Rustnstuff: Letter postcards

Showing posts with label Letter postcards. Show all posts

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Celebrate life & love and other fragments

I did quite a bit of letterpress work on Saturday: printing some celebrate life & love cards and post cards; first print run on a card commission; and printing some celebratory coasters.

But first CELEBRATE life & love. I just felt the need to put a positive message out the about the importance of celebrate each day of life that we can and also celebrate the love we share. I had been printing some coasters in a bright red so decided that a strong luscious vibrant pink would be uplifting. The opening photo is me playing with left over ink on darker coloured paper. The actual cards are given a bit of sparkle with copper dust. The postcards are on white and grey as you can see. The type for the cards is Mistral 72pt.

I printed 40 of the first run of memorial cards. Fiona is to hand illustrate them and print the inside message.

I printed a number of sets of Christmassy coasters including the Cheers coasters.

My workspace was tidy but full as I packed up on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Cards for Christmas and 24 pieces of silver

Saturday and Sunday were quite a busy couple of days. I managed to print 20 cards and 20 postcards for Christmas; and made 7 Tea Caddy spoons, 8 Leaf Teaspoons and 9 pate knives for Maleny Additions (MA).

The cards were printed in rubine red and have been dusted with gold dusting powder.

After a lot of cutting, form folding, hammering, grinding and polishing went into the 24 pieces but they look great as you can see below.

A few process photos follow.

The last tasks with the MA pieces are to add swing tags, courtesy of Fiona, and then do price lists - never done until it is all done.

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Taking tiny steps

The combination of covid grinding on and our politicians appearing to ignore the will of the people tends to drag one down. I thought I needed to do a couple of nano posters (aka portrait post card size): one that would encourage me to hold on to hope; and another to remind me that even taking small positive steps can contribute to positive change.

As you can see from my work desk (below) in DEP I had talked to Fiona about words and done quite a bit of searching online to see how others might express these sentiments. In the end I settled on the two statements printed in this post. There are other to print of course.

I was also determined to use up offcuts and paper rejects to print on - hence some crazy colour combinations in the prints.

I chose bright deep blue-purple being mixed in the opening photo as I find it is both uplifting and references the ongoing struggle for equality; and orange because it is hopeful and healing.

There were some unusual combinations - I do like the one on some handmade paper.

This was satisfying printing. These prints will find their way out into the world.

Sunday, November 29, 2020

This and that

Saturday was spent in the DEP studio-gallery-shop. As well as attending to customers I set and printed a postcard regarding the importance of seeing and holding on to fragments of beauty in dark times. The words we by John O'Donuhue. I used a 24pt script type - the lowercase is quite small - took a bit of time to compose. You might be able to pick up a typo that I didn't pick up until I had finished printing and cleaned up and put the type away.

Today I managed to finish the last of the leaf tea caddy spoons and leaf teaspoons. The metal working gloves on the bench have just about seen their day.

I also cut up and annealed about 30 largish copper blanks for a future project; and cut and sanded 3 hardwood cubes for another future project. Both those projects will be revealed at a later date. Turned out to be a full weekend.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Some production can be playful

Fiona and I spent Saturday and Sunday morning working in Deckled Edge Press studio-workshop-gallery. We are continuing to make product for sale; and test the set up of the space, systems and equipment before we open in a few weeks. Of course the opening will have to be done in accord with the Covid-19 requirements including numbers.

One of the fun pieces was the card below - it could be a birthday card; but could also just be an everyday card for folk who love riding bikes. We loved the joyful play on words.

I finished a few more book marks.

I packaged up the gift cards - a stash as you can see from the photo below.

The isolation time is not being wasted.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Thoughts for our time

During the week I was reading and thinking about John O'Donohue's words in his poem-blessing titled "For the interim time". I feel this speaks of any time of transition; though when he wrote he was speaking about dusk time.

I feel the words are apt for any time in our life where we are making some form of transition; so it may not be surprising that I think they are quite apt for the time of the pandemic. A time where the path we took "has washed out"; and yet we are still not clear about what our new personal and community normal will be.

I did a limited run of 24 postcards with the four lines that resonated most strongly with me. A few photos of the process follow.

© 2020 Barry Smith - I was working with 18 pt Excelsior font - trays on the left; whilst Fiona was working on the Lighting Jobber Press printing her poem Open - the Deckled Edge Press space is great to work in.