what we've been up to lately

Thank you to everyone who turned out to see us on Saturday at Eastside Handmade in Highland Park.  As always, it's great to see you and meet you all in person!

The view from our table at Eastside Handmade.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we needed to take a little bit of a break from the blog after our October small business cleanse. We've also been busy getting ready for some holiday popups and getting to work on our new collection that will launch in early 2016!

L-R: our set up at Eastside Handmade with our indigo ice dyed table cloth, our 2016 indigo watercolor and letterpress California calendar.

One of the questions we've been getting a lot, both at Eastside Handmade and on social media, is how we dyed the table cloth for our new display. So we thought that we'd share a few of the pictures from our experience with ice dying. You can also take a look at the ice dying instructions from Food 52. Or check out our project idea board on Pinterest for more fun projects we're thinking about doing.

L-R: fabric covered in ice, indigo sprinkled over the ice cubes, the finished product.

Our first step was to run our fabric through a wash cycle, then we soaked everything with soda ash. After wringing our fabric out by hand, we arranged it on dollar store wire cooling racks set atop aluminum foil containers. We then covered our fabric in ice cubes, and sprinkled the indigo dye on top. It's a good idea to sprinkle lightly at first and then add a little more here and there to create areas of more intense color. As the ice melts, the dye disperses into the fabric. We let the ice and dye do their work for about 24 hours. Then we washed everything out by hand until the water ran clear and put it all through the washing machine with some soap. And that is pretty much that. It was a really fun project. And we think it matches our 2016 indigo watercolor letterpress calendar perfectly! Each calendar was embellished with a watercolor flourish before it was put back through the press. We love how they turned out. They've been super popular, but there are only a limited number of them so hurry and get yours before they run out!

L-R: 2016 calendars, Rosemary painting the watercolor flourish with help from the babe, a close up of the watercolor embellishment. 

We hope you're having a good fall, it's been on the warm side here for the past few weeks. We're very much enjoying the cool turn the weather has taken over the past few days, its just the right kind of weather for printing!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin

thank you!

Thank you to everyone who came by to say hi at Renegade this weekend! We really appreciate all of your support, especially considering how hot and humid it was. We had a great time catching up with old friends and meeting lots of new ones! 

L-R: Our new booth display, Renegade set up in Grand Park under the watchful eye of City Hall, some of the lovely customers we had this weekend.

We were so happy to be able to share the relaunch of our older designs with so many familiar faces. We are really pleased with the way that everything is coming along on the new press, not only is the production easier, but the prints are clearer and more even.

L-R: Our newest batch of prints and a new letterpress heart card, our Golden State cards printed on the new press, proofing and packing our Greetings from Los Angeles cards.

We were also really excited to debut our new show display. Our concrete and plywood half-wall got so many compliments and requests for instructions, you can take a look at this project on our Pinterest board to see how it's done.

L-R: Robin manning the booth on Sunday, our new concrete and plywood display, some customers perusing our paper goods.

All in all, it was  a great weekend! The new venue was gorgeous and it was really fun to spend the weekend under the gaze of city hall and the LA Times building. Grand Park is such a wonderful addition to this city, and we really hope to attend more events there in the future!

L-R: Rosemary with Christine from Abacus Row, strategizing for Unique over coffee the morning after Renegade.

In the meantime, we are back in the studio working on a number of different projects in preparation for Unique LA on August 9-10. We're adapting our neighborhood postcards to the new press and working on a few new projects as well. Keep an eye on our Instagram account for a few sneak peeks over the next few weeks!

We hope you're having a great summer so far, it's hard to believe that it's nearly over!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin