The burst of warm weather earlier this week (50! In February!) was a desperately needed reminder that spring really will come again and that the feeling of warm air on your face is, indeed, the tonic and near cure-all it’s always been. Similarly satisfying as the feeling of warm air on your face after a long winter is the feeling of completing a substantial project that began as a tiny seed in your mind’s eye.

On that note, I’ve just finished a new collection of three invitation designs and am proud to finally show them off.

Entwined suite, Signature suite, Leaves suite / All photos by Christopher Walker, Gotham Pixel

Each design has a slightly different feel and each takes advantage of the tactile quality of letterpress printing, layering type, images, and color in delicate and elegant ways. There is loads of information about the designs, options, and ordering on our weddings page, and I am always delighted to talk about paper and printing at length, so please be in touch if you have questions.

And – of course – we’ve been up to lots of other things, too! I’ve been cranking out new books using vintage postage stamps and have lots more to come, and we’ve been reading The Metropolitan Museum of Art ABCs, Numbers, Shapes, and Colors till we’re blue in the face, and I just finished reading Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life. If you need a little inspiration, it’s a great read, no matter what sort of work you do.

Spring is, indeed, on its way in the next month or two. In the meantime, I think I’ll keep my energy up by drawing, printing, building Charlotte’s vocabulary while we walk all over Brooklyn, poring over design & lettering inspiration, and soaking up just how good we’ve got it.

P.S. If you need a great wrapping-up-winter song, I highly recommend Josh Ritter’s “Snow Is Gone“. It’ll shake you right out of any funk you may be in.

Coptic stitch journal spines

In the middle of a regular rotation of reading Olivia, The Circus Ship, Knuffle Bunny, Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, I’ve also made more books in the last week than I’ve possibly ever made in such a short period of time. Hello, holiday season!

P.S. You might like to sign up for our email list (no junk, I promise!) to stay up to date on new card designs, holiday fairs we’re doing, etc.

It’s absolutely redundant to say that I love the physical structure of books. If I didn’t love the structure, I wouldn’t be doing this work. That said, I have aspirations of creating books that beautifully and successfully blend text, imagery, and binding. That interest led me to The Fine Press Book Association and I became a member the moment I saw the letterpress printed cover of the Fall 2010 issue of their journal, Parenthesis.

My copy arrived Thursday and I’ve had it in my hands every moment I can since. There are wonderful reviews of fine press editions, as well as articles about process, technique, and about printers and binders and their background and inspiration. There is a wonderful review of Deep Wood Press’s incredible edition of Heart of Darkness and of Carolee Campbell’s edition of Nathaniel Tarn’s collection of poems, The Persephones (Ninja Press), featuring lushly textured leaves of domestic etch shaded with sumi ink layered with salt. Just the photos are breathtaking; I can only imagine the actual poems.

The moral of this little Saturday post: It’s important to keep feelers out for great inspiration all the time.

I’m kicking around all kinds of deep, insightful posts to get back in to the rhythm of blogging, but for now I just want to highlight some beautiful materials. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle over here, I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of paper and cloth combinations that came together recently on two custom albums for one of my favorite wedding photographers. I think the green & gold is going to become a standard offering, and probably the cranes, too. They’re so bold and elegant, aren’t they?!

Custom Diamond Stitch photo album with Gold & Green Damask covers and bronze silk bookcloth

As if you needed any more incentive to purchase beautiful handmade paper goods, I’ve decided to include a free Coptic stitch journal with any order over $100 in our Felt & Wire shop through the end of July! And, we’re still offering free shipping on orders over $100 through our own shop, too!

It’s up to you – free shipping or a free journal – either way, it makes July a good time to pick up wedding gifts, guest books, travel journals, or begin your stockpile of Christmas gifts.

We’re working on some fun, major changes to this blog in the near future, so stay tuned for updates!

I’ve had the Anagram Press website in my bookmarks for years and have drooled over Chandler O’Leary’s imaginative, detailed letterpress and book work at length.

Chandler has just added a beautiful new piece to her great “Dead Feminists” series that she creates with Springtide Press. This new “Drill, Baby, Drill” piece is gorgeous, and a portion of the proceeds from its sale will go to Oceana, an organization helping the gulf oil spill.

The text in these pieces is so thoughtfully chosen and the imagery is beautiful. I’d invite you to look through the portfolio of work on her site and enjoy her illustrations and the intelligence that comes through in each piece.

