does that surprise you?

I Elevated some Envelopes again (if I do say so myself.) The theme of this season was "Malicious Surprise" and so I decided to make an interactive envelope to extend the suspense.

Each envelope is a tiny bit different (I did them by hand, after all), but each has the same paint-by-number styled surprise.

I included a mailable brush (adapted to be as flat as possible), a palate of watercolors, instructions to "paint in the * spaces", and several extra pages for water color doodling or postcard sending. 

I am all about the multipurpose. You might be so clever that you can tell what the surprise is from these photos, but if you can't, and can't live without knowing, click the next photo for a deconstruction of Tara's envelope.

Also, stay tuned- I might have painted versions to share from my pen-pals.

Wanna see what I did last time? Or the time before?

of the sparklies!

You have to know me pretty well before you realize beneath my everthing-is-eggshell-and-aqua exterior lurks what I have termed my "inner magpie".

That is- I LOVE SPARKLES and SHINIES. I am drawn to anything irridescent. I like metallics. I am secretly overjoyed by glitter. Really. I promise.

This is all background to explain why I find this so amazing....

that I get cool things

I just put up a short review of the Martha Stewart Score Board over at Adventures in Making. Check it out!

My Name is Alison, and I am a Sharpie Addict.

I just bought a set of Sharpie Liquid Pencils- the result was not fantastic, and I put a little review over at Adventures in Making.

Despite this little misstep on their part, Sharpies will always have a special place in my heart.

It was only recently I realized that not everyone had a large collection of these permanent markers. My mom's purse always held at least a few colors, which were out-of-bounds without adult supervision. (This did not keep me from drawing all over myself with them when no one was looking.) One of the first things I bought when I went away to college was my own set. I have increased an replaced the collection as time has gone on.

It's a secret pleasure.

Recently I found out one of Patrick's cousins works for the company- and he offered me anything I want. I'm trying to find something that I am missing (other than the stainless steel marker) but all I can come up with are things I'd like to see....

• more metallic colors... silver is not enough.

• more grays and pastel colors (for those of us who are afraid of color)

• more purples!

anything you'd like to see?

there's another addition to the adhesive drawer...

Kat discovered this roll of Duck Tape at Michaels. I had to buy it, although I am out of space in my adhesive drawers (that's right, plural.) Maybe some deserving person will show up one day to claim it...

this reminds me of me.

http://www.thistothat.com/

so you should get organized, too.

Well, I ran out of calendar sheets a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd design a new one. This one has a space for the month, and for the day number (so you can plan ahead.)

This time I used my nifty super stapler to staple all across the top. ($10 clearance find at Office Depot.) After everything was stapled, I cut the edges down with my paper cutter.

There are three color choices, spring green, turquoise and teal, and black and white. Click below to download the .pdf files. I hope you use them as much as I do!

cause I reuse everything.

So how am I supposed to balance doing things, making things, and posting about them on this here blog? Well, I made a fridge pad out of all those business envelopes I've been saving, and I made a step-by-step guide if you'd like to try it for yourself.

If I can get it perfected, I might just put it on the shop.

NEXT UP: New cards! (I'll be printing all week.)

I am NOT procrastinating

I'm doing a bit more research- because I need it. I've been going through videos on you tube and elsewhere, and it's reminded me of a couple of things

1) I'd love to have a cute shop like this.

2) Anyone can try to fake anything.

But is that so bad? Obviously none of those are letterpress, they are "inspired by", but even if they are failed experiments, aren't they an exercise in expression? (The last link, is especially interesting - though far from letterpress.) I know scrapbooking is not the peak of art, but some people do it in interesting ways. I'd like to stand up and present everything I make as my own, and as authentic, but when it comes down to it, I'm not making my own envelopes, much less paper. (yet.)

Briar Press is an online community for professional and amateur printers, and in some ways it is a great resource - but the negativity in the forums- the constant bickering over what is the correct form for printing, what to use, how little impression to have...

well, it draws you in.

