After spending the week poring over Instagrams of the National Stationery Show and obsessively checking paper-focused blogs for photos, I have decided that I must attend next year. I must! I told this to Josh the other night, adding, “And you can’t stop me!” He looked confused and then recommended I leave my credit cards and checkbook behind. I feigned indignation, but the man knows me well.
Anyway, in honor of this big week in stationery, I want to highlight a new-to-me line of paper goods that I have immediately fallen in love with. To celebrate a good friend’s birthday, I recently found myself in Des Moines, where I had to stop (of course!) at the adorable paper goods shop, Ephemera, run by the two nicest, most generous entrepreneurs you’ll ever meet. Their taste is flawless, so the whole shop is a dream to peruse, but I picked up three cards in quick succession that I was drawn to, all with a similar style. The brand? Quill & Fox. Featuring the artwork of Yas Imamura and run by she and her husband, this company has generated an impressive line of cards, posters, and notepads despite being only two years old. They also do custom design for wedding invitations and other events.
I’m into embroidery, so you know I brought this card home with me. Mom, it’s got your name on it — literally!
I wish Easter egg dyeing had been this picturesque at our house.
And this invitation is such a fresh and crisp take on old-fashioned romance, don’t you think? (P.S. I spy some of the vintage stamps I recently acquired at the stamp show. I am giddy about using them.)
Such beautiful stuff! I am eager to watch how their line develops. Perhaps I’ll even see them at NSS in NYC, 2014! Look for me — I’ll be the one armed with a modest sum in traveler’s checks!
We have waited a long time for this Spring. But at last — and worth every second of the wait — the past few days have been heavenly, blissful, and buoyant. I skipped work early on Sunday so we could make a family trip downtown for malts. The girls came away smeared every which way by chocolate ice cream, the telltale sign of an indulgence duly appreciated.
We are throwing open the windows and doors, feeling the breeze lift the hair on our arms, soaking up sun at the park, watching sparrows mate. I’m drinking iced coffee like I never want to sleep again.
But of all the rituals Spring brings, what I most look forward to is standing below this magnificent tree. It belongs to our neighbors two doors down, and we can see it from our bedroom window. Yesterday, the blossoms finally fully opened, showing off the palest pinks at the tips of their petals down to their fuschia hearts, their glory explosive and magnetizing.
The peak is so fleeting and so precious for that. Already this morning, the ground below is covered in a carpet of velvety pink. Josh saw a little girl walking to school, backpack and all, tiptoeing gingerly through the petals on the sidewalk. The image brought tears to my eyes. That’s reverence, all right, and exactly how all of us should walk through the world in Spring. On tiptoe, and in love.
After the plates are exposed, washed out, and dried, they need to be post-exposed to ultraviolet light for a stretch, which makes them more durable and less susceptible to damage. Photopolymer plates can be metal-backed or plastic-backed; the metal ones get mounted onto a large magnetic base, while the plastic ones get attached to a sheet adhesive and stuck onto an aluminum base.
And from there, you can pull a proof!
This is the letterpress-printed version of the same 
And this image is an 
One of my goals for the book I’m currently printing was to give myself space and time to further experiment with printing calligraphy. I knew at the outset that meant that I wouldn’t be able to precisely envision the final product, but because I have a lot to learn, that was my aim, pure and simple. It seemed like a wise and liberating approach: don’t worry too much about the end result! Just try new things and learn!
