Tuesday, March 30, 2010

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!

Friday, March 26, 2010

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


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

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

une fĂȘte pour deux.

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.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

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.

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 st
yrofoam, 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.