The Harriet Tubman piece? Tugboat Thea? They’re gorgeous, fun, and poignant and appeal to all of my history-lovin’, fascinated-with-feminism, crazy-for-a-good-marriage-of-text-and-imagery tendencies!

Enjoy looking through Chandler’s work. It’s incredibly important to look at other people’s work as you do your own and I find Chandler’s downright inspiring.

I’ll be back with some new things next week, including perfect bound journals and a peek at some new printing projects, as well!

Overflowing storage, oh my! + a little one who needs room to move + the soon-to-be play corner (you can see the floor now!)

We’d give her her own room if we had one but right now that would pretty much have to be the kitchen and, last I checked, we need that one.

So, in the interest of giving Charlotte a little space of her own to play and grow, we’re clearing some things out! I’ve just put up several albums and a few travel journals in our shop and they’re all on sale (50% off, to be exact!) – have at it!

Parasol Coptic Stitch Album, White Scrolls & Apple Green Diamond Stitch Album, Purple Chrysanthemum Diamond Stitch Album

And, if you’re at all overwhelmed by the early summer heat like we are, I might suggest reading Mary Oliver’s poignant and cooling seaside observations in “Breakage“.

We spent last weekend visiting family in Iowa, and flew back late Monday afternoon…and turned right around to go to the National Stationery Show at The Javits Center in Manhattan Tuesday morning.

We’re kicking around exhibiting at the show next year and wanted to walk the aisles to see what it’s all about. It was invigorating to see all the other great work being done out there by people an awful lot like us and we so enjoyed scoping things out.

We had a great time, met tons of people and saw great work, including:
• BirdDog Press Allison Bozeman uses her grandmother’s feed sacks as inspiration for her lovely patterns and achieves beautiful geometric yet delicate results!
• Rifle Paper Co. Anna and Nathan Bond sell an unmistakable look. Anna’s illustrations and lettering are nostalgic, stylish, playful, and hip. Think Babar + Maira Kalman + 1956.
• Fugu Fugu Press Ken & Shino’s cards feature their own simple yet bold, smart illustrations. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity, though, they’re often printing multiple colors on each card and getting great overlapping effects!
• Rag & Bone Jason Thompson & Ilira Steinman’s company produces beautifully made books and it was a treat to meet this couple in person. I continue to be inspired by the business they’ve built and the quality of their work.
• Sapling Press Lisa Krowinski’s cards are minimal and brilliantly funny and she was showing a fabulous assortment of clean, smart, text-only designs. Plus, Lisa’s a total joy – what’s not to love?!

There was gobs more great work – check these folks out when you have a chance: Pistachio Press, Albertine Press, Flywheel Press, May Day Studio (Kelly makes fantastic books with her own papers, too!), Fine Day Press, Linda & Harriett, Red Oak Press and lots more that I’m sure I’ll remember as soon as I click “publish” on this post!

I talked with my mom after walking through the show and she was curious to know what we got out of it. It turns out that, as with all the shows she’s done and been to, we walked away with something very similar: a great sense of the current climate of fine, handmade paper goods and where our own work fits in to that spectrum.

I’m proud to say I’m part of an informal community of all of these hard workers and to also say that our work fits right in while remaining totally distinctive from anything else out there.

From Joel Lipman’s “Origins of Poetry”

P.S. There’s also great coverage of the show and heaps of great photos over on Oh So Beautiful Paper!

In honor of Mother’s Day, I wanted to announce a project that my own mom and I are working on together. I’ve wanted to pair up with my mom on something for a while and the first of what I’m sure will be many projects is in the works!

My mom just completed a series of drawings of spring ephemerals which I am having made in to plates and will be printing as sets of note cards! You can read a little more about her inspiration on her own blog and I will show them off once the plates arrive and I have a chance to do a few test runs.

A few of the drawings – Meadow Rue, Violet, Bleeding Heart

Enjoy the weekend and remember to thank your mom, if you possibly can. My mom makes my life great every single day – and not just by closing every phone call exclaiming, “I love you, Maggie Campbell!”…although that doesn’t hurt!

Enjoy Julia Kasdorf’s beautiful “What I Learned from my Mother”.

Here’s an itsy bitsy sneak peek at the drawing-in-progress for one layer of next year’s calendar. I’m excited about how the ideas are making their way out of my head and on to the page!

And I want to leave you with a little Shaker philosophy to keep us on the right track as we go through our days: “Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.”