I just came across all these beautiful photos from Andrea’s wedding in France. We worked on her wedding stationery for over a year and I think it turned out beautifully.
One of my favorite elements was the program. We used my very favorite stiff cotton organdy as the sheer cover of the program with two lavender plants attached to the cover page. The booklet was an ethereal sweet nugget!
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…)
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.
It’s new year cleaning time over here… I was digging around in my photographs from last year and I found this one. It’s a big pile of my vintage stamps. It makes me smile!
Wayne C. Henderson of Rugby, Virginia is one of the best kept secrets in the world of guitar making. He’s not even that much of a Secret. He’s played at Carnegie Hall and has made instruments for some fancy musicians including Doc Watson and Eric Clapton. So, Wayne’s been around….
He’s also a friend of my family. My mom went to high school with him and my dad used to be a “General Loafer” as Wayne refers to the fellers who hang around the shop…
In my opinion, there are two reasons those general loafers hang around. Number 1 is that there is a lot of beauty that comes out of that shop despite the clutter… and Number 2 is that if you don’t hang around, there is no way your guitar will ever get worked on.
My good friend Sarah (who lives in Minnesota) ordered her guitar two years ago. She schlepped her way to Southwestern Virginia back to Wayne’s shop and gave him the size and dimensions she was looking for. While she was there, they picked out the wood for the back Wayne clamped the sides to bend them into shape.
This past August, Sarah wanted to check on the progress. Calling Wayne was not really working. He’s always out of the shop and a phone call isn’t really urgent enough. So Sarah and I both went to Virginia to see what had happened.
We got to the shop and started our own “General Loafing”. I got obsessed with a wooden mind tricking puzzle sitting there, and Sarah inquired about the progress, and found the guitar in the same shape she left it… bent sides and a back.
Since we were there, and we just kept hanging around, Wayne just started working on her guitar. They picked out her top out of spruce, and then he sanded it down to the right thickness for good resonating glued it together, added some ribbon to the inside of the sides of the guitar, put the sides and the back together and added another piece (i can’t remember what that piece was called) and then we loafed our way on back home….
Patience IS a virtue. Good things come to those that wait. There are many more sayings that can make Sarah feel better about how many trips to Virginia it will take to get her Henderson Guitar.
Going home gives renewal of my creative vision. When I return to the home where I grew up in Sugar Grove, Virginia, I am surrounded by inspirations.
My mom is an avid quilter. So was my grandma. This huge pile of quilts that probably is about 5 feet tall is comprised of family tradition. Some of them were just the tops that my grandmother pieced, or the pieces before being sewn that my mother finished years later…
My mom’s thimble collection is so sweet.
and here are just some laterns that hang on the wall, also there is a section of just washboards and another section of tiny cast iron skillets.
My nephew’s rusty dump truck on the front porch.
AND one of my favorite all time activities, the Wythe raceway dirt track. When I was 5, I wanted to be a race car driver….. Instead I operate a giant piece of motorized cast iron, printing as fast as I can!
Here’s the thing about coming from a creative clan…. you get crazy good presents on your birthday!
My little brother is not only a musician (frontman of bluegrassy americana band Thomas A Minor and the Picket Line), leather worker (Foak is his company name), letterpresser, he is also quite the carpenter these days.
Last time I visited Oscar in Louisville, I spied a his girlfriend’s tea box…. I casually mentioned that I wanted one.
OK! maybe it wasn’t just casually mentioned. I laid it on pretty thick…
Ask and you shall receive! On the eve of my birthday, there was a sweet package for me on my doorstep. written in LARGE letters was Happy Birthday in very familiar scraggly handwriting…. so haphazard its a miracle I even received the package!
Inside was a carefully crafted wooden box (made of cherry, I think) which had been carved and then filled in with the wood filler stuff creating the matte and low contrast look. The cherry wood is curly and shiny. A glance at this piece of functional art really comforts me and sends me back to my home in Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia…
I was very very excited. Although I kind of knew it was coming when Oscar asked me how many different teas I liked…. I had NO idea how sweet it would be. It really shows off oscar’s illustrating skills… and his silly sense of humor. I LOVE IT! He told me that he was the rabbit, offering up tea to me.
Sooooo, It’s Tea Time, Tiny Pine. Come on over and take your pick. There are lots of choices including Licorice Mint, Bedtime, Peppermint, Everyday Detox, Chamomile, Immune Support, and Cucumber White.
Now don’t you wish you had such a great little brother??
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!!
