skip to main |
skip to sidebar
++ THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR COMMENTS. THE TWO LUCKY WINNERS ARE RIGHT HERE PLUS A SPECIAL SURPRISE FOR EVERYONE THAT LEFT A COMMENT ++
In the spirit of giving thanks, I'm so happy to let you know about this fantastic giveaway. First off, a huge thank you to Heather of Skinny laMinx and the lovely folks at Heath for their generous donations. Second, but not really SECOND, thank you so much to all of you for your support and encouragement. I am grateful.
There will be two winners, chosen at random, on Monday, December 7th. Here's the scoop on what you could win.
1. An olive green bud vase from Heath Ceramics, two tea towels from Skinny laMinx, a set of 10 square cards printed by Satsuma Press, designed by Heather of Skinny laMinx for Heath Ceramics, and a set of 12 small round bird gift tags.
2. A small matte brown tea pot from Heath Ceramics, an apron from Skinny laMinx, a set of 10 square cards printed by Satsuma Press, designed by Heather of Skinny laMinx for Heath Ceramics and a set of 12 small round bird gift tags.
How do you enter? It's simple, just leave a comment right here. I'll choose two winners in a week and a half. Please be sure to check back here for the winners just in case you didn't leave a way for me to get in touch with you directly.
Please note that I will be eagerly waiting for the packages from Heather to arrive all the way from South Africa, so there may be a slight delay between the time when the giveaway ends til when I can actually post your goodies.
Just a quick reminder – today is the last day to enter to win a 2010 Satsuma Press Calendar over at Simple Lovely. You have until 6 pm CST to enter so head on over!
I'm so glad you all liked my favorites list! There are many more favorites and I'm going to try to post another list here in about a week or two. Like the list over at Simple Lovely, this one will also focus on well-made, hand-made, affordable, useful treasures.
Tomorrow I'll be posting here about the next giveaway – Heath Ceramics, Skinny laMinx and Satsuma Press. I don't think you'll want to miss it.
Thank goodness for good friends. One of my friends is able to be at the Sunday Best Holiday Sale for me; he's coming down here for Thanksgiving so I'll load him up with inventory. So while I won't be there, he will, along with lots of letterpress goodies. I don't know if the perpetual calendars will be done in time, but there will be lots of other stuff – the 2010 calendar, stationery, and a bargain box! I'm still so disappointed I won't be able to be there in person, but there will be another time for that when life does not seem so hectic.
+++
An update ... I'm fickle; I'm back and forth over here. It turns out I may still be able to be at the sale next weekend! I'm trying to figure out just how much I can do this coming week. So check back for the final word on who will be selling my stationery -- me or my friend ... Signing off for real now.
First off – thank you, thank you to everyone who stopped by to see my favorites list over at Simply Lovely so far. And to those of you who replied to my November newsletter. (If you want to receive my newsletters, send me an email and I'll add you to the list.) And to those of you who have placed orders from my online shops recently. I am thankful for all of this.
Second – friends, it's been a pretty hard week around here. I have a cold. I have been burning the midnight oil, literally, night after night trying to cross things off my to do list. I have been trying, in vain, to get a definitive answer from both our insurance and the pediatric sleep study doctor as to whether Liam's visit next month will be covered. I don't know if I have the cold because of the amount of stress and stuff to do and night after night without enough sleep. Probably this is the case; this sort of thing happens to me. I am trying to catch my breath, literally and figuratively, around here; I am trying to keep on keeping on for the next 9 days after which I hope I might get a little down time. But a few things are going to need to give. For this reason, please be patient if you've emailed me recently and I've not responded. Please be patient if your orders take a little longer to reach you than usual. I will try to package up all orders from the past few days this coming week, but it may need to wait til about a week from now. I think I am near my wit's end here.
Let's be clear – I'm not complaining. Having work is a good thing, a very good thing. But have you ever had one of those jobs that has just presented challenge after challenge? (Oh dear, do you remember that last year around this very same time I had one?) I've been working on one of those the past week. It's been a steep learning curve, made steeper, I guess, by a head that is fogged by a stuffy nose, scratchy throat and cough. The client, though, has been nothing but patient and gracious and lovely throughout this, but it turns out that I've just discovered a mistake with this job, made by nobody's fault but my own, at the worst possible time; that is, right when I'm done. So, I am scrambling to find a way to reprint this entire job, to ensure the client's happiness, to keep my integrity in tact. It's not as easy as it could be to just reprint because, actually, I don't have enough paper on hand right now, because I've been printing so much non-stop the past few weeks. So, as I wrote earlier, something has to give and I don't want it to be my health and sanity, both of which may already be in short supply. Nor do I want it to be the satisfaction of a very nice client. It makes me so very disappointed to write this, but I am considering the fact that I may not be able to make it to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale after all. I will be trying to figure this out over the next few days.
