and the winners are!

Thank you, everyone, for playing along for the first-ever holiday giveaway. The winners are Jenny, Patrick and Sue, chosen randomly by the old-fashioned method of numbers in a bowl, picked by Liam. I'll post photos of the surprise gift after I'm sure the packages have been received – I don't want to ruin the surprise, after all.

Happy Holidays, friends!

snow day

When your commute to work consists of walking out the back door and down a few steps to the studio, I guess it's hard to technically take a snow day. But I did it anyway. It's been snowing on and off for days here, which is very rare, and yesterday Liam came down with pink eye. Yuck. This all seems reason enough for a day off, right? On that slacker note, I am extending the holiday giveaway through Sunday ... just because, like I said, today is a snow day.

Last year Liam really wanted a snow plow for the front of his Snappie.

winter white

It must be the snow outside, making me think of all things white, but I am loving these lights from Roost. I think they would look so lovely in my home ... but I don't think I have a real need {or place} for them either. If you have a spot for them, you can find them here and here.

my house

There is a sneak peek of my house on design*sponge today! Go on over there and take a look, why don't you? Grace asked me for photos so long ago. It took me ages, for one reason and then another. I kept thinking there would be a better moment {better light, better tidy-ness, and so on} to take the photos, but it just kept getting postponed. So I finally just took some photos and sent them over. There are more photos posted on flickr, too – right here.

As you may know, it is frightfully cold here right now. There was snow on Sunday so Crafty Wonderland was not all I had hoped for. I was surprised, though, by how many people still came out – a big thank you to those folks for braving the weather. I am so glad to be home now – we drove home from Portland yesterday and what is normally an hour and a half drive took four and a half!

Oh, and just a reminder about the Holiday Giveaway: you actually need to buy one calendar by this coming Friday and then leave a comment on the blog to be entered. Thanks!

Holiday Give-Away!!

Hello, friends. Again, thank you so much for all your comments and suggestions for the calendar dilemma. Here is what I've decided to do – I hope you'll play along!

SATSUMA PRESS HOLIDAY GIVE-AWAY!

Purchase a 2009 Satsuma Press Calendar between Friday, Dec 12th and Friday, December 19th and be entered in a {random} drawing to win the following:

• One Satsuma Press Calendar {gift wrapped} to either keep for yourself or give to someone you love
• One Set of Satsuma Press letterpress stationery {your choice of any design, excepting limited editions :: set of 5 flat or folded cards with envelopes}
• And a special {non-letterpress} gift from me {it’s a surprise, but it’s lovely ... and I’m pretty certain you’ll think so, too}

There will be three randomly chosen winners for this. To be entered to win, people should post a comment right here on this entry, after purchasing a calendar – and please be sure to leave a way for me to contact you if you win. There will only be one chance to enter per person – thanks for understanding!

thank you

Just a quick note today to say thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I so appreciate your insight and advice. A calendar give-away is a great idea! I'll think about the details of this and post about it later this week or early next. I don't think I will be putting the calendars on sale til sometime in January, although if you are in the Portland area, you'll want to come by Crafty Wonderland this weekend! You'll save $6 on shipping if you come and pick your calendar up in person there ... plus I'm still undecided on whether to have a slight discount for the show ...

Also, I can't believe I let this slip by, but I reached 1000 sales in my etsy shop this week! Thank you, thank you! As of this minute, I've had 1033 sales which seems like a great number to comment on ... 1000 sales is wonderful – and I turned 33 this year.

holiday red

Sorry I haven't been around. The thing is – I've been sick, again! Bronchitis and a sinus infection last week made for an evening visit to urgent care! But I am feeling a bit better now, still tired, but I printed some poppies in dark cranberry red for the holidays yesterday. I am especially drawn to the designs I have which work well with many different colors. You can find these poppy sets in my etsy shop. And just a reminder to those in the PDX area, I'll be at Crafty Wonderland this coming Sunday! I hope to see you there; it is a wonderful way to support local arts this holiday season.

And so, speaking of this holiday season ... mine has been a bit slower than last year and a bit slower than I had hoped for. Given the economy these days, I think this is very understandable and right. I think it is a very good thing that people consider carefully what they buy and from whom they are buying. I'm trying to buy really consciously this year: beautiful, useful things that people really will love. I always think that the best presents are also partly fanciful, the kind of things that you want but might not buy for yourself – but that might just be me. I'm the type of person that is near impossible to buy for and also the sort that remembers if you've said you like something, even if it was months ago. Tomorrow I'll post a few more ideas for lovely gifts if I get a chance.

However, all this makes for a tough season for me (and other independent artists out there, too, I think). I was overly optimistic and ambitious in the number of 2009 calendars printed this year. Last year, with 200 printed, I was practically sold out by this time. Not so this year, with 395 editions. If I had stuck with 200, I'd be not worried, but 395 it is. So, friends, what do you think? Any advice on what to do since calendars don't have much appeal after, say, the middle of January. I've been thinking about running some sort of special – either a discount for those of you who have already bought a calendar and maybe would like to buy another for your self or a friend ... or perhaps a word-of-mouth special, i.e. if you refer someone to me who does buy a calendar, you'll get a little gift from me in the mail. I'd love to hear ideas – and please, please spread the word about the calendars, Satsuma Press and about other small studios that could use your support.

back home, back to work

I'm back from Portland and settling into my work week. A big thank you to everyone who came to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale! It was a fun event and a great space for it. It was really nice to be in Portland, but ever so nice to be home with just Ben and Liam. I have a bit of stationery printing to do this week – mostly dark red and silver ink – and then a few custom jobs to get to work on. I might not be here on the blog, but I just wanted to say a quick hello now ...

One thing: have you stopped by this lovely new shop? I am completely charmed by it and, I admit, I bought one spoon last week – # 11...

P.S. Not that I need to eat much of anything after days and days of feasting– really, the day after Thanksgiving, we had all-you-can-eat grilled oysters!! ... but I want to make these brown butter, brown sugar cookies. They seem like just my kind of cookie, given that my hands-down favorite cookie are these buckwheat cocoa nib ones. I guess I am just not swayed by the prettiest cookies out there, but rather by the ones with the very best flavor combinations.