Enveloping fun

Wow - it's been a while! Life got crazy, and still is crazy, but i have a few minutes to break my blogging drought. I thought i would do that with these ... pretty envelopes!

I had a ball making the small pockets with wallpaper samples and lining the larger envelopes with recycled wrapping paper.

I love the colours, prints and patterns.

Its the simple things that make my heart smile.

Look what I made...

I had so much fun making these. Find out more over at Phoebe and the Letterpress.

These cards are now available on my Etsy shop @ phoebeandthe.etsy.com

Coastal Origami

Whilst holidaying back home last month, my husband and I headed down the coast for a mini holiday within a bigger holiday with some friends. Days were spent swinging in hammocks, reading books, lying on the grass in the cool tree shade, protected from the hot afternoon sun, swimming in crystal clear, salty water, lazing on the sand, canoeing in the lagoon, eating fabulously and having good old natters with everyone. It was just lovely. Lucky for me, one of our friends is an artistically gifted individual who suggested a bit of origami (after managing to sketch and paint a lovely little scene from the verandah view). We settled ourselves in for some paper folding and picked out a few of the easiest patterns to master first. Whilst folding, we imagined using paper similar to my wedding invitations (you can read more about them here) and creating some truly beautiful papery art. Despite our paper being plain, it was colourful, bright and happy and we produced some lovely little items.

Letterpressing for Christmas

For Christmas I have gone out on a limb.

I have got two magnesium plates made up to print our own personalised Christmas cards. One is the stamp I will be using on the backs of my cards with my logo and 'catch line' (Phoebe and the Letterpress, Custom letterpress papery things). The other was a Christmas message for the front cover of the card. I wasn't sure how well I would print with either of these, I was more worried about the logo stamp than the bigger Christmas stamp. But, it all felt a bit risky.

I thought the small font size, thin lines and detail in the fonts, namely rosewood, I chose for my logo stamp would give me issues. I remember when I was making my wedding invitations, the man who made my photopolymer plates, a Mr Sparrow, quite famous in letterpress circles, now sadly retired, warned me of the dangers of using small fonts. In fact I think I had to go up to a size 12 font before he would happily make my wedding invitation plates for me (maybe he was being cautious as I was a beginner). The stamps he made me printed very nicely, but I bemoaned the fact I didn't get the deep impression I was hoping for. I suspect this was more due to the hard card I was using than anything else. Edward, or Ted as he prefers to be known (brilliant name!), was a traditionalist and keen on the 'kiss' method as opposed to bashing the font forcefully into the paper. I remember him telling me that letterpress shouldn't leave any 'deep impression' on the paper other than the ink. I was confused as it was precisely this impression that had made me fall in love with letterpress. As I read more, I discovered two different views in letterpress. One is to leave the lightest kiss on the paper, and they other is to impress a deep 'debossing'. I personally love the debossed look. So, as I have progressed, I am always striving for the deepest impression I can muster, really thrusting those letters irretrievably into the page.

I started printing with my logo stamp and was pleasantly surprised. The impression, while not as deep as I like, was still fairly good and all my tiny fonts printed clearly, cleanly and legibly. Even the rosewood font came out perfectly. So I deemed this run a success. Good, that was the hard part over. Next I was moving on to my big Christmas block with large font using a variety of typefaces. This I thought would be easier as Ted had been so positive about large font. But NOOOOO! I cant seem to get the ink to transfer to the paper evenly let alone worry about the impression on the paper. I am double inking, and pressing 3 to 4 times and still I am getting problems with patchy ink particularly in the middle of the my stamp. I rollered the stamp myself thinking perhaps my rollers weren't getting at the stamp properly, I packed up the tympan in a variety of ways, I adjusted the impression bolts constantly and I still cant get it perfect. My husband has tried to reassure me that they don't need to be perfect because after all they are handmade, but it is driving me bonkers.

There are a few other options I can try to improve the prints but these all involve mess, something I wasn't prepared to undertake late last night. At the moment, I have the stamp sitting in the top corner of the frame thing (god, I really need to learn what everything is called already!), so I think I should try and move it into the middle to try and get a bit more control over where the impression bolts are affecting.

I have also been a bit dodgy and have been layering up my tympan in a haphazard fashion. I think I might need to take all of that apart and put it together properly. Other than that, im not sure what else I should do! Fingers crossed this works. If it doesn't, I am going to cry. Still they do look pretty cool, I particularly love the shade of red (one I got from Caslon when I purchased my Adana). It is lovely and bright and festive!

I have printed on 2 different papers - 

One was a Somerset

The other was thick watercolour paper cardstock

Here are some photos of that i have printed so far.

If i know you, you are probably going to get one in the mail. Sorry to ruin the surprise!

Nearly forgot, if you are interested in more about my letterpress, check out http://phoebeandtheletterpress.com 

Phoebe and the Letterpress get stamping

As some of you will already be aware, I am trying to get my own little letterpress business started, Phoebe and the Letterpress (there will be more about that later on).

I am still in the beginning stages and trying to get all my materials together before I can list anything on my Etsy shop. But in the meantime I have been stamping away in preparation. One of these was a 'Thank you' stamp I had made initially for our wedding. I have popped some photos up on my website of these attempts and I think they came out beautifully. I really lucked in with the light when I was taking the pictures too, I think they almost look professional (to my amateur eye anyway).

I thought you might enjoy checking them out.

P xo

Typewriting

Note the obligatory typo!

Recently, I acquired an old Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter. I don't know what it was that got me thinking about one, but I found myself bidding for them on eBay when I was home for my wedding in February. I was eventually successful (back in the UK - I don't know what I was thinking, it was never going to fit in my suitcase along with everything else!) and got one for a good price, complete in its original case, with original instructions and care kit. I purchased a new ink ribbon for it, very carefully installed the new ribbon and off I went, carefully inspecting each of the little function levers and trying out old school typing. I have found the actual keys need to be pushed almost like piano keys, and my lazy flat hand approach to typing (from laptop keyboards I think) no longer cuts it.

The noise it makes feels so substantial and almost musical in a chaotic machinery type way. I have always found the sound of typewriters very appealing. I am one of those annoying people who hasn't turned off the type noise on her iphone, and I have a vague memory of being able to have a typewriter sound effect on something like ICQ when I was a teenager? I find the noise incredibly cathartic and loud ringing an indication of what I am creating. Although, I don't know how people typed all day on them, I guess you would end up with very sore, and eventually very strong fingers. I whole 'no delete' things must have been a bit annoying, but then again, people would have had the opportunity to 'paint' with white out (or tipex for my English friends) - another creative pursuit.

I love the shape of the typewriter itself - its whole look is very retro cool. Perhaps its all the MadMen I have been watching that is attracting me to this style, as I have definitely seen a shift in the types of fabrics I have been purchasing and using in recent projects. I even started to embroider typewriters on my pillowcases! I can't wait to try out my Olivetti on a few paper / printing projects I have in mind. One includes typing on old library cards, I have taken inspiration from this wonderful book, Handmade Hello's, from my letterpress hero's at Hello,Lucky!

The next think I want to do is clean it up and get it looking like new again - its not in bad shape but could do with a bit of dusting and I think the actually little letter stamps could do with a clean. The instructions suggest typewriter cleaning fluid, but I don't know how much of that stuff is still kicking around that hasn't expired. Will see how I go! Here is to some hand-typed love letters and maybe even my first novel!

*Cue Murder, She Wrote theme music please.