Alright then. I'm going to keep on working, as best I can, on the tasks I have set out for myself so I can sit down to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with some of my very closest friends this coming week.
Friends, my favorites list is up over at Simply Lovely today! You can find it right here. The photos above are mine, but the oh-so-lovely Joslyn was grouped them together to look so pretty and reader/viewer friendly. Please go take a peek at the list – you may find something you love. Links to everything above are included in the post. Plus there's a giveaway involved and you might like to enter.
Although I have a cold and a to-do list that is daunting, I have two successes to report for today. The first is rather big; the second rather small. The photo above has nothing to do with either, but it's a little sneak peek at a giveaway that is coming up soon with Satsuma Press, Skinny laMinx and Heath Ceramics.
The big success ... I think this is one of the best reasons to live in a small town. Last weekend, Ben and Liam and I were at the public library and the mayor was there. I think he actually hangs out there every Saturday at a little table in the front entrance area. I could be wrong about this; it might have just been happenstance. Anyway, Liam and I had met him briefly twice before – once at the accessibility awareness day downtown over the summer and once at Liam's elementary school for bike/walk to school day. Liam went over to talk to the mayor, to tell him that the street that all the kids use to walk to school does not have curb cuts at all the intersections, so he can't go that way. (Okay, so maybe we told Liam to go over there, but why not?) Instead we use a much busier street each morning on our roll-stroll to school. Well, today we got a phone call from Liam's school. The mayor called the front office there because he couldn't remember our names, but he knew Liam's and that he was in kindergarten at Jefferson. He wanted to let us know that he put it in the budget to have curb cuts put in at all intersections on 27th Street on the way to and from Jefferson by next school year when Liam starts first grade. Wow. Awesome, right? This mayor deserves a huge thank you (and a card from Liam). Thank you, thank you.
My small success ... I have cold, remember? I also have an unreal amount of work to get done between now and Thanksgiving. At 4 o'clock I wasn't quite sure what to do about dinner and thought maybe we'd have to go out for tacos, but I also didn't want to venture out again. I searched the fridge and came up with something so good that Liam took two bites and declared he would have a second helping next. He also said he liked it as much as quiche which, friends, is an awful lot. I roasted the veggies we had in a 500 degree oven with salt, pepper and olive oil – fennel, brussell sprouts, zucchini. And with some cubed ham. I parboiled some rigatoni and mixed it in with the veggies. I started to make a bechamel, but realized we didn't have enough milk so I used a package of ready-made cheese fondue (the kind you can buy at Trader Joe's). I topped it all with fresh breadcrumbs mixed with butter, olive oil and garlic. Baked it, ate it, yum.
I spent part of the morning taking photos of some of my favorite things for my list over at Simply Lovely this Friday. There's a little peek right above. I really enjoyed doing this, a lot, and plan to re-post the whole thing here after it goes up on on Joslyn's blog on Friday. It was actually fairly difficult to narrow the list down – but so nice to sort through some of my well-loved things. In preparation for it, I started a list the other day and have been adding to it, so it's been a way of recognizing what is important to me. Of course, as I write for the guest post, the true favorites weren't listed – those are Liam and Ben, friends, family, my studio, letterpress printing. What I listed were more tangible things – well made things crafted with care and attention to detail, things that make my day a bit brighter, things I intend to keep around for a long time, things that are lasting.
Please pop over to Simply Lovely this Friday to see my full list. Plus there will be a giveaway from me on there!
P.S. I couldn't fit everything I love on to my list, of course. There are way too many things, but this week I discovered these two beautiful items from Plain Made via Abby.
Hello. These are the colors I've been thinking of and loving lately. The all purpose lens on my Nikon broke last week, but the macro lens still works. It's a better one, anyway, so for now we'll just be having close up shots. I have a lot to do this week, but I'll be posting a blogger's favorites list over at Simply Lovely, this Friday if I have time ... or else it'll wait til two weeks from then. I just need to narrow down my favorites – no easy task, truly.
Also, coming up soon, though I'm not sure exactly when, will be a fantastic giveaway from Skinny laMinx, Heath Ceramics and Satsuma Press! An apron from Heather at Skinny laMinx, a teapot from Heath ceramics and a set of stationery designed by Heather and printed by me for Heath. I think you'll like it.
