of the day. Even when I don't have my camera with me I find myself noticing things and thinking "that would make a nice photo". Sometimes when I'm talking to someone I catch myself moving so I can view them in better light. This really surprises me. Now I need to find a way to incorporate my photography and my letterpress. More on that soon...

Hey Y'All! (Midwest)

I'm home from my 5 day adventure in the Nashville area. I could probably blog several pages about the Franklin, Tennessee area and the things I saw, ate and did there, BUT, this blog is "supposed" to be chronicling my crafty-designy side so I will post something related to that.



I present to you Hatch Show Print. Hatch is an example of a successful letterpress business. Located right downtown, the Hatch people have been designing and printing show posters for Music City for quite some time. I think the business originally opened in the late 1800s creating advertising for local companies. Today you can come in and watch them work, pet their shop cat (if he isn't grumpy from being stepped on) and browse and shop.





The things I liked most in the shop were the postcards made from make ready sheets. I love that they don't let these practice prints go to waste. I bought several cards which I'm deciding what to do with. Maybe frame them as a set. The image below is a make ready sheet that they had woven into an interesting wall hanging. Very clever and fun to look at.




It's good to be home, but it's too cold here. Winter cometh.

What If Modern Advertisers Created the Stop Sign? (Midwest)

http://view.break.com/542649 - Watch more free videos

This is so spot on. Laurie, does it remind you of some of our old clients?

It's a bee thing (West Coast)

For the past 15 or so years, Amy and I have been collecting bee things. Now that I have a letterpress, and a Gocco, it has given me a new way to put a bee on everything around me. I have had a week of stinging little objects in my office with my latest bee. For the longest time, I have had only my rubber stamp collection to mark things. This week I put likely things into my letterpress to see what would work. My favorite was this little notepad. I did 10 of them for the upcoming Renegade Fair in Chicago that we be at. The pearl yellow ink background was Gocco printed first. The photo doesn't show that part well, but you can see the look.

Getting There (Midwest)

After a weekend bout of the stomach flu, a trip to the ER (Sam got two corneal abrasions - ouch), and a few too many extra curricular school activities, tomorrow I get back to my to do list. I'm almost done with my graphic design commitments for the MTHP. I'm even starting to see some pieces come back from the printer (see brochure above and invitation and program for an awards event below). I love an unwrinkled, unfingerprinted, still smelling of fresh ink, brochure. I also love the satisfaction of finishing a job that I know I worked for. All the details of the process become worth it when you have a finished printed piece. Physical evidence of work accomplished. It's so satisfying. Time to invoice!



It may rain tomorrow so I will probably go to the gym and finalize some other design work. I'm secretly (well not anymore) hoping that the girls soccer practices will be canceled. It would be nice to have a family dinner at home and a quiet evening. Sigh.

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.

Flappin' Friday (Midwest)

I have a moment to post this rather mediocre photo of me taken last Saturday night. Joey and I went to a fundraiser for The Relight the Marquee project at the Orpheum Theatre. Remember, I designed a poster for that? Anywhoo, if you dressed in 20's fashion you got a free drink at the event. Joey was all over it-researching, shopping, etc. I bought this boxy, black dress with ruffle at the bottom from Macy's, put pin curls and finger waves in my hair, and wore red lipstick. I guess I was passable because they gave me a free drink for my attire. It was fun to play dress up and have cocktails with our grown up friends. And, I'm glad I didn't know what a cosmo was when I was in college.

This spring has been so busy. Busy good. Not busy bad. I'm continuing to plug away on my graphic design projects. Most of them need to be finished by May 1st. So, until then my letterpress will collect dust. I'm sorry if I am slacking in the blogging department. Hopefully, I'll have some more graphic design work to show you soon. Until then, have a great weekend all.

Productive (Midwest)

Another busy week is almost over. I'm almost done with the brochure project I've been working on, and I'm making progress on my custom wedding invitation project. I'm posting semi regularly to both Etsy shops. And, I squeezed in a haircut, a trip to visit my aging grandmother, and a doctor's appointment. Big sigh of relief that the weekend is almost here.



Last weekend I printed the above tags and cards. The image is from a old block I scored off ebay. I really like printing these vintage finds. The idea that I'm recycling and reusing appeals to me. Plus, as a design problem it's fun to think about how to design something new and current with something old. I carefully consider layout, stock choice, ink color and envelope selection. For instance, when I saw this block I knew it had to be printed on a scalloped card.



