So I’ve done the Traditional Dingbat for many female friends here, and here, but had yet to show how it could be applied for guys too! Enter, my dad – in another life he should have been a graphic designer or architect. But instead he is a really fabulous attorney. I know, you all are cringing right now, but I have to say, having one for a dad has been a valuable asset to my business! Since he’s always helping me out along the way with contracts, suing people (just kidding), and the never-ending legal advice I solicit from him – for his birthday I wanted to make him some cards. How about a little Frank Lloyd Wright, dad?

For even more photos, you can check out the flickr feed too.

I just got some new background paper and couldn’t wait to get these photographed. It took awhile to find the right color for the cards to give it the Dingbat pop of brights! As you can see here, I LOVE designing and printing business cards. There’s something so fulfilling about conveying a person’s needs on a little 2×3.5 card that says Why yes, I eat chocolate in bed! or how about Under my starched shirts are yellow polka-dotted boxers ;) or even I breathe minimalism, so should my card. To every (wo)man, his own I say!

Katie’s Cards reflect just that: Open Air Photography in her case. Fresh, whimsical and open – these cards were fabulous to print (think 600 GSM SUPER THICK Lettra) and Katie was a doll to work with. You can see her initial proofs here, visit her website here, and follow her on Twitter.

Thanks for the opportunity to do your cards, I only wished we lived relatively close, I’d have you photograph my kids in a heartbeat!

When I was correcting photos last night, I took a minute to browse my monthly archives in Adobe Bridge and couldn’t believe how many photos of work I’d previously done that didn’t make it to the blog! Not that I didn’t want them to, they just got forgotten about.

Miss Grace Letterpress Announcements

This has been available in the shop as a set of cards since the beginning. It might have been my first listing even. So I was beyond thrilled when I was contacted about doing an announcement with the same “puppy love” illustration on it.

The client was looking for a vintage/art deco looking font which matched the style of the illustration. Thanks for such a great opportunity to do these as announcements!

These Indian paintbrush invitations were done last spring for a client “Over the hill” and no I’m not referring to a birthday party. I live just over the Teton Pass on the good looking side of the Teton mountain range. Represented over there at Paper & Grace – a shop that sells fine stationery and gifts – I had the opportunity to design and letterpress these for a Jackson wedding.

Robin was really fabulous to work with and in the end, they turned out gorgeous! She was looking for a modern design with wildflowers and along the whole design process kept coming back to the Indian paintbrush as a focal point. In the suite was invitation/envelope and reply postcard.

Since the postcard was double sided, a printer has to keep in mind the depth of impression so that there isn’t any show-through. Often this is referred to as the dominant side and the subordinate side on a double-sided piece. The favored side is printed with the “deeper” impression and is usually where the dominant information or imagery is used. The back-side is where the lesser impression is used with the subordinate information. In Robin’s case her reply info was the dominant info, and return address subordinate. This was printed on Crane’s lettra 110#/300 GSM paper in soft-white. It’s the standard house paper – or what I like to refer to as THICK! When ordering 2 sided pieces in THICK, keep in mind that there will be one side with less impression to keep the piece printed well and clean (this applies to business card printing too)!

My mom is an amazing writer. Having the opportunity to grow up around this lovely writing talent, I often saw her writing in journals, taking notes in books she was reading, and annotating and critiquing our English papers. One of my most prized possessions however was not toys or jewelery – but journals. Each time she gave birth, my mother had a journal that she bought for each of us in which there were a series of letters written. Throughout our childhood, she’d read to us from the journals on occasion which always recorded funny sayings, happenings in our lives and on advice from an amazing mother. As a teenager my mom gave me one of the best gifts ever, a journal that all the women in my family had written in. Both grandmothers, 10 aunts, cousins, youth leaders, neighbors – all bearing the things of their souls. To this day, I pull out that journal on days that don’t go so well and read advice from people important to me who continue to inspire through their words. Then I get on with life.

Although my mom has yet to write the great american novel, she has succeeded to instill a love for journaling in our family. I feel I already have the great american novel through my journals she’s filled for me. As a continuation of the tradition she started, each one of my kids has their own journals that I write in.

I’ve been looking for a good one for Charlie since he was born and came across Karleigh Jae’s Etsy shop, and ironically had hearted the yellow journal shown above MONTHS ago! I just had to get them as Charlie needed a journal, and Dave’s journal has finally reached it’s last few pages. Yeah for beautiful books, thanks Karleigh Jae I can’t wait to get started writing in them.

I finally got around to printing the Bread and Buns letterpress recipe cards from the Forage collection and I have to say, they look delish!

Now if only I could be successful at baking bread myself! Any suggestions? I need a mixer recipe, that rises WELL (we live at 6,500 feet) and is preferably somewhat whole-wheat in nature.

Click on the photo to link to the shop and grab some of these for your baking adventures, Happy Friday!

Just got this in my inbox. Really want one because I’m obsessed with scarves!

Available at Veer in white & black options. I’ve been busy fulfilling retail orders but will be back tomorrow with some cool new stuff.

Right now I’m totally digging this

NO it’s not garden supplies but look at those swashes and ligatures filling up the lovely pixels on my LCD. Coming to a letterpress poster near you, I can’t wait to show you what I’ve got this going on, have fun imagining!

So I haven’t given any Etsy love recently, but I came upon Bella Fresca because she had hearted my own shop. SO glad I checked it out. Boy was I surprised when upon clicking through I immediately felt like I was transported to the tropics. Look at her fabulous soaps and then drop her a note wishing her luck as she just opened in June. Breathtaking, I can practically smell them through my monitor!

