Join Me on a Studio Tour

I've been planning this for a while and FINALLY got the papers tidied enough to welcome you, virtually, into my studio.

The studio is in the converted carport of our house, and previous owners seemed to have used it as storage. One chainsawed-out section of a wall and one french door installation later, and inviting moved in. There are been slight improvements since then, of course, like colorful curtains (and thermals to help with the summer heat), some white paint, some near-black paint, a place to sit, a rug (it really ties the room together) and a little feng shui thanks to my mom.

So let's go!

From the Door:

When you walk though the door off the front porch, this is what you see
You've got some type cabinets on the left, a HEAVY composing stone on the right, and Vera the press in the back right corner. The studio isn't air conditioned so near the french doors is my wee cooling unit which gets wheeled over to the window during the hot months, where it makes a difference until about noon, and then I have to call it a day. One day I'll get the place properly insulated and have a small unit installed, where that little pink shelf is.

From Vera's End

This is what you see when standing near the black composing stand. The front door, little seating area for tea, taking phone calls while I'm working, and instagramming. (Sometimes Hobo Cat #3 sits there- he'll come in and watch me work). The composing stone, with all it's wonderful wooden tools, is from the San Jacinto College, which is where I took some art classes as a kid- small world! On it are three boxes of printing plates. There's also a little space heater, and some display items for craft shows by the window.


And this is standing next to Vera. You can see more of the type cabinets and paper storage drawers. I'm always envious of printers who have their press next to a window for the natural light, but that corner has a tendency to flood on really heavy rain days (not a lot, but two of those cabinets are up on bricks for a reason), plus, the outlets are on the opposite wall.

From the Window area

Here's Vera, our lovely, green, small, beast of a press. She's a Chandler & Price New Style platen press, 8x12. There are some folding tables near her for any shows that I do, or if I need extra work space in the house or office, our inks, the mirror that previous owners up had which is convenient for looking out the window without having to stop printing, my little A/V spot for watching netflix or listening to pandora, and cleaning/maintenance supplies and tools.

So that is my little studio. It smells of metal, wood, ink and oil (trust me, it's wonderful), the flooring is cool, ceilings are high (and therefor not painted yet), and it is a happy little corner where I am thrilled to spend time printing lovelies for you. It's not much, but I love it. What do you think? Is it what you imagined my small printing studio to look like?

There's a 360* video on instagram. Check it out @shopinviting

Cheers,

Pretty, pretty papers to pair with our cards.

You've probably noticed that I like to line the envelopes of some of our cards. Some of you have commented on the wonderful papers that I choose, so I thought I'd share a photo of some of that stash:

Croc papers, flocked papers, handmade papers, kraft papers, glitter papers, so many options! The hardest part really is making the selection.  I store rolls (over 30!) on the pegboard with more (shhhhh) inside the hidden storage of my chaise longue, single sheets draped over the dowel, and smaller flat sheets in a storage tower in the closet. I'm always on the lookout for new papers for linings, which leads to storage situations, and marathon lining sessions. Each liner is traced with our templates, cut, inserted, and pasted by hand, and like our printing, one at a time.

I think the linings add that little something extra, and it's always nice to receive cards & letters where the extra care was put into the envelope. What about you? Think it's worth the time and/or expense?

Cheers,
ashley

Seek it out or let it find you: Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing; it can come from anywhere! You really just need to be open to it.
Personally, I get ideas for type layout from movie credits and film posters (and that could just be me trying to justify my netflix & dvd habit, except it's totally true.)

Seeing this poster led to creating these.

Love vintage labels. Also, this movie is awesome but please don't smoke; it's stinky and it ages you.

Browsing the nostalgia section of used book stores is good, too- the spines and cover printings often use elegant type and simple line art/flourishes that get my creative juices flowing. Sometimes I'll get lucky and find a great title page, maybe with the slightest texture from the letterpress printing. (And sometimes those happen to be a first edition of a favorite book!)

Patterns and color combinations often come from fashion and interior designers. (Pinterest is good for that.) It's nice to see combinations that are often unexpected that work surprisingly well together.

I subscribe to a few designers' newsletters and some of them provide goodies (free, even for commercial use!) to their loyal readers- they take vintage elements and turn them into vector art for designers. Sometimes I'll see one and get immediately inspired to create something with it; it's wonderful! And since they've been vectorized, they're easy to manipulate and edit to fit my needs.

And sometimes inspiration comes from something that I lack or need. ("Necessity is the mother of invention.") I got tired of scrounging for papers in my purse to write snarky notes to people who can't park, et voila:

Newly reprinted and available here.

 
What about you? What inspires you?

Task on My Dislike List

When inviting grows up a bit and can hire outside help, one of the first things to go to outside hands is product photography. Even with my set up of light box, lights, Photoshop, etc... Oof, such a pain.

Most of last week was spent not blogging, obviously, but updating photos:

I removed all the old, tan-pattern background photos, and slid the styled photos aside, making clean, white backgrounds as the featured photos for all. Still having issues with keeping the light unvaried, but overall... better, right?

Cheers,
ashley

Oh the Studio... what a mess summer makes of you!

Now that the temperatures are starting to drop, it's time to refresh the studio!

During the summer months, studio time goes like this:

• turn on a/c unit and return to the house for 15 minutes while it cools off
• bring in rollers from their kitchen cabinet (if left in studio during the summer, they could melt. it's happened and it's not pleasant!)
• set up the press and print project as quickly as possible, while watching the temperature on the a/c unit creep back up
• clean the press and return rollers to the kitchen cabinet
• grab the printed items, turn off a/c, and race back to the house before melting

It's not a glamorous time, that's for sure.

But in the Fall, the glorious Fall, it is so much more pleasant! Plus, because I'm not racing out of the studio to beat the heat, I can linger and actually put things away when done! It's amazing.
 
