Fern Friends

Mike and I went on a walk in the park/woods yesterday.  

I saw some fern dotting the woodsy landscape and was 'naturally' inspired to carve a fern stamp!

Fern are graceful and refreshing. Bright and lush!

Of course, I then proceeded to make a series of thank you cards out of these. One day, I may start a business out of these crazy thank you cards. For now, I call this the Fern Period.

In case anyone is wondering, the recipients of these cards are the folks who interviewed me for a fellowship training position in pulmonary/critical care medicine.

I can't help but make them different from one another--there are a million ways to create a design using just one stamp and a pallete of ferny colors.  I felt pretty good about myself when I came up with the idea to make ghostly gold ferns with a bold fern on top! I get attached to these cards for their uniqueness and happy-accidental good results... and I just want to hoard them.

Look at the pretty sheen from the gold stamp ink and the slubby texture of the paper, such is joy.

I hope the people who receive them experience the ferny feeling that I got when creating them!

But juuuust to be sure, I slapped this stamp on the back ;)

And a big thank you to you, if you are out there reading about my fern friends!

Wedding Invitation Suite, Part Dos

My guests loved the invitations! Or perhaps they were polite. That said, the encouragement gave me that extra push to start a few more projects: programs, thank you notes, take over the world.

Bridal shower thank you cards

This is our program.  I am still feeling kind of self-conscious about it because I think it needs a bow or a rhinestone or something. Rhinestones have rescued a few of my failed projects. I wish I could be a sheet of rhinestones.  As you can see, I drew a picture of Mike and me.  I then scanned it into the computer where I had the free reign to alter its color and add some more frills to my dress on photoshop.  In the end, I think I could have added the frills by hand with the same amount of effort. But at least no ink was wasted!  I (somewhat brilliantly) figured out a way to print the drawing onto my purple paper (which is starting to become kind of annoying as it just won't run out) with my printer. But then I had to wait a full 24 hours for them to dry.  Then I decided I wanted to illustrate the rest of the bridal party.  While this was amusing for like 2 days, I am starting to think that I'm a little weird...

My little stamps and beloved carver.

Here is a little preview of the thank you cards. I decided to make them all different.
I love Sigmund the Pigmund and Platelet the Penguin wearing bowties. Maybe you can't tell but I put *~*RHINESTONES *~* on their bowties. 

And to think , it all started out with my humble linoleum "printing shop" in our little apartment in Pittsburgh....

Hope you enjoyed that sampling of my wedding-related art projects.

My DIY Save the Dates

We sent out the save the dates recently! (3 weeks ago) Wow, now we really need to have this wedding. I was so nervous to send them out, thinking that they will all get lost, or worse, dumped into a creek. Luckily, our US Postal Service colleagues came through, and at least 5 people have received their save the dates, I know because I harassed them about it. I loved each and every one of them so much that I took pictures of them so that they'll always live on in pixel form on our majestic world wide web:

Behold some close ups.  I wish I could close up each card since they are all different but here are a few:



Who is Sivan, you ask?
This is Mike's middle name/Hebrew name.

Completing this little project was pretty rewarding. The highlight occurred when the postal worker lady gave us stamps in denominations of $.05, $.04, and $.20 so that we had to put no less than 3 stamps on each save the date to add up to the $.29 required to send them.   

All in a day's work!

An Update

Here are some latest versions. I am experimenting with placement of the text.  I have a few qualms but they are minor.  Such as faintness of the "pittsburgh, pa" stamp.  I realized after looking at a few other save the dates that I should include our names and our location. Otherwise people would not know who the weird bird cards are arriving from!

Now I have to figure out what goes on the other side :)

Here are some reflections on the process.  I carved this design last year because it is 'somehow' involved in the invitations as well (secret.).  I liked it so much I decided to use it again.  Besides, it will provide thematic continuity.  Actually I put a lot of thought into the meaning of the design too but that is a story for another post.  

I use a speedball linoleum carver both for my eraser stamps and for linoleum.  I use erasers because I found a whole bunch of them really cheap at a miscellaneous chinese store, but otherwise there are specific stamp blocks that can be used (pictured left). 

Then I mix up the ink on a plate of plexiglass (from Home Depot) with my trusty squeegee. This is my favorite part because you never really know what color you'll get.  I am not particular about getting the shade right; I usually like to be surprised and mix colors based on how I feel at the moment.  The second batch of these that I printed had some lovely pink and mint shades.

When inking the linoleum, the trick is to thin out the ink until the consistency is right.  The first few prints are always too inky for me.  The last few prints are underinked.  I'm sure master printmakers have this all sorted out, but I'm happy with I can get doing these by hand.  When I was in high school we had this amazing printing press and made huge prints.  Nowadays I am content with my little card-sized prints.

green bird friend

many bird friends

a sneak peak

One phrase to explain it all--4th year of medical school.
This is another bridezilla moment except that it has been surprisingly long-sustained so I am probably a permanent bridezilla, or rather, just neurotic. It all started with me deciding to make all of the wedding stationery myself.  Let's just say that it was too late to turn back when I spent $50 on 750 sheets of really long 33" x 6" shiny purple paper.  The shiny purple paper and I certainly had some adventures last spring but it is too early to unveil those right now.  I will share a more recent adventure: TODAY'S ADVENTURE!!

Left: multitudes of linoleum printed birdies
Right: carved eraser stamps, trusty corner punch