Easter is coming soon, it’s April 4th this year so I have printed the Alphabet greeting cards — E is for Easter! It’s actually so perfect for kids, they can learn alphabet and celebrate Easter at the same time :)

Mixing ink: Wanted to mix a pretty pastel colors for Easter, for both boys and girls so picked pretty pastel green.

On the Vandercook press:

After adjusting the placement, print away the first color.

Second color / border:

Adjusting, adjusting…

until you have it perfect!

Here is the final product:

Available here. Enjoy!

Posted under letterpress, studio news

Just a quick announcement that I printed monogram letterpress notecards in Tiffany Blue/Green! (Oh, don’t you love that color?!)

Letter M:

And Letter T:

Speaking of Tiffany, I recently went there to clean my ring and necklaces, and oh my god, they came back as brand new jewelry! They weren’t kidding that it’d come back as good as new, I thought it was more! My ring was scratched so much, but all the scratches are gone now. Very impressed and happy me!

Posted under letterpress

Printed more “thank you” cards with wood types for my shop the other day and look what happened! “E” was backward :) It happens sometimes due to the mirrored wood type blocks, but thought it was fun to share it here. I flipped the “E” after this so just this only one.

In case you never seen this, this is something I print for my customers. I write a thank you note for each customer on the back of the card. You will receive one with your order*!

*not with poster orders, unfortunately… these cards are too stiff to include into a tube mailer :(

I have “Hello!” “Enjoy!” and “Thank U!” now. Let’s see which one you will receive…

Posted under letterpress

Yes, you heard it right. I am giving away this new SMILE letterpress print in yellow that I just printed! “SMILE” is absolutely one of my favorite words and the gray ones got all sold out so I decided to print more… in yellow this time!

It is in 5×7 inches, letterpressed by hand using vintage wood type blocks on 110lb, 100% cotton Lettra Pearl White paper with soy-based yellow ink – means it’s very eco-friendly! Limited to only 60 prints.

Here are some behind-the-scene photos…

Adjusting its placement and the impression.

Wood type all set, yellow ink set, and ready to print.

Hot off the press…

and here is the final product!

((the dachshund is from DAXDACHS in Ginza Tokyo and the little jewelry box is from Suga Jewelry.))

———————–

To enter, please leave a comment in this post telling us “what makes you smile” by midnight EST on Monday, February 22nd and I will pick a winner and announce one on Tuesday, February 23rd (my birthday!). You can be anywhere in the world, I will ship it to anywhere :) Also, if you tweet about it or if you mention about it on your blog, that gets you more entries — make sure to tell me by leaving another messages so I can count that, too! You have today, this weekend and Monday so hurry!

GOOD LUCK and BIG SMILE to all of you!!!

Posted under letterpress, studio news

I should have grabbed this book called The Handy Book of Artistic Printing when I was at Barnes and Noble last week… it looked awesome! and I can’t stop thinking about it since… I mean, look at the cover and the subtitle — “a collection of letterpress examples with specimens of type, ornament, corner fills, borders, twisters, wrinklers, and other freaks of fancy.” — aww sounds super! (and I looked inside a little and I just couldn’t look at it all because it was too good to just flip through!)

I am ordering one after posting this picture of the book I took when I realized that I didn’t have the B&N gift card with me and thought I could find it online so I didn’t have to carry it around… can’t wait to get this!!!

Posted under Inspiration, letterpress, typography

Just a quick shop update announcement… more Live What You Love posters are in! Please grab them as they are very limited in quantities… (it takes so long to print each one.)

Pink:

Yellow:

Black:

I hope your weekend will be filled with LOVE! :) Happy Friday!

Posted under letterpress, studio news

Last year, I printed the LWYL special edition in black with red heart… and this year 2010, I printed the special edition in… one of my favorite color combinations, gray with hot pink heart! I really had fun printing as the heart always makes me happy :)

Type setting without letter “O” — yup, there would be a heart there…

Adjusting the placement.. I love the accidental typographic art. So great.

When everything is set, just print away…

Next, set the curved linoleum heart in the place in between where the letter L and V were placed.

Hand mixed hot pink on the press…

a pink heart :)

Even though you thought you placed in the right place, you always have to adjust around until you have it right.

and there it is!

Live What You Love Special Edition 2010:

I hope you enjoy the process and the new print!

p.s I printed more orange, too… It had been out of stock for a while… but it’s back :)

Posted under letterpress, studio news

Yesterday was my first day of printing in 2010! I must admit… I had missed it so much! So happy that I get to print again :)

Keep that Valentine’s Day is right around the corner (can you believe it?) in mind, I printed 4 more letterpress Alphabet Greeting cards — all LOVE themed! I really enjoyed printing them and here are some behind the scene photos…

I decided to print all in red, one of my favorite colors and the color of love…
Setting wood type blocks and the polymer plates 2 at a time:

Checking impressions and adjusting placements:

Put red ink and…

print away.

2nd set — setting wood type blocks and the plates in the same position from the 1st set, but since the letters are in different width, adjusting a little here…

and print them away.

2nd color — I hand-mixed nice chocolate brown :)

Adjusting the placements… very important…

looking good :)

printing printing printing!

and here are the final products:

V is for Valentine:

L is for LOVE:

(I wanna frame this one — all the alphabet card is frame-able in US standard 5×7 frame — FYI)

X is for XOXO:

Lots of nice wood type texture on letter X.

I is for I Heart You:

I hope you like them! :)

Posted under letterpress, studio news

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas time with your loved ones… I had an another great Christmas with my family in low in Massachusetts, we came home with tons of goodies (thank you so much!) and now, we are off to Japan! Just wanted to wish you all a very happy and exciting new year 2010! Thank you all so much for visiting Heart Fish, being with me and being here for me all this year, I will be getting lots of pictures, inspirations, ideas, cool and neat things while I’m in Japan, I can’t wait to share them all with you! I will be saying hi sometime in next year from Japan… until then, have a great holiday season and happy happy new year 2010!!!

*Picture is from my last day of letterpress printing — I printed business cards for Randy :)

p.s while I am traveling, I am having a winter vacation sale so make sure to check it out :)

Posted under letterpress, miscellaneous

Just wanted to let you know that I have printed Live What You Love 8th edition and they are all available at my etsy shop now. It is a little bit smaller edition since I only had 1 day, but some new colors to enjoy :) Hope you like them.

This color is new… I call it “cerulean blue” — I love how it came out!

Hot off the press:

And here are all 7 of them.

Red is a bit darker and richer this time and light grey is really warm this time. I printed green first time in a long time (since the first edition)!

Posted under letterpress, studio news