Well, it’s official..  I’m finally hitched!  After a wonderful couple of weeks down on St. Simons Island, GA, our small, sweet, and very DIY southern wedding was a complete success.  I’m planning a post with some of the details in the near future, but have quite a few (well, more than a few) photos to sort through.  Until then, I’m back in the studio and trying to get back in the swing of that thing called work. Much love.

photo courtesy of Carla Cox

With the printing all complete, it was time to move on to the cutting, folding packing and sending..

After each piece was completed, Wes started to cut the spotted bands (it wrapped around the cards to hold them in place), while I started to measure and cut our envelope liners.  We then glued the liners in place (pretty simple with a glue stick and folding tool) and began stacking and wrapping the pieces together.  I have to say, although this was time consuming, it was the easiest part!

The real fun part of this step was seeing how each piece was individually different from the next, some a little crooked, some heaver than others etc..  Although not perfect, it was kinda nice knowing that each guest would truely have their own personal invitation, different from the rest.

Overall, I think we’d both agree that despite the amount of time that went into our invites, the end resulted in a very happy, gratifying finish that we were both proud of.  Phewwww!

Wes & I knew as soon as we bought our letterpress that, despite having no previous experience working one, we wanted to design & print our own wedding invitations.  I started by sketching up some ideas, (loosely based on our Save-the-Date card) eventually breaking up the info into 6 pieces: invite, reception card, map, rehearsal dinner, return address and envelope liner/band wrap.

We then brought the drawings into Illustrator to clean up (so the letterpress plates we were ordering could print clearly) and decided on our fonts.  Since each color needs its own plate, we ended up with roughly 10 plates of various sizes.   We then went and selected our paper, deciding on a fairly soft, off-white letterpress-friendly paper that wasn’t too pricey.

Later in the week our plates came in and we finally able to start printing!  Unfortunately what started off as something we thought we could finish up over the weekend, ended up turning into an almost 2 week project.  We started with the main card first, printing about 80 in a light blue-green color.

While those dried, we moved onto the next card, later returning to ink the text in a different color.  We kept this routine up (despite it literally being over 100° in our studio) for the rest of the week.

main invite & reception card

color change & check

map, rehearsal, and return address

to be continued..

In an effort to clean out my Etsy shop by the end of summer (need to make room for new Fall and Holiday items!), I’m having a summer sale on all drawings and paintings.  Since I’m getting married mid-August, I’d like to try and have things cleaned out by the end of July.  Here are some of the details:

**All original drawings, now $35 or 3/$90

**All paintings $50-150 off original price

click image for Etsy

Can you name all 18?  (See key after the jump for the answers)

Left to Right from the top

1.  Mouth’s comb
2.  Brand’s sweet stolen ride
3.  Water served at the Fratelli’s restaurant
4.  Copper Bones skeleton key
5.  Troy’s rear-view mirror
6.  Spanish Doubloon
7.  One-Eyed Willie
8.  Treasure Map
9.  Pinchers of Peril
10. Mikey’s inhaler
11. “That’s my mom’s most favorite piece! ”
12. Sloth’s Baby Ruth
13. Chunk gets interrogated
14. Brand’s dangerous workout equipment
15. “Andy, you Goonie!”
16. The rocks of Astoria
17. Marble bag of precious stones
18. Steph’s broken glasses

Also, for a limited time (& as a way of supporting my shop), I am listing some paintings from my sale site on Etsy.. all at least $100 off their current listed price!

**Apologies, soon after I posted these, a bunch of the paintings sold..  but there are still a few goodies left behind!**

After coming up with the animation, I drew up a sign post, painted the color separately, and then placed the drawing on top of it.  Below is a still from our homepage (click for larger image).

If you’d still like to view the actual site (dull details & all), feel free to click here.

Lady Letterpress

converted my sticker logo (used for shipments) into this:

our first test-run print! (though the scan doesn’t look all that impressive)

A wealthy old man is sick and close to dying.  He invites his greedy heirs to a Mardi Gras party where they must wear the masks he specially had made for each of them.. or else be cut off from their inheritance.  The old man wears a skull mask, that later reveals the true “face of death”.

The Face of Death (The Masks), 9in x 9in,

Flash on wood, sealed in resin

We initially looked at a few of the hundreds of free sites out there (which are great and easy to use) but we really didn’t like any of the designs we found.  So we decided to put together our own site that had a more hand made feel to it, and carried the theme of our save-the-date cards.

I started by sketching the two of us on our Vespa (Bruce in back), then painted the color separately, followed by overlaying the drawing on top of it.  We wanted to animate the bike, so I then redrew a couple more frames and decided to change the pom-poms to tin cans, to give it more of a country feel.  Stay tuned for more!

Vespa riders for the homepage (click for detail)

a little snippet from the animated version

My first piece is based on the well-known episode, The Eye of the Beholder.  A woman wrapped in bandages who said to be so ugly, that the surgery preformed on her face is her last hope.  At the climax of the show, the doctors slowly unravel the bandages (which seems to go on for ages), to reveal a beautiful woman.  Then the camera pans back to show that all of the doctors and nurses look ugly and deformed.

The Unveiling, 16in x 16in

Flash on wood, sealed in resin

More info on the opening coming soon.

]]> http://youfail.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2028 3 http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2011 http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2011#comments Sat, 17 Apr 2010 18:08:24 +0000 kiersten http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2011 August seems to be quickly approaching, which is kind of a good thing b/c planning a small out-of-state shindig has proved harder than we originally thought it would be.  Wes & I decided on sending out simple 6in x 6in postcards that had a bit of folk art feel to them.

I sketched up an image that included both our home states and the tiny church we’ll be married in.  I then painted the color separately and layered them together to give a slightly silk-screened effect.  We then built our own site (more on that later) and will be letterpressing our own invites with our brand-new (but old) letterpress.

the sketch below:

]]> http://youfail.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=2011 6 http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2005 http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2005#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:06:27 +0000 kiersten http://youfail.com/blog/?p=2005 New guy up at Twaggies, ladies & gents.  I’m going to be doodling for them 3-5 times a week, so check back often!  Or you can follow them on Twitter HERE.