The wedding was one of those celebrations that was the most wonderful combination of informal, personal, handmade, and fun. Jill made her dress, which was a gorgeous ivory-colored shantung silk, with a dark blue sash at the waist. Everyone chipped in on making the food for the reception, which included Robert’s incredibly tasty matambre, an Argentinean rolled and stuffed flank steak, plus a huge assortment of fresh summer veggies and fruit. Even though it exhausted me, it was so amazing to have so many friends in one place for all that fun, and the whole weekend was thoroughly enjoyable.

Now that we’re back, the new collection of wedding invitations is perking right along. I had a chance today to print up two of the colors on some of the small pieces that I’m running on my own press here at home, including envelopes, RSVP cards, and thank you cards. Here’s a sneak peek…

Return address detail, one thank you card design, and an RSVP card!

This afternoon, I also worked on some fun little pieces that will be up for sale in my Etsy shop tomorrow. These are fill-in invitations for any sort of party or shower. I put them together because I had a request from my great friend Caroline for something like this and I figured they’d be a great option for anyone needing a small quantity of invitations, but still wanting to use a letterpress printed piece. There are three color palettes: chocolate brown with a soft blue ink, chocolate with dark pink, and goldenrod with a pewter grey ink, all printed on thick, 100% cotton 110 lb Crane’s Lettra stock.

Fill-in letterpress invitations…available tomorrow on Etsy!

On Friday, I’ll be running as many of the new designs as I can get through over at The Arm, along with another exciting custom project, and will have lots more to show off soon!

In the meantime, I’ll get some good photos of Jill & Robert’s invites together to show off here. There is so much going on, and life feels great right now!

On a completely non-paper, non-work-related note, this post got me thinking even more than usual about a couple of things about food that really fascinate me and are really important to me.

One of the things I’ve found in my life that satisfies and relaxes me more than almost anything else is cooking. As I’ve developed my cooking skills over the last several years, I’ve learned a lot about food along the way; some from handling and choosing what I use, and some from cookbooks, essays, articles, and books. And, yes, I am a Michael Pollan devotee.

Reading that post this morning just reminded me that not everyone thinks so carefully about our food all the time, yet it’s a huge part of how our lives work and how we work. Growing up in Iowa, summer was always an abundant time for corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and a whole lot more. However, when you’re younger, you’re spared a lot of the background: government subsidies, factory farming, pesticides, and fertilizers that all condition certain crops to grow a certain way; a way that has (as far as I can tell) economic success, but not health and sustainability at its core.

This year, we became members of our neighborhood’s CSA (don’t know about CSAs?), so I’m feeling pretty aware of what the circumstances are surrounding much of the produce, fruit, and meat we’re eating. If you don’t have access to a CSA, though, farmers’ markets are almost always a great source of really stellar produce, and often meat, bread, and dairy products, too.

The first Michael Pollan book I read was The Botany of Desire and I’ll always remember him describing how imperfections have been bred out of our food to make peppers pack more uniformly into boxes for international shipping, among other things. All I’m saying is, next time you have the choice, think about picking the pepper that’s a little misshapen. We all have our imperfections, and I’m guessing our food probably should, too.

The point? I just think that, when you can, it’s always a good idea to be alert, ask questions, make choices for yourself, rather than letting someone else (or some conglomerate) make them for you. As my dad said, “Watch closely, shake the box.” Let your curiosity get the better of you.

And now…back to books & paper!

We took advantage of the really amazing variety of produce that is coming to the greenmarket now (in addition to our CSA share) and picked up a bunch of tiny cucumbers for making pickles. We have to let these guys sit for 8 weeks, but may have to make some refrigerator pickles in the meantime so we have at least a little preview!

I also managed to get a few of those blueberries taken care of from our weekend in Providence, although there are still a few pounds to tackle. On Saturday, I made 6 pints of blueberry jam. Since pectin is scarce in Brooklyn, I tried using grated apple peel in place of the powdered pectin…it helped, but let’s just say we have a very nice blueberry sauce/syrup on our hands, rather than thick jam.