It's also the time that I rearrange things to make the studio a little nicer and more efficient. (Near the end of Spring, a mega-tidy-session occurs, preparing for the Summertime Heat.)
October's projects for after printing sessions:

• move ink shelves closer to the press
• shift the pegboard to make room for the new shelving spot
• repair and re-hang the type drawer to store/display the vintage printing blocks
• gather polymer plate scraps to send to the recycling service
• go through stack(s) of scrap/used paper for set-up or recycling
• dust, sweep & clean studio
• unplug a/c and put away for the winter; get space heater ready for November
• add items to portfolio wall
• swap out light bulbs for winter lighting
• finish painting walls with primer, and maybe decide on an actual wall color

I'll be sure to share pictures once it's complete; so excited!

Hobo Cat #3 in the studio. He likes to watch me work.

Cheers,
ashley

Ever wonder where our paper is made?

The majority of our paper is Crane's Lettra, and we love it because it's soft (so takes the impression nicely), strong, and made specifically for letterpress printing. But what's also great about it is that it's made in the USA and:

Our matching cotton envelopes, same deal.

And our colored envelopes:

The polymer for our modern printing plates is from Japan; a company in New York turns them into printing plates for our use.

Thought you might be interested!
Cheers,
ashley 

P.S. Don't forget: save 15% off your order of $50 or more with coupon code DAD15 (code expires on 5.31.14) when ordering from shopinviting.com

Not Going to Deny It, April's Been Rough...

... but it's also been great.

Started the month off seeing lots of family: the first week I got to see a Grandma and Aunt from one side, then that weekend a quick road trip with Mom to see an uncle and my grandparents from her side. A few days later, my Dad and stepmother came for a visit. It was really fun seeing so much family within a week.

But then that night we got a phone call from Trent's Aunt that his Grandpa was nearing the end of his 102 years so we raced to Brownsville to see him. We made it in time to say good-bye, but he was already in a morphine-induced sleep and passed away shortly after we arrived.
It was a very rough couple of days but also led to seeing a lot of Trent's family, which we don't do often enough.

We spent four nights in Brownsville and helped out the sons and daughters by clearing out the walk-in storage closet at Grandpa's, and also the buffet/credenza, both jam-packed full of photos, cards, and in the case of the closet, 20+ bags of trash (plus a huge To Be Donated stash!) While doing so, we came across this photo of the Grandparents as 19 year olds, before they were married:

1931, age 19. What a find!

Very appreciative of our understanding clients whose orders were delayed a couple of days while we helped family and attended the funeral. And our posting here (everywhere!) has been spotty at best due to all the travel and family visits.

But now we're back and I think almost back to normal. Except not, because Trent is determined to lose some weight so we're on a (gasp) diet (hate that word) this week, 1100 calories/day. (I'm doing it too, since I can afford to lose a few, though I'm still enjoying a soy chai latte for tea time.) We have discovered a few good snack recipes thanks to his fitness dvd's quick start meal plans, like turkey slices with some goat cheese, chopped walnuts and an avocado slice rolled up. Yum, but the dinners leave me hungry. What can I say? I love food.

Unfortunately he's discovered that avocado is not disgusting so there goes my extra portion at taco places!

When not playing catch-up, or feeling hungry, I've been prepping for our first of three spring shows in a row, the King William Fair! Worried that a) I'll forget something b) it won't all fit in the car and c) that San Antonio won't like my products. But either way, I'm sure it will be a fun show. Trying a new display/booth set up and if it's a success, I'll probably repeat it for the Violet Crown Festival and the Mother's Day Flea, since they're also outdoor shows.

Expect a recap of the KWF early next week.

If you're in the San Antonio area, you know I'd love to see you! Or if you have friends there, please spread the word. I'll be set up in booth space K210 but since my best friend from high school will be helping me out, you can probably just follow the laughter to our booth. :)

Cheers,
ashley

{Behind the Scenes} Re-taking Product Photos

I've been re-taking photos for the online shop, trying to bring more color and brightness into the product shots since we enjoy do color so much.

Here's the During photo:

One of several photo shoots done this week

And the finished product:

Cards made with printing block and vintage type, this is available {here}

What do you think? Personally, I think it's a great improvement over the soon-to-be-former look:

Huge difference!

Also, don't forget about the stationery sale on Saturday from 10a - 10p!

A lot of items aren't up on the site yet, they'll go live on Saturday morning. (Sneaky!) I spent two days this week photographing and prepping listings for items that weren't online yet. They're all ready for Saturday now.

Cheers,
Ashley

Typewriter Love

Vera the Letterpress isn't the only piece of vintage machinery we use at inviting; all of our Thank You notes that get tucked in with your orders are printed on our 1941 Royal Arrow manual typewriter:

Our Ebay score, and the start of what might one day turn into a collection.
It doesn't look as dingy in person, promise!

Letterpress printed text-weight sheets perfect for typing!

When WWII started, Royal stopped making typewriters and switched to war manufacturing.
There are rare Royal typewriters made for the US Navy in 1942, which you can find on Ebay,
but mostly they made machine guns and airplane parts.
They picked up typewriter production again in 1945.

Using this took some getting used to: there's no 1 key (must use a capital I), exclamation points are made with ' backspace .  Weird things like that. At least there is an @ symbol! It's fun though, hides my messy handwriting, and its age adds quite a bit of character to letters, like printing with metal type vs polymer plates in the studio does.

I usually give names to my favorite things: ex, Vera is the letterpress, Esther the bass guitar... Looking at the popular baby names of 1941, I'm leaning towards Frances (#31) or Margaret (#12), ooh, or Peggy (#39)!
I'm liking Peggy, what do you think?

Cheers,
ashley