Snow Day...

Vancouver got a nice dump of snow last night - and since I was not in the mood for trudging through the white stuff to get to the gym - I got a head start on some custom business card printing. This card features a blind deboss (hit without ink), as well as some grey text. The above photo is of just the blind deboss - I still have to do the grey. That's only 150 of the 1,000 to complete...

Below is a photo of the letterpress intern - hard at work, as usual. Oh, to be a dog!

Happy letterpressing!

A New Website and A New Look...

It has taken me a couple of weeks, but the Sunlit Letterpress website is officially ready for public viewing. There are still a few elements I'd like to add, including pricing information, order forms, and an e-commerce feature, but for now it will do. Feel free to take a look...

http://www.sunlit-letterpress.com/

I've decided to update the look of the blog a tiny bit as well, to match the new website.

Now I have some custom printing to finish, so off I go. It is an ugly day here in Vancouver, snow and rain. It's a good day to be inside and get creative.

Happy letterpressing!

Wedding favours...or favors...whatever you prefer

Part of this week has been spent working on a project I just loved. Someone who attended one of my craft/art shows last year is getting married and asked about having me make some packs of letterpress notecards that she could give to her guests as favours. I printed two existing designs, packaged them up in groups of four, and printed some stickers with the couple's names and wedding date for the packages. Tomorrow I ship them off, it will be sad to see them go. All the pretty colours...Best wishes to Makiko and Dean for the wedding day!

This week I also learned the difference between brokerage operations at FedEx vs. UPS. Ok, boring topic, I know - but very important for someone like me that has to import most of her supplies from the US. I used to thing that UPS was the supreme, almighty shipping company. But alas, they have one fault. FedEx's advantage is that they start clearing your package through customs before it even leaves the shipper's location. UPS does it when your package arrives at the receiver's home warehouse before going on the truck for delivery. This is an interesting fact when you consider that if your package has problems clearing customs (as mine have before) - with FedEx, you can clear up the issue before it even gets there. With UPS, the package that isn't cleared is already in your area - killing time while you sort out the mess with UPS.

I know, that was a totally enthralling tidbit.

So this week I have a few custom projects on the go, and I'm finalizing the Sunlit Letterpress website. It should be up in a couple of days...so I'll keep the blog posted.

Happy letterpressing!

Funny video...

Came across this video yesterday...gotta love it. I can relate to seeing my stuff go out the door to clients - bye bye babies!

Happy letterpressing!

Un message pour Eve...

This message is specifically for Eve from Montreal, so if you don't speak French, well...you may want to skip it. Mind you, I'm a bit rusty, so if you do speak it and want a laugh, go ahead and read. You can see what happens when you have few chances to keep up a language...

Alors Eve, je vous demande d'ignorer mon français terrible...Il n'y a pas beaucoup d'opportunités pour pratiquer le français ici à Vancouver, et par résultat, mon français souffre. Je parle aussi l'espagnol, et des fois je me trompe un peu entre les deux langues.

Oui, j'utilise le Boxcar Base, et pour moi c'est formidable. La raison pour laquelle cette base existe est très simple: si vous n'avez pas, ou ne voudrait pas, utiliser les lettres en métal pour imprimer - vous avez le choix d'utiliser des plaques d'impression en lieu des lettres en métal. Ces plaques d'impressions sont faites de matériaux differents. Par exemple, nous pouvons utiliser de plaques faites de magnésium etc. Ces plaques sont appliquées à une base, et il faut serrer cette base dans l'affaire on appelle un "chase".

La base Boxcar est faite d'aluminium, et il faut commander les plaques d'impressions de Boxcar Press à NY pour appliquer sur la base lorsque vous voulez imprimer. Les plaques d'impressions de Boxcar sont faites avec un type de plastique (photopolymer). Ceci est important, parce que si vous voulez, vous pouvez couper les plaques avec des ciseaux et réarrangez vos dessins facilement. Les plaques faites de magnésium et autres matériaux ne peuveut pas être coupées.

Les plaques peuvent être appliqués à la base Boxcar car le dos de ces plaques contient la colle qui est appliquée par Boxcar avant d'être envoyé chez vous.

Je n'ai pas une photo de la base actuellement, mais si vous regardez dans la photo ci-dessous, la base serait derrière les rouleaux.

