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Renegade Craft Fair Chi-caago!

Monday, August 30th, 2010

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Well, it’s that time of year again – time for the Renegade Craft Fair Chicago. I will be at booth #224 with Laura George and Sarah Hernandez from Paper Tiger Cards. I am looking forward to holding down fort with these two lovely ladies!

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Also be sure to visit: Circa Ceramics, Courtney Fischer Jewelry,Reuse First,and Paper Stories.

Let’s hope for no rain this year! Last year was perfect and since we barely survived the great rain of 2008, I am hoping for nothing but perfect weather Renegades from now till forever!

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Winner!

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Thanks for playing everyone – Caitlin M. won the California Print! I am gearing up to print an Illinois one in the next two weeks, so there will be another giveaway for that poster sometime in September!

If you missed this, the print is now up in my Etsy Shop.

Happy traveling!

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oops

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

I accidentally deleted some comments in older posts! As you know, this happens when you don’t clean up your spam or regular comments and accidentally select a group – I apologize! Yikes. I need to pay more attention!

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Fun and Game Fonts

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

If you ever happen on San Francisco near Pier 39 to see the seals (or, what seals decided to stay), walk a few piers down to Pier 45 at Fisherman’s Wharf. Grab a calm chowder in a bread bowl on the way. Oh, and be sure your pockets are filled with quarters because at Pier 45 you will find Musee Mechanique (careful, the website contains creepy cackling!). I’ve been here twice two years in a row to marvel at the turn of the century coin operated machines. There’s this certain nostalgia that swells inside me, even though I grew up with game systems. Nothing beats the quarter machines or when you’re little, the constant begging to borrow a quarter from the parents for a few minutes of gratification.

Besides the plethora of games and images from days past, there are some amazing fonts. Here are some of my favorites:

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Reminds me of the font Budmo, but so much better. I love the colors and the wood grain! Who doesn’t want their palm read for a mere 50 cents?

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Love the script of the company’s name on this pin ball machine. As always, the classic sans-serif, is clean, modern, and wonderful.

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Yum on the kerning of this vintage photobooth. How about that Western-inspired font, EYE LEVEL ?

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The Inquest is one of my favorites at the museum. The buffalo really don’t do much except shake their heads, but the entire oddity of it fascinates me. Yes, that is a dead person under them – WEIRD, huh? I LOVE it.

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Pacific Bound…

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

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Well, it’s that time of year again – time for the Renegade Craft Fair! I am exhausted, but the fact that I will be on the West Coast is keeping me going. If you are in San Francisco, please swing by the booth! I have to finish with some odds and ends, so I am out! Ciao!

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Polish Design

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Sure, I am Polish, (Can you tell by the last name?) but how incredible is Polish design? One of my favorite design blogs, Pan Tu Mie Stał (You were not standing here) is jam packed with great design and illustration – especially the vintage stuff. It also comes in an English version! Let us take a moment to just swooooon. In fact, I cannot wait for my Cześź t-shirt to arrive to the States! (Yeah, I couldn’t help myself; I am a sucker for condensed fonts and Polish characters.)
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Let’s look a little more at this lovely blog, shall well?
Yes please on the vinyl!

With so much turmoil in the country’s history, Poland has shown strength with visual design – a mix of Modern, metaphors, simplicity, the past, and keeping ahead of the curve. When I came across this vintage Polish stamp collection, it was like unearthing a visual treasure! Here are some of my favorites.

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Polish stamp with CCCP space program imagery. Check out that 60’s rocket blasting into orbit

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These basketball ones from 1963 are nothing short of amazing. The figure hardly looks like any silhouette of a basketball player, but it has a nice graceful feminine quality to it.

PolishStamp_Liaka
How wonderful is this one with Laika, the first dog the Russians sent into space? Unfortunately, she was sent up there with the known fact she would not return. Despite this, her image has graced Soviet stamps and posters. There is also a monument of her in Moscow.

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A small and beautifully designed mid-century stamp. My font love for this little guy is IMMENSE

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more classical and Soviet inspired designs.

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Folk inspired stamps

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1964 Tokyo’s Olympics.

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Fun illustrations with the stamps. What about those amazing mushrooms and that cat meowing… maybe crying?

