When the production of The Cooking Channel series “He Cooks She Cooks” asked me to create a printed menu for a benefit dinner cooked by Suzanne Goin and David Lentz, I jumped at the opportunity.

I LOVE cooking (well, baking mostly but more top of the stove lately) and I LOVE the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. So it was an easy “YES”. They gave me the menu which was based on locally available ingredients, and I typset and printed the menu in a jiffy. Hopefully the letterpress was helpful in raising money for the Farmers Market!

The show aired this past Sunday, but hopefully will repeat so everyone can see it!

Oh, follow this link to a better description of the show and the recipes for some of their creations….

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I was unsure about what my printed prayer would look like until I went to a vintage stamp shop in New York on my vacation. There I dug through a pile of vintage Japanese postage stamps and found my inspiration. Mine would be a sort of letter, using Japanese stamps for the recipients and United States stamps for the senders (I suppose I was speaking for everyone in the good ole USA… is that weird?)

I found out from some special Japanese fluent helpers that one of the stamps portrayed Fukushima, which isn’t where the tsunami hit, but was badly injured as a result. 

I particularly loved the coloration of the two palm tree stamps. I think they really showed the similarities between that area of Japan (not sure!) and California. This was an instant match.

Then in my not very practiced handwriting, I wrote what I wanted for Japan. I chose green ink for growth, and printed away.

I sent off 17 prints today to Japan with hopes that my message will reach far more than 17 people and that the beauty of communication will be translated.

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I love and support the Joyful Heart Foundation. This year the theme for their gala is “How will you join?”

I was meditating one morning and I found inspiration. It’s an action that everyone can do, in that we breathe. We can inhale for peace, and exhale for joy. It somehow seemed so obvious in the moment to me.

This was the concept for a new Joyful Heart letterpress card. I printed a giant light pink heart and then used typewriter for the inhales and exhales, and my handwriting for the peace and joy.

The press was inked up in the same color scheme as the Gratitude cards. and I hand printed in two letterpress print runs, packaged the cards and sent them off to the foundation, all the while breathing peace and joy. This kind of work seems less like work and more like yoga, honestly….

I hope one day to have a whole line of Joyful Heart cards…. all communicating the messages that the foundation efforts to spread… peace, joy, reunion, gratitude, love….. the list goes on!

(everytime I print for the JHF, I get reminded of the heart pins on the back of the ink fountain…)

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Tanda is a real cat lover and often asks about my business. One day she asked if I had any cat stationery…. possibly a meditating cat? with a golden aura perhaps? Well, I didn’t. But I have to admit, it was a great idea.

All I could think was “How in the world will i draw a meditating cat.” I do draw a little, but I am certainly not a trained illustrator. Then one day, I could just see the way the cat would sit. and i just sat down and drew that in pencil. The aura was easy – I just imagined what electric energy would look like and made some squiggly lines.

I decided to make this a little gift for my classmates. They were thrilled. I was too.

But it was the dog lovers in the room who felt a tiny bit jilted.

So next… Meditating Dogs! (how in the world am I going to draw a meditating dog…… )

Get your own meditating cat stationery at my etsy shop….

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I was so excited to get my copy of Uppercase Magazine because a few months ago, Tiny Pine got a request for 100 or so actual printed samples which would be included within the pages…. I thought that was super exciting for recipients to get an actual little piece of limited edition art hiding there.

I knew that the TPP contribution would have to be special… showing off the things that I like best. The only obstacle was timing – the deadline landed right in the middle of holiday card season. Because of severe block from being creative for everyone else, I couldn’t figure out what my piece would say.

I was going on a hike one sunday afternoon when I got a text from my boyfriend. A question answered and a wish for my hike in one text message was instantly inspiring.

“And yes. Salute the sunset for me.”

I took out a period and it was the perfect poetic message… I drew a sunset, wrote out the message in my handwriting, tore down sheets of somerset buff printing making paper, printed letterpress in two runs, and stitched the horizon line.

It occurred to me that this was also the perfect holiday greeting, so I made some extra for mailing.

Anyways, that’s the story. and now there are 100 or so people receiving those little pieces. I hope they enjoy looking at them as much as I did making them.

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This has been making me smile since they inquired. Tiny Pine Press got a stationery feature on The Bride’s Guide: Martha Stewart Weddings!

Splendid!!

It’s  fun that my personality shines through in the written interview so if you just miss talking to me,  check out this feature. It tells the story of how Tiny Pine Press was started, and then goes into all the inspirations.

Here are a couple of the photos that were featured but check it out and look at all the pretty pictures! (thanks to Gia Canali!)

The post Martha and Tiny Pine officially meet. appeared first on Tiny Pine Press.

Not to dismiss the work! these  cards were all scored, hand torn, and hand fed, scored, and the tied with two colors of thread. Still a lot more organic than just pushing print.

Plus sustainable on cotton paper, with soy ink. these cards may look charcoal and ivory, but they are really green! and look soooo vintage.

The post my favorite typewriter… appeared first on Tiny Pine Press.

When Gia Canali and I sat down to figure out her new business cards, we instantly fell in love with a few different combinations. She wanted to have something very organic and earthy feeling, but Gia’s photography really is magical, so we needed to get that in there too….

This amazing amazing tree free faux leather paper showed up…

so earthy and l0vely but not sturdy enough to make a card out of (but definitely durable enough to make an outfit from… that’s coming soon). we would have to mount it onto a thicker card.

A Super AWESOME bonus about this faux leather is that the dark brown side is pretty great, but the reverse side is a delicate soft pink color. Here begins our dilemma. We will end up using both sides.

For the cover weight base stock, we used one of my very favorite handmade papers in this muted plummy color. This is where we get our “magic”. This cottony stock is full of sparkle.

Mounted, trimmed, and printed in two runs… Gia wound up with 4 variations or so for her business cards. Isn’t that fun?!

ps… these photos were taken by Gia… of course!!

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Well, turns out that taking good iphone photos not as easy as just paying $1.99. BUT I was able to start learning how to use my new took as I stitched this weekend.

These photos are of an invitation I am working on right now. My client wanted to have a similar look to this invitation which i designed almost 6 years ago. (I used a black and white “film” to convey the idea that this is the OLD invitation, just so you know )

This new bride is getting married near a pine forest and really loved having that visual element stitched on.

For her, we brightened up the paper a little bit, freshened up the typeface with an added script element, printed letterpress on handmade cotton paper with a slight shimmer – using a cool grey ink color and stitched in a subtle green since her wedding isn’t in the fall… (though you can’t actually tell from my old fashioned photo…… hmmm….)

Every invitation was stitched with the sewing machine but guided by my hand which definitely requires complete concentration, and lots

of tunes in the background.

Since I am quite fond of pines so the hours of stitching breezed by as I concentrated on each one and their limbs.

Obviously, some are taller than other, wider than others, etc. but together they make an elegant stitched tiny pine forest.

The post Tiny Pines + Hipstamatic = The new old fashioned appeared first on Tiny Pine Press.

Jessica and Greg are one of my favorite wedding couple clients of the year. Their taste is super elegant and modern… We were really working with a white on white, monochromatic feel for the wedding stationery. I think they were really consistent all the way to the reception…

Their wedding invitations featured a my rendering of Jessica’s wedding dress lace (which was kept quiet from Greg, btw) printed letterpress on handmade paper with white ink.

and these images from Jesssica and Greg’s reception are from wedding planner Mindy Weiss’s blog which also features florals by one of Tiny Pine’s FAVORITES – Gilly’s in Silverlake. I LOVE the way the set up the escort cards… and also a little shot of a table that has Maple wood table numbers…

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