Getting picky about social networks

Hello to our crowd of followers! We decided that updating two blogs (this one and our website) was... well.. annoying.

We kindly ask that each of you follow our website blog if you'd like to keep updated on our endeavors.

There are a few other locations to be updated on Darling Press if one blog just isn't enough for you: Twitter and Facebook

See you on the flip side!

koru stationery

Our friend, Portia, is a counselor/consultant here in town. Every year she sends out cards to her clients, and this year she decided to step it up a bit and have the cards letterpressed! She wanted 5 x 7 cards with letterhead on one side and her logo on the other with a matching envelope with her return address letterpressed on the envelope. She wanted the color scheme to match her website.

Photos by Alicia Carrier

For the most part, it was a piece of cake. The problem arose when we decided to die-cut the envelopes ourselves (as artists, we realize there are always problems -- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). We thought it would be easy and would save some money, to boot. As it turned out, our press is not big enough to hold the die we had made to punch out A7 envelopes! Of course, we found this out right before our deadline!

In dealing with this unexpected obstacle we practiced some creative engineering, and we learned a new trick! The die was too big to fit in the chase, but we realized that we could do a lock-up directly in the press instead of in the chase. Genius! They turned out great! By the time we cut out the envelopes, folded them, glued them together, and added the lick and stick adhesive to the top flap, we determined that it is actually a LOT cheaper to just buy the envelopes... but how else could we match the envelopes exactly to the cards? Portia chose a nice smooth Welsh Blue Neenah paper -- surprisingly similar to the blue Elie had chosen for her cards -- with recycled content and made from sustainably harvested trees.

Portia loved them so much, she has asked to print up the invites for her and her husbands annual holiday party, but that is a story for another time!

cards for elie

Our friend, Elie, asked us to print her up some cards. Her friend, Patrice, designed them.

Elie chose a nice blue laid paper by Neenah. Neenah offers recycled content and sustainably harvested paper that will be showcased again in our next blog post...

We got to play around with die-cutting again! This project was a little more of a challenge with the registration. There was only a margin of a millimeter around the black border.

These should drum up business nicely. In addition to her superb abilities in proofreading and editing, Elie is also a talented musician. You can listen to her music here. I am off now to draw her a show card for her next performance at the Jade Lounge!

Photos by Alicia Carrier

one giant piece of furniture

Whew! What a busy week.

First, I just have to mention how nice it is to have a grocery store within walking distance! It's not the New Seasons we had hoped for, but we're happy to welcome our little Grocery Outlet to the neighborhood. We were all set to make some Chicken Alfredo for dinner, when we realized that although we did buy chicken yesterday when we went to New Seasons, we did not buy any pasta, heavy cream, or parmesan cheese! So, we walked over to Grocery Outlet. Let me just say I have never been to a Grocery Outlet before, so I was surprise to see that the "dairy" aisle contained such things as cheese and crackers, cheese spread in a can, and cheese flavored snacks... but no actual dairy products.The motto of Grocery Outlet is "Overshop. Underspend." How American is that?!

Anyways, check out our new type cabinet! We got a heckuva deal on it, and we just had to borrow our friends' truck to move it.

A lot, but not all, of the assortrements in the photo came with it.

We can finally unstack our type cases for the last time! There are slots to hold our galley trays, and our extra rollers tuck away nicely in the slots on the left. Our studio is starting to look like one!

mixed and matched

Well, the I Heart Art Mixer Match was a success!

photos from the etsylabs flickr site

It was held at a swank furniture/design store downtown called Design Within Reach.

We had an opportunity to practice our pitch and show our cards to sixteen local retailers. An exciting number of them expressed interest in carrying our cards!

Here, we are talking to Dillon, from the Museum of Contemporary Craft.

The whole event was pretty low-key. Based on the "speed dating" model, we had two minutes with each of the vendors to describe our cards and ourselves and to see if we could make a match. The event was sponsored by Etsy, I Heart Art, and somehow PNCA was involved, too. It was great to see so many familiar faces.

The Portland art community is fairly small, and as it turned out, we had already met many of the vendors at various boutiques, parties, and barbeques around town! (Hopefully, this will work to our advantage.)

We'll keep you posted if we get into any more stores.

