A prototype

This weekend we made some British Birds cards as a special commission for someone - at the moment we don't do cards of any of our bigger prints, but we rather like these ones.

Then we made some new packaging as a prototype, we've been meaning to redesign our card packaging for ages - something nicer than the usual plastic bag...

We designed an envelope template over a cup of tea, and started cutting out a prototype in thick grey card -The envelope has a clear film window in the front to see the cards through (attached here with double sided tape) -
Here's the finished envelope complete with cards inside -
This batch of cards will be winging its way to a new home soon, but now we're debating whether we should do some more and pop them in our shops. What do you think?

We've just polished off rather large slices of lemon drizzle cake, complete with homemade lemon curd and mascarpone filling, the recipe is here - definitely worth the effort!

Finished cards

We have finally finished printing the linocut Christmas cards we started a couple of weeks ago. We printed each one in red, green and gold, and it made us feel very Christmassy...

Especially when I dug out the Christmas tree lights to take some photos! I managed to resist the temptation to dig out the Christmas mugs and tea towels - its a bit early for that yet...

We've decided to letterpress some more Christmas cards using some of our teeny tiny holly blocks - that will be this weeks project, as well as pressing on with my flying ducks (which have been sitting on a shelf feeling lonely for a couple of weeks - I'm determined to finish them this month though!). Sets of Christmas cards are available on Folksy, Etsy and Dawanda now!

This afternoon we're going to make Chelsea buns and plant some last minute bulbs in the garden - we'll have to sweep up all the leaves first though!

Finishing touches and a prototype

After letting the block sit on a shelf for a long time Jon has been busy adding some finishing touches to his wood engraving of St Winifred's Well (the Landmark Trust property that we stayed at in May), after a test print or two showed up some areas that needed more cutting.

We're going to print the newly cut block tonight on the press...

I have been busy making prototype wedding invitation cards using thin card and a square of thinner block printed paper. It took a couple of cards to get the folds quite right, but I'm really pleased with how they've turned out.

The final invitations are going to have a different patterned paper on them, and letterpressed text inside. Fingers crossed, they'll be ready to go out to our very small number guests at the end of next week... Hooray!