New Addition Coming Soon to French Press

35 weeks and counting! I'm so excited to meet the little one and have finally come to the realization that I have to start slowing down around the shop. As a first time mom I wasn't sure what to expect and thus far I've been very fortunate to have a very easy pregnancy and maintain a fairly active work schedule. Now, however, I'm starting to feel the need to slow and really enjoy the last few weeks of being pregnant. I will be out for the next few months, but Jodi will be taking over the helm with printing and meetings (she's amazing!)

I'd also love to hear from you other letterpress mamas out there! How was your experience and when did you go back to work? I'd love any advice!

Few More Wedding Invites for 2011

Our season is coming to a slow end...but we're always happy to entertain the Fall brides (which I'm partial to as my wedding was in October!) This invitation suite picked from our Signature Collection was for a great couple, Erin and Jerry, who were getting married in upstate NY this fall. The suite was letterpressed in a yummy, royal-esque deep violet on a soft white pearl paper and coupled with the lovely styling of our talented 'secret' calligrapher on the envelopes. A simple, yet elegant touch for a wedding that will be spectacular!

Letterpress Work in Progress

Quick post today. We leave for vacation in a week and working to get some loose ends wrapped up. Here are some lovely invitations designed and printed in-house and French Press. We especially love the how the border came out on press. Sometimes we forget how satisfying our work can be.

Vintage Key Inspired Invitation Suite

Ever go to a garage sale, flea market or antique sale and find yourself drawn to those 18th century ornate, skeleton keys? Me too! So when cute-as-can-be Gretchen came to me with the broad concept of vintage keys...I was thrilled! Working in the direction of classic romance, this invitation suite was so much fun to design. Spending hours doing research on vintage clothing, objects, and decor just doesn't seem like work!! I had also discovered Gretchen's love of peacock feathers, so it only seemed natural to include that in the liner! The end result was a letterpressed suite using double thick, Reich Savoy #236 cotton paper in Natural White for the invite and matching #118 cover for the remaining pieces. To boot, Andrew and Gretchen are a great pair--which makes my job easy-pleasey!

Preview of Recent Letterpress Work from French Press

Crummy weather today but the presses keep rolling! I think its much easier to work when its raining than when it's a perfect 82 and sunny! So, thank you rain for making me stay on deadline.

Enjoy!

French Press is an Envelopments® Dealer

 

We are proud to offer our clients the full range of products from Envelopments: an entire system of more than 230 cardstocks, papers, liners and envelopes and more than 90 shapes and sizes with signature names like Envelofolds®, Portable Pockets®, Pocket Folds® and more. They offer innovative designs you can tailor to fit your needs. We have used them a lot this season and look forward to offering our clients the latest from their 2011-2012 line of products. Oh, and they've been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings and The Knot!

Here are just some examples of work that can be done with their offerings:

Custom Letterpress Coasters & Business Cards

Who doesn't love really thick paper?? Both of these jobs were custom designed for the client by French Press and printed using the most luxurious 2-ply paper Crane makes for letterpress: Lettra! The coasters are for a Rehearsal Dinner in Boston, MA--so the idea was to play up the cocktail side of the evening by using a coaster and also tipping our hats to Boston Harbor (the location of the event) by using a vintage map of Boston!! We created the custom duplex sheet using the map of Boston on one side and then letterpressed the event information on the reverse side. The calling cards were printed 1/0 in the same dark blue and on the same paper. Both pieces were corner-rounded for that extra special look and feel!

Make a Statement With Your Stationery

Our peak wedding season is coming to a close and I wanted to share some non-letterpress work that turns heads. We have found that offering our designs in both thermography (raised) and offset (flat) printing allow for budget-conscious folks to still have well designed, beautiful stationery. We also had a unique bi-lingual invitation that merged Cyrillic and English (very cool!) We came up with the idea of a 2 panel invitation that would be lifted to reveal the English translation of the Cyrillic front. The entire invite was housed in a "take notice" 7x7" pocket fold from Envelopements! (we're now an authorized Envelopements dealer!!)

We also had the chance to design some personal stationery for a bride who wanted a funky palette of orange and grey! We found the perfect lining paper from the amazing offerings of French Paper! The addition of an envelope liner or a pocket fold makes a huge impact on the person receiving the piece. I would advise if you do not have the budget to go with letterpress, see if you can find a few extra pennies to line the envelopes or find a unique way to house the invitation. You get a wonderful first impression that sets the tone for the interior pieces.

Recent Work from French Press

 

We occasionally get a unique opportunity to design and print corporate invitations, and our recent job for North American Breweries (Labatts, Magic Hat, etc.) was a ton of fun! With a tight deadline looming, we managed to design and print these prestigious invitations and package them with a punch in half the time! Printed 2/0 on Stardream metallic paper, backed on a bronze metallic sheet--then mounted in a 6x9 pocket fold.

Another rare opportunity came to our shop a few months ago. A local couple requested a bi-lingual invitation using both English and Cyrillic!! Having never worked with Cyrillic, I was more than excited to take on the challenge. We proposed a 2-page invitation that would be housed in a yummy red square pocket fold. The design would remain consistent on both invites, with the main deliniation being the language. The invite was well received and the happy couple is set to wed this September on a gorgeous piece of property in Upstate New York!

Block Club Magazine Cover

The conversation went something like "Would you be interested in designing the cover for our next issue?" Response: "OH YA!!" We had to wonderful privilege to design and print the cover image for the most recent issue of BLOCK CLUB With the theme Food & Drink, we turned to some vintage imagery of plates, glasses and vegetables. Printed 2/0 on our trusty Vandercook, this was a great inspiration to continue with larger format work after this wedding season starts to fade. Oh, and yes--I wear gloves sometimes when I print. Fingerprints were not part of the design :9

Letterpress Work in Progress

 

It's the height of our wedding season and we have been knee-deep in paper, ink and mess. These are a few snaps from work-in-progress. Once the waters settle down (and the studio gets cleaned!), we will post some sexy final invitation shots. Until then...enjoy.