And, finally, I just wanted to mention that I'm planning to bring a whole bunch of soon-to-be discontinued stationery designs to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale. Maybe they won't actually be discontinued, but they'll be taken out of rotation for a while so I can streamline and refocus. Look for the bargain box at the sale – $10 and under!!
Before I began Satsuma Press, I owned a small shop in Northeast Portland called Sakura – and I sold Japanese textiles and pottery and tea ware ... and I liked it, but not well enough to keep on with it. What I discovered in that venture was that I really, really liked the design aspects of it all, but not the sitting around waiting for people. I wanted something to do.
When I first started printing about seven years ago, I had planned to also offer Japanese paper along with letterpress invitations and stationery. I suppose this meant I also imagined some sort of brick and mortar store, but I instead I transitioned from one basement studio to a single car garage studio to a double car garage studio, where I am now with no plans to leave or move. Still, I love Japanese paper and have a hoard of it in my flat files. The very first thing I ever printed were my own wedding invitations (dark red ink, fabriano medioevalis paper, simple cherry blossom motif – we got married in the Columbia River Gorge at a lovely place called Cherry Hill, which may or may not have been partly chosen for the name. I know this all sounds a little matchy-match, but I don't think it was.) which were wrapped in the cherry blossom chiyogami shown above and tied with a pale green silk ribbon.
And I guess it must be really true that I want something to DO, apparently at ALL TIMES, because I've been mulling this over and I've decided that if I can pull it off timewise, I'm going to also offer the perpetual calendar with small samples of these beautiful patterns above the text. Click above to see the idea larger. I'm still going to print the perpetual calendar with my designs. It'll be oh-so-perfect if I can do all this in time for the Sunday Best Holiday Sale, but there may just not be enough hours in the day. Did I mention we are also hosting Thanksgiving here? Did I mention that I have a really big job due the day before Thanksgiving? It seems that for every thing I cross of my to-do list, I add another and another. But I'm so excited about these – what a wonderful way to share these stunning handmade papers with you. Letterpress + Japanese Paper = Paper Love.
The Sunday Best Holiday Sale is in just under three weeks. Hope you'll come say hello. Click above for larger image and details.
Apparently I can't bear the thought of any idle time whatsoever because I've been working on a perpetual calendar design this week. Here is a sneak peek {click to make it larger}. If I can, you know, somehow create more free hours in the day, I'll be printing these in the next two weeks, in time to bring with me to the Sunday Best Holiday Sale. These will be printed 2-up on 8.5 x 11 Lettra so each page will be a finished size of 4.25 x 11. I narrowed this project down to just 6 colors + black text – peacock, leaf, ochre, cranberry, thistle, slate and I paired month layouts to be able to print everything 2-up. So what you see above are months May and June, but these won't be printed together. May will be printed with August {thistle}; June will be printed with March {leaf}. I'm planning to print about 100 of these this round. I'm not entirely sure about the price yet, but I'm thinking around $25-30.
There was an interesting reaction to this calendar over at design sponge last week ... Form and function – I believe there can be a balance between the two; it's not an either/or situation, really, and why should it be? And isn't function is a subjective term? Couldn't you argue that beauty by itself is and should be a function in our lives. I hope so, even if we all have different notions of beauty ...
But, all the discussion aside, the beauty of the perpetual calendar IS its usefulness. It can be used a birthday reminder or perhaps as a condensed journal ... jotting down a few words that capture the day, which is how I plan to use on of these. Maybe you need a calendar meant for tracking your schedule {and I really, really do, but I use google calendar for that}; maybe you're looking for a print that is only very loosely a calendar and more a print, like Beverly's {or like this lovely one from Hello Handmade last year, which I have hanging in my house}; maybe you're someone, like me, who has never been very good at keeping a journal but could find time to write down a few words a day ...
{Thank you, Lia, for giving me that final push toward working on these. I hope you'll like it.}
New pretties, in my shops today, here and here. The gift tags – part of the collaboration with Heather Moore of Skinny laMinx – are so sweet. You get three of each color (cranberry, ochre, silver sage and leaf) and I think they're so perfect for your handmade/homemade gifts this season. They're pretty labor intensive – I print them 4-up but then need to cut them down, drill them, corner round and then package them up in glassine bags. I hope I've priced them well at $8 for a set of 12.
