Sneak Peek: Merci Beaucoup Notecards

I am slowly beginning to create designs and inventory for an eventual online shop, and as I am a bit of a Francophile, the first few will be in French. These flat thank you notes are printed on my favorite 100% cotton paper.

Giant Gnome Design

I was recently downtown and came across an unusual sidewalk vendor: Giant Gnome Design. The designer and his girlfriend had a small table set up on Grant St., not far up from the opera singers (who were out singing, full force, on Maiden Lane), selling greeting cards - a welcome respite from all the jewelry, leather cuffs and knitted baby hats. I love that several of the cards feature local spots.

 

Perhaps even more interesting than Giant Gnome's street presence is their Card Gnome venture, set up like a stationary store with shelves to browse through. Though the experience is virtual - you pick a card and write a personal message - they will prep and physically send the card in the mail to your recipient, postage included.

*All photos from Giant Gnome Design's etsy shop

Year One: Letterpress Christmas Cards

My husband asked how I felt about having created a Christmas card from start to finish and the answer was: relieved. Meeting this goal has been on my mind for more than a year. However, I wish the preparation had been; now I understand why Christmas begins in July.

Our inspiration was a cross between constellations and chapel ceilings. The design, a term I'm going to use loosely here, since it was done quickly and after midnight one night, actually resembles neither chapel nor night sky. We went with a back-up design after not liking how our initial one printed. Some of the photos above are mess-ups, as it was tricky business running the cards through a couple times and not letting them stick to the ink plate. The mess ups were quite pretty in some ways - large, unexpected swashes of gold.





The hardest and most ridiculous part of printing our Christmas cards was the nearly 2 hours it took us to open the vacuum-sealed can of ink. Fortunately, the set up and registration was comparably easy and unusually fast after that. It was my first time using oil-based ink and the platen was either over-inked or there was too much packing and pressure on the plates because the print is not clean. At any rate, we finished just in time for Christmas! And through the thoughtfulness and generosity on the part of several people, I got a brand new copy of the CS5 Design Suite!

I hope everyone's holidays were wonderful.