Wish us luck!

it's the little things

Things have been going well lately, here at Darling Press.

We have been busy finishing up a bunch of small projects. We printed up some labels for a local sculptor and professor at PNCA, Frank Irby, who recently has taken to making amazing, custom, hand-crafted ukuleles! Basically, without being asked, I took it upon myself to design him some labels and print them up.


Two good things about working at an art college are access to amazing artists like Frank and access to materials that we otherwise wouldn't even think of. Who knew that wine labels are printed from huge rolls of adhesive material five thousand feet long? Three entire rolls were donated to the school, and we were given permission to use what we need... woot! The result: fancy self-adhesive labels to replace the ink-jet-on-typing-paper labels Frank had been using. His ukuleles will be cherished for generations, I thought it appropriate that his labels should last as long as his artwork.

In addition to these tiny pieces, we have finished some business cards/hang tags for our friend, Ruth! Ruth made Alia's wedding dress, and last fall Ruth was awarded second place in Portland's Junk to Funk Trashion Show! She's pretty fancy, and we were honored to design something for her. This was our first attempt at die-cutting, and it was a crucial test for our press (and our ability to operate it). The whole deal was surprisingly easy, and we are very excited about doing more in the future. We already have received another request for some fancy business cards!


And finally, one more little announcement: we were selected to take place in the I Heart Art Mixer-Match next month at Design Within Reach! We will be given the opportunity to pitch our wares to twenty local vendors who may decide to carry our cards. Wish us luck!


All the best, Jason

Tisk tisk

Admittedly, we’re bad bloggers. I find myself with sudden writer’s block (blogger’s block?) when I sit down to write a blog. However, in this day and age, getting serious about starting a business means getting serious about updating and connecting to the online community around us.

Here is an update.

The biggest news is we printed up some lovely congratulation cards.

The inspiration came one day when I grabbed a chicken egg from our coop and realized how much work it must be to make an egg every day of a chicken’s life. Feeling thankful for the delicious eggs our chickens provide us, I said to our birds, “Good job!”

In other news, we’re starting to think about a 2011 calender, and we hope we can get it done in time! At first we tried thinking of grand ideas, but instead we’ve chosen to make a simple calender. Being fans of setting out birdseed and watching the wildlife join us in our backyard, we have decided to make a calender featuring birds of the Northwest. We hope the calender turns into a reality. Currently, sketches are in the works.

Soon, you’ll see images of our friend Ruth’s business cards. She requested something that would double as a business card and a hang-tag for her clothing. Our first experience with die cutting is upon us and we’re excited to see how it works!

On a completely unrelated note, look at how awesome our rabbit is! His name is Mumford and he couldn’t be more of a sweetheart.

Introducing myself.

Hello, Darling Press readers. My name is Alicia Carrier and until now I've been a random name under some of the photographs. I am a photographer, an illustrator, and a close friend of Jason and Alia Hoffman. I spend a lot of time hanging out at their house while our kids party it up, drinking tea and sharing ideas with Alia, and often photographing their wares.







I like to think of myself as a sort of silent partner in this enterprise. Eventually you might see some guest designs from me, but until then- here is the face behind some of the photographs you see here. I dabble in product photography, but I like to incorporate a homey, comfortable feel in my images. I try to show details like paper texture and embossing that give a feel for what letterpressed prints really look like.



Jason and Alia are so cool, and I love taking photos of the process of their work, from the sketches that are fleshed out over cups of tea to the finished, printed product.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. You can find more information about me here.

(P.S. aren't these custom-made belly-bands for 5 and 10 packs of cards AWESOME? I love the design of the lettering. Well done, Jason.)

Father's Day Offerings

Well, we finally got the cards for Father's Day printed up. It feels good to offer up two versions. We are a little behind the curve, admittedly, but there's always next year, right? And who says you can only send a card to your dad on Father's Day, anyway? We send cards to our dads all the time, but we print cards, too, so maybe that's a bad example.

This was Alia's drawing. What could be more manly than a stag, hops, and plaid? I think she did a great job of integrating her proud stag into a Nouveau-style border with the tattoo inspired banner and text.

