Just a quick note about this cute save the date postcard that I just finished for a Bat Mitzvah. The theme is travel, and I thought, what better way to send that message than by a note from the young lady to her friends from afar… complete with stripes and stamps!
When Roger Sterling’s daughter, Margaret, needed wedding invitations in 1963, they called me – in 2009. I know it seems crazy but…..
OK. I will admit that the prop master, Gay Parello (who by the way is totally cool and very on top of the look, as you would have to be to work on a demanding period show like Mad Men) came to Tiny Pine Press because she needed to have a type of printing that was authentic to the period (letterpress) in a type that was of the period (Nuptial Script). AND they needed it FAST. I think I turned this project around in 3 days. I was more than pleased to help out one of my very favorite television shows!
In the episode they talk about bells, and silver, and maybe blue – I can’t remember – but at the end of the day they didn’t show anything but the type. You will have to take my word for it that the invitations actually did have bells and silver and there were three different versions of them.
But I will take the airtime, with or without those silly bells!
I have this very favorite paper/fabric cotton organdi…. It’s the perfect fabric for wedding invitations because it is white, starchy, sturdy, 
translucent, and has just the perfect feeling… a little like tulle and a little bit like canvas… I have been using it for years… (here is my first wedding invitation for Natasha Gregson Wagner using a cotton organdi belly band).
It comes in a few different colors but white always seems to be the best. However, sometimes white is toooooo WHITE. Blaring white is no good for organic handmade looking pieces.
What to do? What to do?!
Well, DYE IT!! That’s the answer.
The last two times I used this fabric, I tea stained it with Lipton. Those turned out lovely but probably a little dark for my current client. She wanted something more in a “cream”… a little less orangey than tea stain…
So today, a super sunny Sunday afternoon in California, I mixed up the RIT – a little taupe and a little yellow – in a big vat and dyed all these sheets…. Now they just need to be pressed out flat again and they will be ready to go cut and wrap up a pretty warm white wedding invitation…
What a nice way to get back to my country girl roots, hanging out clothes on the line for the sunshine to dry. It’s kind of zen, creates a perfect embellishment, and allows the sun to do the rest of the work… oh, it’s kind of green, actually!
In the past couple of weeks there has been LOTS of change at Tiny Pine Press because I moved my studio across town, from a becoming over-crowded space to a shared studio with lots more privacy, without shutting down production and even squeezing in jury duty throwing a baby shower for one of my best friends (who had her baby today!! and I got to be in the room for the birth shooting video and photos).
In that time, I moved Verdie, my Chandler & Price Pilot Press. I was so nervous about shifting her weight that I had my friend drive her separately, very very slowly in his ultra large SUV and daring him make any dramatic stops…. begging him to drive with ease and quiet through Friday afternoon traffic in Los Angeles, changing freeways 4 times…
She faired just fine, and I placed Verdie into her new home. I tested her out sans ink to make sure nothing shifted somehow – she IS held together by bolts. OLD bolts – and then I left her.
She has a room with a view out the window in this new place. She has her own room. It’s sort of small but she is small (only 200 lbs.) She sits on her tiny table made of pine and just waits for me.
Tomorrow I am making the final move…. Putting all the computery things in the big office space section of the studio, and I am going to print 3 runs on Verdie and see how she likes her new space. I think she does… there is a little window that lets in a good amount of light and it is quite cozy in there with everything in reachable distance.
Here’s a picture of my little press, in her new space… Doesn’t she look so happy??
One 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. 
Today I had a project which called for vintage postage for the envelopes. It’s my favorite time of the design process.
I get all stamp happy and pick out bunches to choose from and agonize over which ones are best suited in color, shape, value and theme. It’s a puzzle and I get to solve it.
I design these stamp configurations with love, not logic, and then when it comes time to actually assemble them… Well, that’s when it gets interesting. Or when I get anxious.
Everyone thinks that the final assembly of an invitation, the “stuff stamp and seal” is really fast and just the final bit of getting out the mail. But I am here to tell you today, friends, that one needs to allow a good amount of time for this process. Even if there is one stamp…. and especially if there are 10
10 NON self-adhesive vintage stamps with vintage glue. That’s what today’s assignment was. Fortunately I have a crazy friend, Joanna, who LOVES sticking stamps. We had our mock-up and set out to stamp 130 envelopes – that’s 1300 individual stamps, if you want me to do the math for you. Together, it took us about 3 1/2 hours (so it would have been an entire day if it were just me and that doesn’t even include the sealing phase). She is typically employed as an illustrator/conceptual artist on feature films and I can’t afford that kind of help… but fortunately, she works for me in exchange for food… and then bought her own lunch! That’s how much she LOVES applying postage!
joanna with the finished product
It is actually quite zen when you get into it. And only once in awhile did we go crazy and stick the same stamp on twice. and sometimes your fingers get coated in vintage glue. And then you are smiling cause you were smart enough to not lick the stamps. Do you know when they made 3 cent stamps? Well, they made them for a bunch of years, but it was awhile ago… and they don’t taste good.
Anyways… here are some photos. And no, I am not telling you where I get them. That’s my little secret……