J'espère que j'ai répondu à vos questions...et que vous pourriez comprendre mon français en dépit de ma grammaire!

Happy letterpressing!

Random Bits...

This week I am playing the waiting game. I am waiting for paper from Crane. I'm not a big fan of waiting by the way, but it seems when it comes to my letterpress work, that's what I end up doing a lot of. Most of the stuff I order comes from the States...which in itself is not a huge problem, except that everything I order seems to get held up in transit. Before Christmas I ordered some plates from Boxcar. Boxcar forgot to put the commercial invoice with the envelope (needed for NAFTA regulations) so my package sat at the UPS warehouse in Richmond for a whole stinkin' week doing nothing while I fought with UPS on the phone.

As I mentioned, this week I am waiting for paper from Crane. About two weeks ago I faxed my paper order to their so-called "international orders fax number". Well, I never got an order or confirmation number so I phoned them. "Oh, we never received your order - I've never heard of the fax number you sent the order to". Um, ok. "It's on your website, under customer service," I say. "Yeah, that's not the right number, here's the 1-800 number". Ok, fine. There goes a few days wasted. I'm hoping FedEx will show up tomorrow with a big Crane box for me - I've got orders to print and they'd better hurry up.

You'd think in a big city like Vancouver that someone would carry or import Lettra. Nope! Even Coast Paper, which is as far as I know the biggest paper supplier in the city, doesn't even know what Lettra is. To get samples, I had to deal with the US West Coast Crane rep based in California.

So I guess this is my beef - sometimes it seems like we're being punished by suppliers, or couriers, because we're up North. It's lame. I just want my stuff!

The other day I went and got my Nexus pass so I can cross the US border quickly (we basically live on the border, so we go across to the States all the time). Well, you can't use Nexus to do commercial business (i.e. bring back printing plates and paper). Pfffft! So much for that! Oh well, I can still get down to go to Target and Macy's faster I suppose. It's not a total loss :)

Wow, I think it's time to end this post - I'm starting to sound like a raving lunatic. I'm not really mad at everyone, just frustrated. Having to deal with shipments from across the border really gets my knickers in a twist!

p.s. Above photos are of a recent print job I shipped, and below, some notecards available on Etsy.

Happy letterpressing!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope this latest post finds you well and relaxed after the holidays. I recently returned from a lovely trip to Barbados with my husband and family. The two weeks away was great and I highly recommend this island nation as a great place to get away from it all. I've returned a few pounds heavier from the lack of stress and a few too many helpings of flying fish, cou cou and macaroni pie. The sun has also returned me to a normal skin tone (instead of translucent white) - thus making my husband's term of endearment - "Casper" (a.k.a. the Friendly Ghost) - no longer applicable.

For Christmas, I was given some very useful gifts related to letterpress and design. My parents bought me a Wacom tablet so I can finally do my illustrations directly on the computer (rather than scan and trace etc. using Illustrator). I can't wait to get it installed and working. They also bought me a great book that I recommend to anyone in the fine art/craft field that wants to sell their work - the book is called Craft Inc: Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business.

My friend Nikki, who always comes to help me at art and craft markets, got me a proper money box, money rolls, a handy calculator, and other gadgets that are useful for me at sales (even hand sanitizer!).

My in-laws also bought me a very thoughtful gift - a cover-all type of smock to wear while printing, complete with "Sunlit Media" and some cherry blossoms screenprinted on the front. Very cool! I will get my husband to take a photo of me in the smock soon.

While I was away, I had time to sit and think about where I want to take Sunlit Letterpress this year. As the Craft Inc. book discusses, once a trend catches on (like letterpress, or Gocco, or bird motifs, or crochet donuts...), it becomes really important to differentiate yourself. In letterpress, with so many people trying to get started, I want to keep high quality standards, and maybe try to stay away from the more common items people are producing these days (like letterpress coasters, calendars, and so on). Not that there is anything wrong with these items (who doesn't love Sesame Letterpress' coasters, or Ilee's calendars???) - I just want to push myself to do something different. I'd also love to get more involved in the wedding industry, and try focusing my efforts there a bit more this year.

Anyways, enough of that...here are some photos of some calling cards I recently completed for a client. I loved designing them, and I'm head over heels for the way they turned out. Thank you Kristen for being such an awesome client!








Until next time...Happy letterpressing!