The image for this card came from one of the daily drawings I was doing last year. Recently, my granddad passed down all of his family photos to me -- and he has been researching our family for decades, so he had quite a collection to pass down. This is my great-great-great uncle (?) Edmond Eli "E.E." Waites. I thought the intimate portrait would make a fine looking card. We hope you do, too.

Up next, the congratulations card, and we hope to post some images of all the business cards we have been asked to print!

First Shop!

Today was a good day.
Our friend from art school, and director of creative services at Tender Loving Empire invited us to bring our cards into the shop. It was nice to visit a shop that sells nothing but artist made goods. Perusing the prints, jewelry, paintings, plush toys, etc. it was nice to see familiar artists (fellow art school graduates). If you happen to be wandering downtown Portland, pay the good people at Tender Loving Empire a visit. There's a lot of good stuff in there! Impulse shoppers beware.

Handing off our cards and leaving them to be sold (knock on wood) was a good and exciting feeling! Now we need to print more!! With our press getting closer to completion, it won't be long before we're printing pretty new cards. In fact, we're planning on doing some printing this weekend.

Craft Fair: round two

So as to not sound like a big jerk, I'm not going into the details of our last craft fair. Let's just say that it was a learning experience. Let's also say that knowing your audience is a really important thing. A few people have given this advice, and it's never rung more true.

And one last tip, when you're entering a craft fair, and if the contact email resembles "ptcruisingmama@blahblah.com" don't apply! Just don't.

With that said, we're doing another craft fair! This one seems to be more suited for us, and we're a lot more excited to be joining in. It would be great if you came to see us (if you're in town). Hopefully, this time around, we'll sell more than ONE card.

Oh yeah, a craft fair

Things have been busy around the Hoffman manor, and we're really looking forward to the day when our studio remodeling is complete, our baby plants are in the garden, and the day when we can just leisurely print away under the glowing sunlight coming through our new window in our new studio. Until then, we will be cranking away at the previously mentioned projects.

As if our weekends weren't busy enough, this weekend will be just as busy with our first ever craft fair!! Come see us after you've visited Crafty Wonderland (or before you go). We'll be out in Milwaukie displaying all of our cards at the Spring Arts and Crafts Fair. Come say hello!

the new arrival

We have a new baby, and people have been asking for a story.

Several months ago, Alia and I began searching for a press in earnest. Every day I would search the internet for "letterpress", "letterpress machine", or "printing press for sale". I would log on daily to the Briar Press website and look at the same ads of the same presses in Michigan or Oklahoma that would take at least a grand or two to ship out here, making them pretty much unobtainable. One of the professors at work mentioned a press at Oblation that he knew of for sale, but by the time he told me and I called, the press had been sold.

Photo by Alice Carrier

Alia eventually found the one on Craigslist on a Saturday night that had been posted just that morning. It was in NW Portland, and we could afford it. She emailed him. We waited. No response. I emailed him. We waited. No response, but you know how Craigslist is. We emailed him again, we waited, and then he emailed us back saying, I'm surprised you didn't get my email! I gave him a call, and it turns out he was moving it from his old shop into storage across town. We were like, "No! Just move it to our house," but it was too late, the movers were coming.

Alia had to work that day, so I went alone down to the storage place to meet Roger and the moving trucks. Roger had all the equipment you could imagine, most of which I hadn't even heard of, but he showed me his embossing machines, his offset litho, his foil cutter, his photopolymer plate burner *gasp*. I got to see his Heidelbergs and finally, last off the moving truck, his old style Chandler & Price. It was beautiful! It had been in storage for thirty years, so the rollers were melted and fused to the inking plate. He said it had a motor, but that after thirty years he wasn't sure where the motor was anymore. It was covered in a thick layer of dust. It was beautiful. I said we'd take it, I would call him after I talked to the movers, and I walked out of there on cloud nine.

Photo by Alice Carrier

When it comes to moving heavy things here in Portland, pretty much everyone I have talked to has recommended "the Samoan guys," so I searched the internet for "Samoan movers Portland" and found Big Al's. Big Al is 6' 6'' and 325 pounds (of pure muscle), end quote, and Yes, he's from Samoa. We scheduled the movers to come today to load the press into the garage, which is perfect, because our friend, Chris, was scheduled to come over tomorrow to help us take off the garage door and install a window in its stead. Perfect timing!