We also tackled one of the first of a few apartment improvement projects and painted the largest wall in our living room – nothing drastic, just a sandy color so that it’s not plain white, but it makes a huge difference and makes the whole room feel a little calmer and more put together. Let’s just say a nesting instinct is definitely kicking in.

Finally, I did take a little time last Friday to print up a few new cards. My mom mentioned (again!) how much she likes the handwriting cards I first did in January. I had several cards left from that run earlier in the year that were just printed with “congratulations”, “thank you”, and “you’re amazing” without images yet and decided to print that new little octopus on some of them. I also did a few octopi with dark blue “oceans of love” text. My great grandmother used to sign her letters to my mom, “Oceans of love!”…what can I say, we’re an enthusiastic bunch!

New cards & mixing colors…and a few of the new cards are up on Etsy, with more coming soon!

And, because my Grandfather Bud would have been 86 today, a little Robert Service, whose poems he loved.

That’s Matt, Willa, Matt, and me…and a little over 12 pounds of blueberries that we picked fast & furiously in 20 minutes, after showing up at the farm right before they closed! I have a feeling a lot of blueberry jam is in our future.

Needless to say, we all moved as fast as we could and, while picking berries was definitely a highlight of the weekend, we also walked along the cliff walk in Newport along the ocean (alongside the Breakers, the Vanderbilt, etc. mansions), and we made a trip to a small beach on Narragansett Bay where we all got to swim a bit and Remus was able to swim out in to the bay to catch sticks we threw no less than about 105 times. He was a sleepy pup when we were all done and we were tired kids after a long, fun weekend.

But, we’re back! And, I just added a few of the new perfect bound journals and cards to Etsy, and they’ll be up on the site this week, too – enjoy!

Some beautiful words from Mark Doty about making things, “Favrile“.

Reverse side of natural history illustration postcards

Bee natural history illustration postcard, printed from a plate created from one of my drawings in brown ink on a heavy-duty kraft brown stock

Detail of new packaging I printed up for sets of cards

Don’t ask me how I do it, but I often end up printing with the same colors I wear. Today’s? Soft blue…I swear it was unintentional!

And there are a few more shots up on my Flickr page – enjoy!

I’m thinking this is what’s for dinner tonight. And, I’m sure I’ll have some leafy greens on the side…we are loaded from the CSA!

There are a few new journals up in my Etsy shop with some very fun, summery papers – enjoy! There are lots more new albums to come and, as always, if there’s an album, guestbook, journal, or portfolio you’d like, but you don’t see exactly what you’re after in my Etsy shop or on my site, just shoot me an email. A lot of my time is spent working on custom projects, and they are definitely one of my favorite things to do!

I think I’m done with today’s cleaning craze (our kitchen floor is sooooo clean), and am off to put together some cucumber and onion salad to go with the fennel sausages we’re having for dinner. And, even though it’s a few months off yet, I have to say that I’m getting very excited for tomato, corn, eggplant, and peppers season…let’s just say I’m excited for August!

For now, though, I have 1 1/2 quarts of fresh strawberries and a couple of pounds of rhubarb from yesterday’s greenmarket that probably need to be turned in to some kind of compote or crisp for dessert…and maybe a little jam, while I’m at it. We’ll see how my energy holds up after the sun goes down.

Also, we managed to get a share in our neighborhood’s CSA this year and I can’t wait for it to start in about 2 weeks! (Do you know about CSAs? If not, check this out – they’re a great resource and a wonderful way to have great, fresh food through the summer and support small farmers in your area.) I am a big fan of Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors cookbook and have lots of plans for recipes of hers I haven’t tried yet, not to mention plenty of things I’m planning to can.

If you didn’t already figure as much, you should know that we keep ourselves very well fed. Needless to say, we’re cranking out more than books around here.

Enjoy your Sunday evenings. We will.