I just want to say - lets all do what we want. Let's express ourselves however, share our methods, buy from each other, and let the sun come out.

That's a bit of positivity to offset the weather and radio silence. Now I'm ready to go!

of my impending adventure

There's nothing left to wait for.

I received my trusty polymer plates today (though UPS may have screwed up a good portion of it in transit), and now it's time to take some real letterpress strides.

There is the little matter of having to take my whole office apart for the window installation on Friday...

and you want an adhesive gun.

Trust me when I tell you that you really want one of these.
A Scotch ATG 700 puts down adhesive strips on the back of all your paper/object needs. It may look like a massive pricing gun, but really it's a thing of wonder that lives in one of my adhesive drawers.

That's how the adhesive (think the sticky part of tape) is laid down on your paper. It makes a pretty great bond. While the price of the gun is PRETTY high for a glue toy, the small cost of the massive refills makes up the difference.

I use it mainly for gluing things together, but it can also be used for closing envelopes, wrapping packages, etc.

(glam cats)

I tried out the Tombow Mono Adhesive (above) before I used my employee discount to invest in the ATG. It's nice, but the refills cost the same as the dispenser, and you get barely any coverage. (I keep it in my art bag now, so I can glue things into my books.)

**btw- I'm sorry if this entry is a little weirdly written, I'll probably rewrite it later, but I am working on day three of a massive migraine that I think has shorted out my brain a little.

this is an irritating and technical post

(*above drawn with my right hand, to keep it from smashing things.)

Those of you who have been around me lately may have noticed that all things electronic seem to fail in my presence. In the last month I went through 2 scanners. Monday, at work, I killed the second optical drive in my Imac (no fault of my own), and the giant printer. Since I have upgraded my home machine to 10.5 I have regularly fantasized about throwing it out the window (if you're interested, there're a couple of problems and fixes at the bottom.)

Today was this - Epson's built-in drivers for my printers (Epson Stylus C88, and Epson 1280) are broken. They allow you to only use "Matte Paper - Heavyweight", default to "Borderless", and will not let you check the ink levels on the printer.

Work Around : With a lot of testing, I figured out that by setting a custom paper size of "8.5 x 10.97" it broke the defaults enough to let me change the paper settings.

It looks like any paper 10.97 inches or shorter gives you the options you need. 

The ink levels can be tested by finding the "Epson Printer Utility" application on your harddrive.

I know this is probably not interesting to y'all, but I hope that maybe someone finds this, and it keeps them from losing the minutes off their life that I did today.

OTHER PAINS (and fixes)

•When opening Mail for the first time in OS X.5 : The message viewer did not show up automatically, my messages did not open when clicked on, new messages did not come through, Mail did not respond to "Quit" and had to be forced quit.

Fix - go to "Macintosh HD > Users > (your user name) > Library > Mail" and remove the files "MessageRules.plist" and "MessageRules.plist.backup" to your hardrive. Open Mail, quit mail, and replace the files you moved. 

Everything should work great after that, but you will have to do this with each user account on the computer.

•When opening iPhoto for the first time in OS X.5 : The library panel did not show up. 

Fix - move the cursor to where the library panel should be and wiggle it around in a couple of different places. A bar should pop up so you can adjust the width of the panel.

I promise to do something pretty next.

of my paper cutter

It might be ugly, but it's fantastic.

When Patrick was acquiring my (underused) letter press the person selling it pointed to a pile of parts and rotten wood and said "You can have that for free, if you want it."

Patrick, being my trusty researcher, and having spent many late hours in the design workroom with me, recognized a jewel in the rough.

It's a book cutter (clamps and cuts many sheets of paper at once), and after he sharpened the blade, and replaced the platform, it works great! 

Total investment - approx $20

Total Value - Priceless!

and no, I will not be using it for anything other than paper.