For more Polish stamps, visit my vintage section on Flickr. I am hoping to pay homage to Warsaw’s Wilanów Poster Museum in October. Has anyone ever been there? It looks like a place I could easily spend hours in. I think a trip to Polska is far overdue. I need some old-fashion root-searchin’ and art inspiration.

Cheers and hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

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A Romantic view…

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

Last week I finished a huge custom order 175 two color invites, R.S.V.P. cards, and reception cards for an upcoming wedding in September. This was also the first custom job I printed on my 12×18″ Chandler and Price letterpress. It was good taking on the challenge because I learned how to work with the press Also, working with handwriting can be a bit tricky. I took a scan and cleaned it up as much as possible in Adobe Photoshop. I then brought the file into Adobe Illustrator, as I prefer vector over raster for fonts, and after using live trace I resorted to the smooth tool and pen tool to clean it up. Overall, a lot of work, but worth the final piece. Using a handwriting instead of a standard font really adds character and uniqueness to a piece.

Tina + Mark blog

Two color letterpress print on 220lb Lettra paper
Printing was a lot of work, but I loved the way they turned out! 220lb paper is like butter!

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Summer Line up

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

I told myself last year, I would not overdo it with shows this summer, but in typical fashion – I signed up for the ones that looked amazing and got in.

First one is this weekend in the beautiful suburb of Berwyn called the Constructor Craft Fair. If you’ve never ventured out of the city to Berwyn, it’s worth the trip. The streets are lined with beautiful, old brick buildings and lots of charm. I am excited because Magnolia Photo Booth Co from Louisville, KY will be there. They usually have a photobooth at the Renegade Craft Fairs and we tend to go a little crazy with photos! Plus, their photo quality is pretty good – a huge improvement from those cheesy photobooth photos in the mall! I am a huge fan of old school photobooths and Magnolia does a superb job.

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Next weekend I wil be getting into a car and driving to INDIEana Handicraft Exchange. And if you happen to know me personally, you know I don’t drive. I drove both ways of the entire country last year and happened to luck out driving in the most remote states – Nebraska and Nevada. This is open road, straight ahead driving… So, yes, I will be driving again one year later. Bring it. I am looking forward to this show and for the mini road trip!

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INDIEana Handicraft Exchange
Date: Saturday, June 12
Time:12:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Location: Harrison Center for the Arts
1505 N. Delaware St.
Indianapolis, IN 46202

When we are full swing into summer, I will be traveling to San Francisco for the Renegade Craft Fair. I am very excited to be participating in the show for the second year in a row mostly because everyone is so darn sweet out there, I have a good core group of friends in Cali, and it’s a stunning world out there.

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Renegade Craft Fair San Francisco
Date: July 31st + August 1st
Time: 11am -7pm
Location: Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion

Hope to see some old friends on these adventures and meet new ones!

Renegade Craft Fair San Francisco

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I am still alive n’ kickin’!

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

Ahhh… almost National Stationery Show time. Wait, let’s try this again: AHHH!!!

This is the last weekend before the show, which officially starts Sunday May 16th and runs until Wednesday May 19th. This is Paper Parasol Press’ freshman year at the show. I’ve always wanted to go and actually walk the show, but I am known to just jump in with two feet. I am lucky enough to be sharing a booth with a few veterans in the Let {Her} Press collective. Firstly, I am very honored to be part of this talented pool of ladies and secondly, I probably could not have done this without their guidance. There are so many details to think of – from ordering the walls and electricity to bringing a mini stapler (I got one with orange staples – Yessss.) We also had to coordinate between all of us on show details. So, taking something as big as the NSS and making it manageable works really well! With this economy, it’s really feasible.

We did get into Stationery Trend Magazine!
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Who are the ladies of Letterpress? Check it out:
Paper Stories | Grayslake, Illinois
Robin Beth Designs | Haworth, New Jersey
BirdDogPress | Lyons, Colorado
Lucky Bee Press | Santa Cruz, California

Looking forward to the show next weekend – safe travels to everyone attending!
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With that, see ya’ll in New York City!

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Dear Mom + Dad…

Monday, April 12th, 2010

it’s really Mother’s and Father’s Day every day, or should be at least. I can only get you one card a year though, so the love better make up for it.

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New Mother’s and Father’s Day cards in the shop.

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