A Change of Scenery

You may have noticed we have been in a hiatus over the last couple months, with few tweets and blog posts. The reason? We have moved once again. This time, however, to another province all together!

We have packed up the presses, equipment, cats and our printer's devil and made our way to Ontario. Our studio is not up an running quite yet, but we hope to be back up to speed shortly. In the meantime though, you can still find our cards and goods at The Better Good, Void Gallery, and Hidden Stitch in Saskatoon. We will also have stuff posted in our shop in the upcoming months, so please check there as well.

It's with a heavy heart that we depart Saskatoon. It was our home for almost a decade and the place of so many memories. Know this, Saskatoon, you will always have a significant place in our lives and our hearts! We can only hope Ontario will be as good to us as Saskatchewan.

Fritzler-Krueger Wedding

We recently completed our most extensive wedding package ever! This included save the dates, invites, maps, reply cards, reception cards, and even letterpressed envelopes. Wow!!

These invites were for the lovely and effervescent young couple Megan Fritzler and Dustin Krueger. These beautiful people came into our studio with a an inspired visions, an unrelenting enthusiasm for letterpress, and a yellow floral chair (more on this in a minute). Although they knew what they wanted in their invitation suite and the vibe they wanted to convey, they came to us to design all the elements to capture their vision, all inspired by a vintage floral chair. I wish we still had a photo of the chair - recent computer issues has resulted in that photo being lost forever - but it is similar to this one (but in bright shades of yellow and gold).

We hand sketched a pattern from this vintage chair and used it as the centrepiece for all the elements. Also, because Megan and Dustin were so awesome in giving us the liberty to try new things, we decided to make this a four colour - that's right four colour - design. If this wasn't complicated enough already though, we hand mixed all one of a kind colours. These invites may have been labour intensive, but we believe they came out beautiful!!  Have a look and tell us what you think. Big congrats go out to Megan and Dustin! You two are amazing and we truly appreciate letting us be part of your wedding extravaganza. Wishing you both a lifetime of love, laughter and happiness.

The Final Product

The design and polymer plates all ready to hit the press

Laying down the first two custom colours for the
 reception and map portions of the invitations

Laying down the first two custom colours for the invites, reply cards
and accommodations cards

Using our Pantone colour swatches to get just the right colours

Adding in the third custom colour layer

The fourth custom colour layer for the reception and map
portions of the invites

Here you can see the before and after the fourth colour was added

Fourth colour added to the reception cards

The completed invitation card

The completed reply cards and reception invitations

Preparing for outdoor festivals

Over the next couple months you will be able to find us at a couple amazing outdoor festivals in Saskatchewan. In preparation we have decided to make a couple upgrades to our outdoor equipment, because as any one who has sold product outdoors, exposed to all that mother nature can throw at you, it can be a pure gong show. Rain, wind, dust, snow, hail - we have seen most of it in our limited experience. One of our least favorite is the wind. It can leave you standing in a corner holding onto your tent for dear life for 8 hours straight, which is no fun for you or your customers. The worst we've seen was when one of two double tents left the ground and flew over twenty feet to land on cars in an adjacent parking lot. (This was on a record-breaking wind day, so thankfully not common!) We have used cinder blocks - great but tend to scratch things during travel to shows; water jugs - easily break rendering them completely useless; and sand bags - great for weight, but if they get wet it'll leave a murky mess in your transport vehicle and potentially your display furnishings. So this year we decided to try a new approach that seems to be well used amongst veteran outdoor festival carnies. The PVC cement pillars. And we thought we'd share how we made ours for any other people willing to take there products to the great outdoors this summer and fall. 

Materials list
1 - 10ft white PVC pipe with a 4" (100mm) diameter.
8 - 4" diameter  PVC end caps
4 - 8" x 1/2" eye bolts
4 - 1/2" hex nuts (if your eye bolts already come with them)
4 - 1/2" washers
2 - bags of 80lbs Quikrete Concrete mix - can also use 66lbs if the 80lbs bags are not available, just won't be as heavy once the pillars are made
1- clean 3 gallon pail
PVC glue
Cement trowel for mixing cement

First you will need to cut your 10ft PVC pipe into four 30" sections (2.5 ft). These four PVC tubes will be your pillars. Next, line 4 of your end caps with PVC glue.

Attached these endcaps to one end of your 30" PVC pipes.

With the other 4 end caps, mark the approximate center using a pencil and drill a 1/2" hole. This is where the eye bolts will go through.

 

Insert your 4 - 8" x 1/2" eye bolts through these end caps and attach the 1/2" washer and hex bolts to the bottom of the eye bolts approximately 1" from the bottom.

In a clean pail, or wheelbarrow if you have one on hand, mix the concrete according to instructions on the bag. We found it was easier to mix small batches of the cement in the pail by hand using the trowel. You will use approximately half a bag of cement mix per pillar.  Once you have the right consistency for your cement, use the trowel to scoop the cement into each of your PVC pillars, filling as close to the top as possible. Don't forget to shake the pillar as you fill to compact the cement and release any air pockets.

Coat your end caps with the eye bolts with PVC glue and attach to the top of each cement filled pillar. Make sure to press the hex bolt and washer into the cement so it is completely covered and firmly press the endcaps onto the PVC tube. Leave the pillars standing upright over night to cure.

If you use the 80lbs mix, each pillar will weight approximately 40lbs, while with the 66lbs mix they will be about 33lbs. These should be heavy enough to hold down the fort for your outdoor festivities. Make a second batch for super holding powers. Not only are these robust, easy to carry and weather proof, you can decorate them in fun designs.  

Alphabetical Aviary

Our head designer and illustrator has spent the last few months preparing for an exclusive gallery show being displayed at The Void Gallery in Saskatoon. The show runs from February 15th until March 2 and features the mixed media illustrations of  North America's natural born aviators.

If you want to see Shauna in person and chat about her wonderful illustrations, letterpress or just receive a patented Shauna Buck wiggle hug, make sure to drop by the Void on February 22nd from 3-5pm for the official reception.

In the meantime here's a glimpse of some of our favorite pieces now on display!

Something to do in Saskatoon

Hey!! In Saskatoon this weekend? You should go down to the Void Gallery and check out the show by the people that make up Articulate Ink in Regina. The show runs until September 1, so there is only a couple more days to enjoy the fabulous silk screened prints by Michelle, Karli, Amber and Caitlin.