Click the image through to her shop or follow her on twitter for more current updates.

Sorry about all the family posts this week, it’s just been on my mind recently with summer in full swing. We’re headed to the Endo today for our quarterly check-up for David. Basically this check up will tell me how I’m doing as a mother. They take what’s called an Hemoglobin A1C test. Which in plain English means that they’ll run a test that is like he’s had his blood glucose levels tested every 30 seconds for the last 3 months. The average is given as a percentage, our target range for David is anything below 8.9%.

When David was diagnosed, he was at 14% – BAD! In March I got him down to a 5.9% with 64% of our blood glucose readings in range, 21% high, and 15% low. AWESOME! This time around I’m a little more nervous. David has come out of what they call the honeymoon phase and so he no longer kicks out any insulin (we had that helping us out for the last quarter). As a result his blood sugar is a lot harder to manage. Not without the added factor that I’ve been more than occupied with Charlie and lack of sleep, I haven’t been on top of it as I usually am in the diabetes department. Here’s to hoping his A1C hasn’t risen too much and to setting better goals to be more on top of his injections and calculations for next quarter!

As I’ve been prepping him for his appointment and we’ve been talking about the A1C test and meeting with his doctor he’s been asking a lot of questions about why he has diabetes and the rest of us don’t. It breaks my heart to try to explain to him that he’s just unlucky in the pancreas department however these sorts of things are there to make us stronger. To which he replied, “Yeah mom, Charlie is going to think I’m the toughest big brother with my shots. If he ever gets diabetes then I can teach him all about finger checks, and shots and help him when he’s sad because I love him.”

With that said, David hasn’t lost any of who he is characteristically because of diabetes, still sensitive and sweet and adventurous. Just the other day he and Evelyn decorated their toes to which he then notified me, “Mom just because I get my finger sticked (blood checks) doesn’t mean I can’t sticker my toes! Look I helped Evelyn sticker her toes too!” (beautiful artwork below) Always the optimist, aren’t children resilient?

So the letterpress Confection Collection is out and available to retail stores along with being listed in the Shop as well! I had a hard time choosing a color scheme for these cards and tags (ava. soon) as I didn’t want it to look like a circus or too similar to the cupcake colorway. With the drab recession underway I decided I was looking for something bright and cheery, with a little bit of tangy sweetness to it. Hence pumpkin, lime and grape truffle pops!

TO win a set of 30 truffle pop recipes + treats cards
(3 sets of 10, 1 set of each color)

Be sure to comment by Monday July 20th at Midnight (MST). (Valued at $45)
For ONE extra entry, Tweet the giveaway with a link back to this post and come back to comment that you tweeted with your username.
For ANOTHER entry, blog the giveaway at your own place with a link back to this post.

Good luck!

UPDATED: CONGRATS EMILY F! I’LL BE CONTACTING YOU FOR MAILING INFO!

So I had internet out most of that week and just barley got the photos off my camera from our weekend of fun at my parent’s cabin (sans the husband). So I thought I’d impose on you with a little about the eventful 4th of July.

First off, I pretty much was nuts for even attempting to taking 3 children: one nursing, one diabetic and one a terrible two on a road trip BY MYSELF 300 miles away from home in holiday traffic. Since you all think I need to post more photos of myself – here is the only decent photo taken that weekend by my aunt Mary Ann (I assume since she sent the email) I look like a dork in all the rest – really.

Michelle (L) Adrienne (R) : Our sons (2nd cousins) were both diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes within weeks of each other. Mine was 4, Michelle’s was 5. Extended family thought a diabetes mom picture needed to be taken, I of course look hammered.

And to humor you all, the other photo my aunt sent as well.

Quite the serious cousins! I have no recollection of either of these photos. The 1990’s flashback – do not remember – I was 5 and my memory serves me poorly that far back. Don’t remember present day photo either because I had just been thrown from a horse. Yes you heard me right, I was chucked about 30 seconds into the ride. You should have seen my backside. My kids were watching and David my 4 year old, thought I was dead. I lay there on the ground checking that everything was all right before I jumped up. I proceeded to strike a rockstar pose just to get a laugh out of them. My family now thinks I’m a real cowgirl. Too bad the husband wasn’t there to see it. In our 9 years of marriage he has yet to see me ride.

We BBQd, IKEAd (projects to come soon), and the culminating event of the weekend was going to the Oakley Rodeo! I think this has to be my favorite photo of the weekend…

Or how about this?

I just can’t decide, too bad no one had a photo of my stunt work.

I’ve been working on this mini-line for awhile and finally have it all put together! Look through the catalogue because you’ll want to be prepped for the next part. If there are any cafes, bakeries, or treat stores that you’d like to see the product in, leave a comment for Dingbat Rewards (cash value redeemable in the shop)!

WHAT YOU GET if you comment on:
STORE w/ address and phone $2 (limit 3 stores per person = $6)
STORE w/ BUYER NAME and address/phone $4 (limit 2 stores per person = $8)
totaling $14 in DP cash!

If your store(s) contact me requesting wholesale information you’ll get +$5 per store (max $15)

If your store fills out a wholesale application you’ll get +$10 (max $30)

If your store places an opening order by the end of August you’ll get $+15 (Max $45)
ALL IN ALL – you could earn up to $104 in Dingbat cash. Think what that could buy…

Comments close July 24th at midnight so get researching!