Category Archives: family

More homemade envelopes, please

black feather envelopeOne day, a month or so ago, I got this little prize in the mail. It was so sweet and thoughtful to for once receive a piece of paper art from friend Adam Myers, working as a business called Black Feather out of Maine or where ever he happens to be vagabonding around.

He can make just about anything. He seems to be focused on making useful things like this envelope…. he probably created it because he needed an envelope to send me a check for his business cards. He didn’t mess around. Naturally I took a closer look because I felt a little outdone for a moment and discovered that he had a couple of layers of a wood catalogue of some sort that he pasted together. The frame around my address is pure genius, I think. It is quite petite in size… always right up my alley (TINY pine?).

I have to admit that of all people, I am experienced with testing the postal service by placing stamps and addresses in rule breaking places. But I have never done a complete reversal of sides. Adam is adventurous and clearly thinks he is above the law, but it got here! I mean, I probably wouldn’t stamp my credit card bill on the wrong side, but here’s proof that it WILL get there…. eventually, anyway.

Now, I know everyone is going to want to start sending me cute pieces of mail to write about… feel free, but go to my website and send it to my office address, will ya?

Oh, here is the business card / logo I designed for him. Black Feather Business Card

A shout out in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker… What???!!!

This summer my little brother Oscar asked me to print tickets letterpress for a small concert he was putting together with his band, Thomas A. Minor and the Picket Line, in Kentucky. Because Bonnie Prince Billy, our good friend and patron, would be the headliner, they were sure to sell out like lightning and he reckoned that if they were printed letterpress then counterfeiting would be highly unlikely. So I obliged him.

Funtown Ticket

Funtown Ticket

It was really a bit secretive… when he gave me the wording, he didn’t even put a location on the ticket. I insisted that he needed to tell the audience what state they would be traveling to, at the very least… I mean, this wasn’t Charlie Sheen’s wedding (I did his invitations and there were all sorts of non-disclosures and I still don’t know where they got married! There wasn’t even a time on his invitations).

My other favorite part was “The Rules” on the back. I printed those on my laser so I didn’t need to dent the card twice. Since when did rules deserve such fine printing?? On the front of the ticket were the most essential restrictions. “No beer, alcohol or drugs” – only a hillbilly would not consider “beer” as a type of “alcohol”. (I can say that because I am a hillbilly.)

Anyways, those things were really not possible to fake. I put them on discontinued 100% recycled leftovers from a postcard I did for David Pajo years ago. And they had a deep clean impression with super thin type.

However, the point of this story is as follows: sometimes work one does is barely noticed at the time… maybe done for free… given with love and no expectations to family and friends. I printed the tickets and then I got to go to the show. I had to pay for my flight from Los Angeles, but I got my favorite Bonnie Prince Billy song dedicated to me and sang so lovely and then I got an amazing shout out about my work. How exciting!

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/05/090105fa_fact_sanneh?currentPage=all

Here’s what K. said…

“They asked Oscar’s sister Jennifer, who lives in Los Angeles, to print the tickets on a letterpress. She made three hundred, and they quickly disappeared from Louisville shops, at ten dollars apiece.”

Hello 2009!!

in the tiny pinesIt’s almost the new year and so much has changed this year for me… and for tiny pine. I love writing and I am excited to try this blogger game… Hopefully I will get to bring lots of little images pieces and maybe even recipes and ideas… How exciting!

So… Here’s to a NEW YEAR!!! HAPPY 2009!!!

xojennifer