Photo by Alice Carrier

Yesterday morning, at work, on a whim, I logged into the Briar Press website again and see a new listing for an old style C&P 10 x 15. Wow, where's it located? Portland, Oregon. Really? Where? At a place two blocks from my desk. I stood up, put on my coat, and walked down the street and into Oblation. It was the same press I had inquired about before. The store owner said that he had sold it twice before and that both people had flaked on him. It was just like Roger's, except it had rollers, extra rollers, and a working motor. This press was cheaper, it worked, and we wouldn't have to spend a thousand bucks refurbishing it before we could (someday) print our cards at home instead of an hour-by-bus away. I said, "We'll take it. The movers will be here tomorrow!" A few phone calls later, and now we have a working press in our garage. Can I also say that Alicia Carrier takes the best photographs I have ever seen? woot.

Photo by Alice Carrier

A good cause

A friend of mine, from Pigeon Toe Ceramics, posted on Facebook about her friend, who is also a printer and mother. She has a little boy named Liam (who is especially cute) who was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type II. She's remodeling her bathroom to better fit his needs and has started a fundraiser to support her remodel.

Since becoming a mother, I have become extra sensitive to heart warming or heart breaking stories of children and families. Touched by this mother's dedication, I'm going to donate as soon as my bank account comes out of it's overdrafted status (grumble grumble). And you should, too!

Her website, by the way, is lovely and inspiring. And, dang that lady can letterpress! Beautiful work! I will most likely find myself coming back her way in need of some refreshing inspiration.

Image by Satsuma Press

Satsuma Press everyone, go pay her a visit.

New exciting things

It's hard to reach your blog when there's so much going on in your life sometimes! In between our household gettting sick, a birthday, a birthday party, a birthday party cancelation (because of getting sick), gardening, and a few exciting projects around the house, it's hard to remember you have a blog!

Last September we got married, and a very handy friend offered to help out with any home remodeling project we might have as a wedding gift. As any home owner knows, there's always projects to get done! We live in a teeny tiny house (with a big yard) and we knew our garage needed to be converted into a room when we bought the place. Someday it will be a bedroom, leaving the two other bedrooms for the kids. Until then, the converted garage will be our studio. Our Mr. Fixit friend agreed to help us convert the garage into a studio, and the process is going to start this weekend! Walls will be replaced, insulation will be installed, and the garage door is going to get the boot in favor of a nice double paned window! Darling Press will soon operate in a studio rather than in our living room!

We also had a 330 gal. rain barrel (though, it's not a barrel, it's a giant plastic box in a metal cage) installed in our back yard! With some heavy mulching, we plan on watering the whole garden this summer with collected rain water. Last year we made this a priority when our water bill tripled! It's definitely an eyesore, but I plan on growing a pretty vining plant next to it, with hopes it will be covered in foliage and flowers.

A new card was added to our shop as well! Mother's Day cards! Actually, they also work really well as Earth Day cards. We're really proud of them, because we're getting used to registering many shapes and colors, and this was a challenge. I can't take much credit for them, however. Jason did all the designing and printing on his own! Good job Jason, they're beautiful!

Entitled "Love your Mother"

More exciting news! So exciting, I left it for the end. Our new studio is going to have a charming, hefty, over 100 year old letterpress delivered tomorrow!!!

This is big news for us! It means we don't have to print at the art school anymore! Since we don't drive, it takes us at least an hour on the bus to get to PNCA's studio, which means at least an hour long journey back. Usually we have to bring our daughter, who inevitably gets bored of the print studio and throws some kind of fit. This is the result, Jason printing while holding a toddler:

With a press in our studio, our bored little toddler can go into her own room and play, or at least we can just give her a snack.

It also means we can print whenever we want, at whatever time we have open! We don't have to sign in for a time period. Most of all, if we want to leave a big mess, we can. I'm predicting our business really picks up speed after this.

I just can't tell you how exciting this is! I promise to post photos of the press, she's a beauty!

augh! what do you mean, "return to sender?"

How frustrating! Apparently, the Post Office charges sixty-four cents each to mail square envelopes, so about half of Annelise's birthday party invites came back to us... The *other* half, for whatever reason, were acceptable and were forwarded to their proper recipients. The Postal Service is a mystery to me.

