Category Archives: recycling

Brown Paper Bag Packages

Posted on July 16th, 2010
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As I was printing some brown paper bag envelopes yesterday for a wedding invitation, I was thinking there’s a lot of thinking time in printing, but also I was thinking about where I got this penchant for the good ole grocery bag.

Tiny Pine was started 7 or 8 years ago when I sewed presents onto chopped up trader joes bags and then sewed those onto cardstock for last minute birthday cards. I sold those for a while and made a sort of card line. They were cute and quirky. I know where the sewing thing comes from… , my mom and several aunts and uncles worked at Mr. Casuals for 30 years – a sewing factory in southwest Virginia that produced Ralph Lauren and Osh Kosh and lots of sort of high end jeans and pants and such. My grandma made many many quilts (my mom too). It’s almost genetic.

But why do I love the brown paper bag?

Well, I got a delivery on my doorstep yesterday for my Birthday Present. Every package from my mom looks like this. She literally puts everything in a brown paper bag and wraps it with tape and addresses right on there. The shape doesn’t matter (I’ve gotten round packages) AND she also sticks crazy stamps and stickers on it. I almost don’t want to open it I love it so much.

PS Here is another good example of reusing. That paper bag got a good work out before it got to me.

Thanks Momma!

blog times = good times

Posted on June 29th, 2010
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especially when it’s Martha Stewart’s Wedding Blog!!

I was so so super excited when Yifat Oren gave me the word that Kristina & Jesse’s Wyoming wedding invitations were shown by Martha this morning. HOORAY! I felt like Tiny Pine Press hit the wedding blog jackpot!!

I love this invitation. It’s classic Tiny Pine. I mean, there are pine needle clusters stitched on every invitation. Can you get more piney?

The save the dates were also one of my favorites… with the tinted photograph of the property delivered to the guests, giving them just a peek at where they would be traveling to.

So now a new goal has been reached, and I can rest a bit before working towards a new goal of getting Martha Stewart to follow me on Twitter……

Thanks to Yvette Roman for the pretty photo of the stationery!

letters through time

Posted on May 30th, 2010
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So, I am going to go out on a limb and admit that I love girly romantic movies. I will also admit that I was excited to see “Letters to Juliet” this weekend with a couple of 10 year old girls. Let’s call it “research”, right?

I have to say that the movie was very predictable, even for my young friends, and more than anything I enjoyed the main prop, the letter to Juliet, that was aged and weathered as it had been trapped in a brick wall for 50 years, as the story goes.

I instantly remembered this envelope that a friend of mine sent to me recently. He reused an envelope that had been addressed to his mother by erasing the pencil and removing the stamp. The envelope is lined, thankfully, since the liner is the only thing holding it together, yellow and vibrant as ever.

The best part about this old re-used envelope is the texture. It’s ragged and almost soft yet crispy. It reminds me of cockle onion skin (my very very favorite of the old school writing papers).

Needless to say, when I got this envelope in the mail, it was obvious to me that THIS is the best form of recycling. No chemical processing, no electricity used to re-make this envelope.

Makes me think that I should start using pencil for my correspondence…. so in the future, someone can do the same thing with my envelopes….

Super Recycled

Posted on June 9th, 2009
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The truth about recycled paper is that normally it’s not so great. Usually it only comes in light weights and smooth finish and, well, not the super duper best recipient of letterpress…

So when I caught wind (no pun intended – you’ll see) of this fairly new product, I had my doubts.  This paper is not only 100% recycled, it super soft and comes in some great colors. 

It also is comprised of 75% or so Elephant Poop. monkey on poop paper

YUP. 

I printed on it recently. The color is a super awesome bright green. I used it for a birth announcement (appropriate, right?) for my friend Nikki Flores (who has logged some hours as a letterpress printer but gave that all up to go to Harvard Law and raise a child at the same time…..) and printed this monkey on it. 

It took pressing really nicely. It’s super airy, giving the print a pillowy feel that all us letterpress lovers seek.

As I was printing it, I kept wondering if it was weird that I was touching this processed poop, but at the end of the day, touching elephant pooh paper doesn’t weird me out…. but I would second guess licking any envelopes!!

A Crow and a Swan

Posted on January 27th, 2009
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soy crow

These days I feel inclined to write a lot about ways to reuse or recycle things we sometimes think of as waste. Let’s talk trash!

I have always used soy-based inks for letterpress printing, except for the metallics which don’t come in soy. When I mix an ink color for a job, I try to only mix the right amount… you only use a teensy bit really to print. But sometimes it just happens that the ink blob gets bigger and bigger as you try to get the right shade of whatever. It just happens….

When I was working at soolip in west hollywood as the designer, the printer at the time, Joel Larson, would make crazy paintings with his leftover ink. They were beautiful abstract works that he would layer on to whatever scraps of paper he had lying around.

I took that as inspiration when I had extra ink to get rid of. So even though I tried only to mix as much as I need, there is always some leftovers and so I started making paintings of my own.

soy swan

These two birds are my favorites so far. Soy has a much faster drying time than most oil or rubber based inks for some reason. And what is cool and sort of unique is the way it dries when layered on the paper thick. It takes a sort of brainy texture giving the ink pile depth, almost sculptural.

Just a side note, the cardboard pieces are the packaging from the letterpress plate shipment. Making art from trash….my favorite thing!

Raised to Reuse

Posted on January 23rd, 2009
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I am a real conservative when it comes to printing. Not conservative in a political or religious way… but in an environmental way.ziplock drying rack In my family we reused as much as possible. This is a photo of my cousin JC’s drying rack. He washes and reuses the ziplock bags multiple times (I love how he hangs them to dry) (the photos a little blurry). I try to reuse as much as possible. At work and at home. 

This week I got to reuse in the best way.

A client had sent out 150 save the dates. They were 100% tree free or recylced based on what we could get paper-wise because she has a big commitment to conservation as well.  Of those sent, she had the wrong addresses for 6 people, so the save the dates came back to her. Instead of resending out new save the dates, requiring me to make up some more from scratch, she brought the returned ones back to me and I printed new envelopes and reused those perfectly good save the dates. 

Now, I know that this form of reusing seems fairly simple and obvious. But I have been working at this career for 5 years now, and I can only remember a couple of other times when I did this. Sometimes reusing returns is necessary because we run out of whatever it is that is being sent (same as this case). But running out is actually directly related to being a conservative printer. I can’t stand wasting paper so I don’t usually print many over what is ordered.

And this client’s decision to bring the save the dates back so I could reuse them, well, that’s a testament to her commitment. 

For the record, when I do have extras, I try to reuse those as make-ready for letterpress or for the big scrap bin for making valentines, birthday cards or other crafty things. Here’s a photo from a mess in my apartment floor from the “sometimes annual pre-valentine’s day ice cream social” that I have so my friends can make art with the year’s printing leftovers.valentine making mess

Can you tell I was the president of the energy club in high school?? I also represented the energy club in the beauty pageant when I was 14. I am not posting that picture, though. No Way!

I will tell you that it was a really big pink puffy dress…. Someone should reuse that thing for a big tablecloth and matching napkins.