busy days (and some busy nights) in the studio 💛

A really cool new project launching very very soon!!!

It's that time of year again, we're spending lots of busy days (and some busy nights) printing away in the studio getting ready for the holidays.

Busy days in the studio!

We're also hard at work on some really exciting projects that we will be launching soon. We're so excited you guys, it's kind of crazy! Ok, that was enough of a break, we have a stack of cards to fold and package. Back to work!

We hope you're having a good fall!

Best,
Rosemary+Robin

settling in

We're finally starting to settle into our new studio space. We know, we've been in our "new" space for a little over a year and half, but it's been a pretty tough transition. We made the decision to move into a smaller space with this move and it has certainly been a challenge!

Working in the studio. It's taken some finessing to figure out the best layout in the smaller studio space we now have.

But we've been working things out slowly, trying to pare down where we can and find space saving solutions that will work long term. We've also changed up some of our equipment allowing us to work better and smarter in a smaller space.

Clockwise from L: Keep your Shit Tight from The Mandate Press, Print Faster Mother Fucker from  The Little Friends of Printmaking, Everyday I'm Hustlin from Paperjam Press, our very first test print on the Windmill, New Studio / New Beginnings from Ink+Smog Editions, And The Road Has Always Led West by The Aesthetic Union.

We still have an endlessly long to do list, but we finally hung our posters next to the press in the new shop, so it seems we're now officially moved in!

We hope you've been having a good summer!
Best,
Rosemary+Robin

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

30 Day Small Business Cleanse: Day 25

Yesterday: Look at your space, do you have boxes that have never been unpacked? A stack of papers you never have time to deal with? Create a window in your day today, put on some music, turn your phone off and tackle those tasks without interruption. Try to get as much done in that window of time. If you can’t finish it in the time you set aside, do the same every day until you’re done.

Robin printing on Sunday.

We would really like to say that we buckled down, turned on the music, turned off our phones and took care of business yesterday, completing our task. We'd love to say that, but we can't. Instead, we had earlier print jobs to finish up, reprints to take care of, a custom project to research and a whole lot of running around to do. By the end of the day, it felt like two days packed into one!

But, we're going to take our own advice, and try to set some time aside today to work on yesterday's task later this week. We'd love to work on it today but we have a whole other day of crazy errands, meetings and projects that need to be taken care of before the week starts in earnest.

Proofing yesterday's prints while we eat breakfast in the studio this morning.

However, we really need to make time for this project in particular. When we moved into our current studio space, we were exhausted. We moved in the middle of December, in the middle of holiday orders and holiday craft shows. We were both still working full time at day jobs and we did our best to move as much as possible on weekends and in the evening. It was a complete nightmare move. Two years later, we're still recovering. And, we still have boxes here and there, lurking in the corners that have yet to be unpacked and dealt with. Now that we're preparing to move again, we need to make it a priority not to move with these boxes still packed.

Scenes from a traumatic move, December 2013.

Today: Buy yourself some flowers today, or reward yourself with an inexpensive treat. You’ve earned it, you’re nearly there!