From this experience we have decided not to offer anymore square cards.

These are the rules. Read them and take heed. On a positive note, all the stickers they placed over the recipients' addresses peeled off easily! Now, I'm off to the Post Office to get some additional stampage. Annelise's party must go on!

From drawing to card

I just wanted to give a sneek peek at some drawings that will soon become cards. The rabbit, being already printed, ended up being our first three colored print, and we couldn't be happier with the end result.

Check out the finished card on etsy!
photo by Alicia Carrier

In our household we have two rabbits who provide a lot of inspiration. Bunnies will most likely be a reoccurring image on our cards. Thankfully, one can't think of Spring without images of bunnies coming to mind. A perfect reason to draw up an adorable rabbit. Jason and I also both share an ongoing love for art nouveau, which we plan on incorporating into our cards as Darling Press produces more and more stationary.

Also in our home, we have chickens! We spend a lot of time with our chickens, even sometimes talking to them in baby talk. They provide us with delicious eggs, constant entertainment, and nourishment for our garden. We have joined the chicken fad. So, as a result, they too will influence many of our cards.

Here is a waiting-to-be-printed drawing that I'm excited to see in card form:

photo by Alicia Carrier

Next up, lambs!photo by Alicia Carrier

These are not necessarily for Spring (although it would be a good time to put them in our shop), but for all the parents who have had twins. I got to thinking one day, and realized that parents who have twins probably have limited options for announcing the birth of their babies. You see plenty of "It's a Boy!" and "We had a Girl!" cards, but when do you see "We had Twins!"? My hope is that it will be much appreciated, and perhaps we'll get requests for "We had Triplets!" I'd be happy to draw more lambs.

We also plan on printing boy and girl baby announcements, and we'll probably make a series out of the lamb theme. I know that lambs are pretty generic images for babies, but I really don't care if I'm being generic. Baby sheep are simply fun to draw. I love their big hooves, disproportionate long legs, and adorable faces.

That's all for now! I wish everyone a wonderful weekend and happy Spring!

xoxo
alia

une fête pour deux.

photo by Alicia Carrier

Our daughter is turning three in a few days, and I will be turning 36 (!) a couple of weeks after that. In celebration, we are having a joint birthday party. This is not the same kind of "joint birthday party" I used to have in college (my birthday is 4/20)... time changes all things.

Annelise drew up a splendid picture of a "birthday party on a boat," so we are using it for the invite. How many three-year-olds, I ask you, have letterpressed invitations? Just one that we know of. It was fun to do something whimsical where we didn't have to worry about the color registration for a change.

I wish we could actually have a party on a boat, but that would be waaaaay out of our budget. Besides, after spending all of last year planning our elaborate wedding, we will probably keep this party fairly low-key. It will be as chill as a roomful of toddlers can be!

Cheers, Jason.

First in line

Hello!


We're excited about blogging! It will be great fun to share with you what goes on at our home/studio. Most of these posts will be about our business, Darling Press, but we won't be able to help ourselves in posting about other things that happen in our lives. Aside from our newly sprouted business, we're proud of a lot of things we do. Our daughter would probably be the biggest, but we promise we won't take over this blog with, "look what my kid did today!!" kind of posts. Our second biggie would be the way we live. We're proud of our hippie, crunchy, nerdy lifestyle with our backyard chickens, garden, and bus riding ways.

So, anyways, one of the things we've been anxious to share is the "behind the scenes" of Darling Press.

photo by Alicia Carrier

First, a bit about our materials. Being sustainably-conscious-as-possible types of people, we try to think about the materials we use. Number one rule: Pass on plastic! Paper can be recycled or tossed in the compost pile and plastic typically ends up in the trash. Well, duh, you already know this. However, it's very easy to fall under the spell of plastic and its convenience.

When I (alia) get a package in the mail, and it contains styrofoam, bubble wrap, or plastic sleeves, I'm the one who is responsible for disposing all that plastic. Now I'm the one who is burdened with figuring out how to dispose of everything, without throwing it in my trash can. Is this #4 plastic? Will my recycling service take styrofoam?? Bubble wrap? I have a pile of it in my garage.

Darling Press is happy to not leave you with a pile of garbage.

Anyways... Told you we were big hippies.

photo by Alicia Carrier