Print A Little Valentine with Me!

I'm happy to say that the Printing Station is back and will be posted at the lovely SOUVENIR studios this Saturday February 13th, just in time for Valentine's Day. If you're keen on a little DIY, come into the shop between 12:30pm-3:30pm to print a little love note with pre-designed plates on the mini Showcard flatbed press. Each print is $5 and you have a choice between using one or two colours.

Swing by SOUVENIR and get your print on. There will also be fresh bouquets, baked goods, and other swell things in the shop that you can pick up for your loved ones or to keep for yourself). It'll be a good time!

love her but leave her wild

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 printed with the Line-O-Scribe Morgan press

wood type

12 x 18"

available here

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first communion invitations for luna

I loved working on this first communion invitation for a little girl named Luna Fragolina. How wonderful is her name? Luna's mother requested a simple design printed in a strawberry red colour. I adore the large script cap and the tiny srawberry amidst the copy. This design is light, playful and sweet!

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colour on kraft

I'm pretty certain that every colour that goes down on kraft stock turns out excellent. These are just a few more correspondence cards in my favorite 4BAR size that will be at the Gladstone Flea this Saturday!

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new correspondence cards for the Gladstone Flea

Save the date, folks! Snap + Tumble will have a table at the Gladstone Flea on Saturday, December 7th from 10am-4pm. It's early enough to get in some holiday shopping before the real hustle + bustle begins! Above are a couple of fancy new additions to the line that will be for sale at the flea. Cotton black cardstock and gold ink, in limited editions!

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new to the shop: gothic in gold

We're knee deep into September and it's always a weird time for stationers. It's not close to the holidays but we're already thinking about it and brewing up festive designs. So, to give myself a break and some breathing room before Christmas arrives, I've created a new small line of cards for the interim! 

These are the Gold in Gothic correspondence cards featuring my beloved gothic wood type and the newly acquired, News Gothic Condensed type. There were inked in gold and printed on the mini Showcard press. You'll also notice the new suave black and pink blush cardstock! 

These darlings are only available for wholesale orders. If you'd like to place an order (15 cards minimum per style) please contact me at 'snapandtumbleletterpress@gmail.com'. 

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bridesmaids cards for jeannette

One of my brother-in-laws is getting married next summer and I was more than happy when his fiancee asked me to print cards for her bridesmaids. Jeannette's colour of choice was pink and we decided to combine it with a bit of gold. Liners and envelopes are such a fun and easy way to incorporate another colour to the stationery. I picked out a bright pink envelope to match the ink and a beautiful soft pink and gold patterned chiyogami paper for the liners. Our families are very much looking forward to Jon and Jeannette's special day. It's going to be a beautiful wedding!

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I was recently introduced to a UK band called  Daughter and have pretty much fallen in love with their cover of Get Lucky by Daft Punk. The songs on their debut album are atmospheric, sad and beautiful. It inspired me to put a brush and watercolour ink to some lovely St. Armand paper and add handset type to it. I love moments like these when I'm moved to create something but not knowing exactly what it is that I want to make. It's times like that when you turn to the tools that you love to use so much for work and commissioned pieces that you often forget that they're also there for play time.

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birth announcements for alice

Laurence and Maxim contacted me from across the pond (all the way over in Belgium!) to help them create birth announcements for their little girl, Alice. We bounced around a few ideas and colour ways but ultimately decided on a very simple and elegant design. The main element of this announcement is Alice's initial which is an art deco font paired with a custom made ornament. This creates a single monogram and was printed in gold along with Alice's middle Thai name. The remainder of the text and the baby-in-the-carriage silhouette was printed in black. I am always so honoured when asked to print keepsakes for special occasions, and these announcements were no exception. Congratulations to the proud parents, Laurence and Maxim!

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euro wood type

My good friend, Christopher Rouleau, just came back from a remarkable trip to Paris and among the things he brought back, were a set of vintage type. When he visited me a couple of weeks ago to share stories of his trip, he showed me the letters and I told him that he needed to print those stat! And without hesitation he inked up those beauties right then and there. Out of the four presses that I own, the letters would've only printed well on the Morgan Line-O-Scribe for two reasons: 1). it's the only press big enough and 2). it has an adjustable roller height. Apparently because the letters came from Europe, they weren't exactly type-high. They were in fact considerably higher. I knew the Morgan would come in handy :)

Check out more beautiful photo accounts of Christopher's trip to Paris here!

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Lucy is a gal who loves puns, wordplay, fonts and letterpress. She visited the studio over the weekend for the Tabletop Letterpess workshop and got to play with metal and wood type to her heart's content. How about that sassy electric blue colour on the press? Nice to see something so bright, bold and very blue hit the ink disc once in a while!

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numbers book: the numbers!

I've finally added numbers to the numbers board book! Hooray! I can't wait to see this all come together. Next will be the numbers in words. I'm also trying to decided how or if to include colour. So far, I've printed the entire book in black ink. Not very colourful for a kid's/toddler's book, right? Though, something has to be said for the simple black and white contrast. 

We'll see what I end up doing with regards to colour or not!

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totem cards

to·tem (noun)

Anything serving as a distinctive, often venerated, emblem or symbol.

 

There is something about this starburst shape that I love and can't seem to stop printing with. I once saw it referred to as a Slocum seal but haven't since found any more information about it. It's become my favorite go to piece when I'm printing on the Showcard press. Maybe it has something to do with how large the block is and how satisfying it is to roll an inked brayer over it. And no matter what colour it lays down, it always looks so, so good. Is it just me or do you also have something similar that you like to see in print? Is there something you have an affinity for and keep printing, drawing or painting?

 

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linoleum block on the lino-o-scribe

Over the last couple of weeks I was able to try out my first linoleum carving with the lino-o-scribe. Before I started I was so afraid that it wasn't going to work for some reason. But I gathered up my materials anyway and hoped for the best. I got some really helpful hints from Kinga, who also owns a Morgan Line-O-Scribe, on which type of linoleum she uses and how to set it up in the bed so that it's about type-high.

My first step was to decide on the size of linoleum I wanted. That was the easy part. Because the press bed is 14x22", I wanted to go as big as I could. The largest block I could find at my local art supplies store was 12x18" which was perfect because I sourced some cardstock at the same size. 

Next was trying to figure out what design I wanted to see printed. But I also had to think about 1.) what I could easily carve out and 2.) something that wouldn't take me too long do. I decided on hand-drawing a series of narrow hexagon shapes with various widths of lines on the inside of each. This was a good first-time design because there was just enough carving that I didn't get tired of doing it and that I got to use a couple of the carving blades. All of the straight lines made the carving go nice and smoothly too! Also, there's a nice balance between the negative and positive space. I wanted to carve as little of the lino off to make the best use of it's size. By keeping the design large, I was also able to see if there were any problematic, low or weak spots with the press and ink rollers.

After finally getting the lino to the height that the ink rollers could make contact with it, I was ready to test the block out. I was happily surprised with the result but as expected, I had some more carving to do at the top and bottom edges of the negative space to have it completely free of an impression.

As you can see in the photos of the prints, there is some variation with the ink coverage. I actually don't mind that. This design would look very different if the colour was completely solid throughout.

All in all, I am very happy with my first experiment with the line-o-scribe and a lino block. The press is in fantastic condition as are the rollers. I see myself doing many more of these lino carvings!

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