Sometimes I have helpers in my studio. Here's Sunnie helping with a shipment. She wants to eat packing peanuts. I don't let her and this makes her a little crazy. Of course she (and my kids) are banned from being around if there is any open ink. Little rat footprints all over the place would be worthy of photographing but a major bummer to clean up for sure.

Enjoy your day everyone!

Deadline (Midwest)

It's been a crazy couple of days. I got content on Tuesday evening for a print job that had to be done by Thursday night. I scrambled on Wednesday (Sam's birthday) to put a poster together. The clients reviewed it and it wasn't what they needed.

OY.

So, yesterday morning I was up slamming coffee and in between putting breakfast on the table, and packing lunches I was scanning new (old as it turns out - historic photos) imagery and futzing with my files. By 10am I had a new file ready to go to the service bureau. I am running my new software - Illustrator CS3 and I struggled with the "glow" behind the heading. I eventually got it the way I wanted. Pshew.

Here is the final image. It's a 24 x 36 poster to display at the Wisconsin Film Festival activities at the Orpheum Theatre. The poster's mission is to request donations for a fund to restore the old marquee sign. I hope they get some tall coin.

PMS 628 (Midwest)

We collected eggs from the neighbors chickens when we were in the desert. I had to photograph them because they were so beautiful–a soft blue with a greenish gray cast. I've seen plenty of robin's eggs and their spectacular blue color, but I didn't know chickens could produce such pretty colors too. Wait. Maybe Martha Stewart has chickens that lay fancy eggs. Probably so.


I tried to match the color to my pms swatches and couldn't get find an exact match. Pms 628 was as close as I could get. Next time I print, maybe more scribble birds, I'm going to try to mix up a color similar to these eggs. This will be good practice for me. Usually I just mix ink on the fly with an approximate color in my head. When I get a pleasing mix on my palette I go with it. I guess the artist side of me likes the mystery of discovering the color, but the graphic designer in me (probably the stronger force) wants the color decisions made in advance.

I'm looking forward to a weekend at home. I need to kiss up to my husband so that he will make some time to bolt my press to my new work table. I can't print until it is secured more properly.

Before I Go (Midwest)

I'm feverishly trying to get some graphic design projects to good holding stages because we are going on Spring Break next week (see temporary Etsy avatar above). I'm excited to have nothing to do, but also wish I could be here working on things I want to do. I will probably need to have a few beers to ease my way into my leisure status. It will be hot in Arizona so maybe margaritas will be in order.




I was excited to learn yesterday that Amie of ploverwing has started a new lens on printmaking artists over at Squidoo and she put me on it.

Whoohoo!

I'm so grateful. But, I have to admit I didn't know much about Squidoo. Today I clicked around a bit. I was amused by the Squidoo Top 100. Coming in at number 9 is "Parrot Taming and Training Plus Teaching a Parrot to Talk" and then at number 13 there is "Making Lemonade". In between are more "serious" lenses addressing important topics like global warming, html programming, etc. Anyway, now I have a link to a place to search for artwork to purchase. I love the Internet! Thanks so much Amie.


Finally, I plan on posting Friday or Saturday with details about my card give away. Stay tuned for that one.

Terrace Town (Midwest)

I wanted to post about this last week, because it was such a positive experience for me. I'm finally getting around to it.

About a week and a half ago I chaperoned my third grader on a field trip to Terrace Town. Terrace Town is an exhibit hosted by Monona Terrace (Madison's Convention Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). Several local elementary schools participate. A class of students work together to create their own box city. This year kids were challenged to design sustainable neighborhoods out of recycled materials. Hannah was lucky enough to be in one of the classes that participated. The city of Madison provided an Urban Planner who attended the classroom several times prior to start of the project. The class took a neighborhood walk to discuss architecture and community planning. Then they went about planning, designing and constructing their box city. The city was named "Blue River". It had commercial, industrial, and residentual districts. They had green areas, and a bus system. The hospital had solar panels. There were turbines to generate electricity, a couple museums, a natural foods store and many rooftop gardens. It was all to scale (1/8 inch = 1 foot) and quite amazing. I know it's so cliche, but I really felt the children are our future. I was so grateful to them for learning what they were learning. It was such a great day.





Well, I have a busy week already in progress. I'm working on a large project for The Madison Trust for Historic Preservation and finishing several small projects. I'm also figuring out how to do the card giveaway that I eluded to in a previous post. More on that soon.