Rainy, rainy afternoon. It is so dark out right now, but this morning it was clearer and we went to an estate sale and then to the toy store looking for dinosaur bingo. Last night we went to Liam's elementary school for family game night, which was so cute. Liam ran off as soon as we got there to play with some kids in his class and so Ben and I played UNO with our neighbors. I loved seeing Liam so comfortable and having so much fun with his classmates.
These lovelies are up in my shops, here and here. These are reprints of a collaboration I did with Lara Cameron a few years ago. They were originally printed as such – japanese trees in teal, birch in orange, treehouses in leaf green – but just reprinted them in this lovely subtle silver. There is just the slightest bit of shine to these cards and I like how they look a bit like brocade, especially the Japanese trees one.
So, if you are a stickler for details, as I am, you might notice when you click on that second photo above that the text reads melbourne, australia + portland, oregon. Wait a minute. I don't live in Portland anymore. I realized this slight error when about half way through the stack. So I let it go. I do believe this is called picking my battles. And it's kind of a big deal for me to do this because as I've duly noted before ... I'm sort of a perfectionist. So, for the record, I live in Corvallis now, not Portland ... but I am still Lynn Russell and this is still Satsuma Press and the cards – they are still pretty.
By the way, it's been sneaking up on me ... I will be at the Sunday Best Holiday Sale on November 28th and 29th at The Cleaners at the Ace Hotel in Portland. Please come! This is the only holiday sale I've decided to do this year. I just couldn't pass it up; the company is so fine.
We had a busy weekend, but a good one in many ways. Our friend's son came for Halloween with his grandma and grandpa – this is the same friend who died this summer, so it was a wonderful and difficult time. Mostly wonderful, really, to watch Liam and Angus play together and to have time with our friend's mom and her husband.
On Sunday morning, we took Liam and Angus to the school playground and brought along our little neighbor, Olivia. My heart broke when I watched Angus and Olivia run ahead of Liam. It was put back together a little bit as we crossed the street, me holding Angus' hand, Angus holding Olivia's hand, Olivia holding Liam's hand. It broke again when the first place they ran to at the playground was one where Liam just can't participate – the climbing wall. None of this was meant to be hurtful, but these are lessons that I never really wanted to teach my child or other children. This happens often and it's not more than I can bear, but it was more than I could bear that day and at that moment. I know it was because of not just what was happening, but because of how intense it is to be with Van's mom and son and not him. It's because, also, this won't be the first time or the last – both for what happened with Liam and being without a friend. And it's hard, all of it. So my heart broke and I cried and I had to leave the playground and walk home by myself. On the way home, I picked up these leaves and I felt better.
I am having one of those days where the to-do list is very long and doesn't seem to be getting any shorter. Even the little tasks for my day have yet to be crossed off. I discovered right as I was packing up a wholesale order today that I'd mistakenly printed the wrong design. Well, something like that – right color, wrong design. How do these things happen? Well, I am guessing it has something to do with being tired and just a wee bit overwhelmed with the to-do list these days.
This morning as Liam and I were headed out the door to school, Ben had to fix the Snappie again. It threw me off a bit as we were then rushing to get to school. It was made more pleasant by the ride Liam insisted he give me (just for one block, before we got in sight of school where rides are against the rules). And also by the beautiful leaves I picked up on the walk home.
Since my to-do list is still pretty much as long as it was at the start of the day, I've decided to just take a much needed break. I'm leaving to pick up Liam in ten minutes and when we get home we are going to listen to Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh on CD which I picked up at the library yesterday. I remember reading this story when I was a child and I loved it. And I am going to work on my sweater and cook some variation of this for dinner.
Tomorrow is a whole new day. I have new cards to show you and some photos from the weekend when I come back next.
I have a long to-do list today so this will be brief. A new stockist for my stationery asked if I had a photo of myself printing. I don't, but I tried to take a photo of myself just now using photo-booth on my computer. I hate hate hate taking photos of myself. I know the lighting is really terrible and I'll try again later when the afternoon sun comes in, but here I am. I realized that most of you don't even know what I look like! Not that this matters, really, but it IS nice to put a face to a name, right?
Today I am wearing my brand new most favorite dress ever. It's made by the lovely, patient and oh-so-talented Ursula of Modaspia. I sent her this rust colored fine wale corduroy that I've had for, oh, three years ... It's been sitting in a box with loads of other fabric I love, yet do you remember that I don't know how to sew? At all. Thank goodness for Ursula. She is the best. This dress is the best. I think I could fill my closet with this dress in different fabrics and never look back. (It's the Fiji Dress, if you are interested in the style.)
