Numerology

Yesterday I printed some table numbers for a client whose wedding invitations we printed a few months ago. I thought they looked pretty cool all lying on the table together.

Merry Christmas!

Somehow before we knew it December was upon us..... so we have launched a very late Christmas card. It is hand drawn and printed in 2 colours ink. Registration on this one was quite a job, but I got it right in the end...
Blink will be supplying these in Cape Town as from the end of this week, and they will be available from me at my stand at the Designer-Maker Artisan Market from the 14th - 16th December in Cape Town.
http://www.freeworlddesigncentre.co.za/christmas-market-2011/.

We will be selling our Christmas tags, Partridge in a Pear tree notecard and our other non-Christmasy notecards, artworks etc. there as well.

Type posters

My sister, Jackie recently acquired a whole printers tray full of gorgeous old wooden type, which we borrowed for a couple of weeks to make some posters for our house and one for Jack to say thanks.

website update

We've been working with some very exiting couples and clients. To showcase what we've been up to we've updated some pictures on our website.

Go check them them out.

Kamersvol Geskenke

We have just spent the last week in Somerset West at Kamersvol Geskenke. It was so wonderful for us to meet some of our clients and to get feedback first hand on our products! There was a great energy and it was great for us to be able to showcase all of our products together.



Have a look below for some pics of our stand and products

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The Perpetual Calendar of Collective Nouns in the Animal Kingdom

We have been printing our first Birthday / Perpetual Calendar this week. We have opted for a two colour (hot pink for the days, and charcoal for the imagery and month names).

We spent hours on the internet poring over various collective nouns and finally decided to do one based on the animal kingdom. All imagery has been designed and hand-drawn by my talented husband.

We will be launching these at Kamersvol Geskenke which is in two weeks's time. www.kamersvol.com

Super Thick....

We have recently got some samples of a thick board  (500gsm) which prints beautifully.  We tried a few runs of the new Essie Letterpress business card on it.

We are looking forward to using it for wedding invites, coasters and artworks.

Olive Oil Labels

We were recently approached to print some limited edition olive oil labels for De Zalze Winelands and Golf Estate near Stellenbosch.

Blueberry advertising did the design and passed it onto us for printing. We printed on Self-Adhesive paper, which obviously makes the applying to the bottles much easier.

The off-white slightly textured paper and the Vintage design help to create an old-wordly feeling.

Bon Appetit!

Spring has sprung

It is so wonderful to finally have Spring here! (although today doesn't feel much like Spring....)

We went on a day trip up to Nieuwoudtville recently to see the flowers and we were very insprired by all that Mother Nature has to offer.

We were asked by a client to design some personalised stationery for her and her family with an
indigenous floral border, comprised of Aloes, Proteas etc. so our little road trip proved to be quite valuable...

Kamersvol Geskenke

We are taking part in Kamersvol Geskenke this year and I have been madly printing to gather enough stock.

We are really excited, as this is our first big fair that we are taking part it.  It runs from 25th to 29th October at Lourensford Wine Estate, Somerset West.
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We will be selling our usual products, plus we are designing new products to showcase at the show.

We will be selling single notecards, boxed notecards, gift tags, artworks, calendars and lots more.

Check our their website at http://www.kamersvol.com

Recipe Cards

We have designed and just printed our first set of recipe cards this past week. They are a6 size and sold in boxes of 20. They are a great gift for Hen parties- where each guest fills in her favourite recipe for the bride-to-be.

These will be available from the stores we supply in the next month or two.

Samantha's Baby Shower

My sister is having a baby in October (first baby in the family!) so we decided to design and print some baby shower invites. We used Delft design as an inspiration as my father's side of the family is Dutch. We mixed up a gorgeous blue especially for the design.

This is our first baby shower design, but we are hoping to do more in the future.

Birthday pressie

It is one of our best friend, Lei's 30th birthday today! We wanted to do something really personal so got a list of her favourite things together and designed and prined  a I Love NY style poster / artwork specifically for her. We got it framed in a beautiful white box frame with the artwork slightly floating so that one can see the printed feel and voila!  she LOVED it..... and so do we

It's Minneola season!!

Great news, Essieletterpress has created it first font. And the best thing is - It's FREE.

It was inspired by our ever increasing need for a formal script that is still fun. Something with structure that is not too tight. A font that will just flow across the page and that looks just great when pressed. We decided to call it Minneola because there is a orchard right next to our studio and they are almost readt for harvest.

Go over to DA FONT to get your free Minneola!

Wedding Invitation DIY design

We obviously love doing the design for people's wedding invitations, but it is nice to have have clients who get involved in the design as well.

We have recently printed some wedding stationery for Taryn and Rob, who designed their own stationery including wedding invitations, insert card with directions and an order of service cover. They got a friend to write out their wording in the shape of a heart (hats off to her!) which has a wonderful feel to it.

Favourite things Winter fair

As you know we took part in the Favourite Things Winter Fair hosted by Kerry Macdonald two weeks ago in Cape Town.

It turned out to be quite a rainy, Wintry Cape Town day, but nevertheless there were tons of people coming through. I shared a stand with my very talented sister, Jackie of Jack Jewellery.

Kerry already has plans underway to have another fair in October - a Spring fair.

You can purchase our exclusive range through Kerry on http://www.collectionoffavouritethings.co.za/

Moving on up...

Essie Letterpress is moving premises to cater for our ever increasing work load. We are still in theshed, but now have a lot more space and a great view of the koppie outside...

Favourite Things Artwork 2

Second up we've a got a Typography poster called : the comeback kid. Just focussing hard on line and type and it's effect on the paper.

 

You cannot imagine how nice it feels to run you fingers over this one.

Favourite Things Artwork -1

When our friends over at Favourite Things asked us to do something for their winter fair, we thought it would be a great oppurtunity to do something new and fun.

First up is the Artwork " Who's in charge". It's inspired by playing cards and drenched with awesome little patterns that work so well when pressed:

It was touch and go at one stage, because we were scared that it might just be all over the place, but it came together quite nicely:

This one and all the others will be availible exclusively at  Favourite Things from July onwards.