and here are the final products… (see “in the making” post here!)

The pop up card — the moment of the truth….

yay! The flower blooms! :)

I love the surprise when you open the card — there are spaces for your personal message, too :)

and the paper flowers — the cotton papers gives really nice texture and quality. I love how it came out!

I’m thinking of attaching either magnet or push pin… or double-side tape for present wrapping…

and this is the bigger flowers — perfect for a special present wrapping :)

It was so fun creating! Thank you so much, Jack + Jenn and Jody from Brin & Nohl!! Make sure to check out their final products, too!!

p.s Jack + Jenn and Jody, you guys will receive different flowers — it’ll be a surprise! :)

Posted under project

The project Folded :: The Origami Collection with Jack + Jenn and Jody from Brin & Nohl came to the end! It was so fun creating something different inspired by folded origami, I hope they enjoyed creating as much as I did… :)

Since my last inspiration post, I had to try lot of different things, lot of them didn’t work well because I usually work with 110lb+ papers and they do not like to be folded… (maybe once, but no more than twice)

oh, and I had 2 ideas going on, one was the pop up cards and one was the paper flowers out of recycled papers. Well, I couldn’t decide in one direction so I tried both ideas! Here, I will share some images from the “making of” and then, later this morning, I will have the final product post so stay tuned…

After trying and failing, I decided to just use the thin papers so they fold nicely. I wanted to make an original pattern by printing with wood type… and picked a word “HELLO” — greeting word!

Wood type set on Vandercook press:

First run:

and then, I went through the paper one more time in different direction to make some overlapping and pattern…

OK, now the folding part…

Cutting and shaping…

so it makes flower like this. I love the pattern!

Keep creating the same flowers…

Now, start placing each flower onto the card…

Total of 9 flower papers…. Do you know what it’s going to be?! To be continued… :)

—————————–

Here are “in the making of” my second idea — paper flowers! I have so many misprints that I really wanted to recycle somehow and this was a perfect opportunity. Here is a Live What You Love misprint…

On the back of the print, I drew 3 6-petal-flowers.

Cut them out… (and erase the pencil mark on the back)

and start forming each layer… lots of folding over petals and gluing them together…

I took my Iris letterpress misprints and tried it, too… this time, one flower layer from one whole print…

and oh my god, I LOVE these flowers! The final post will follow…!!

Posted under project

This project Folded :: The Origami Collection with Jack + Jenn and Jody from Brin & Nohl has been a bit put aside because of my move… but now we are all ready to finish creating and I just wanted to share my inspiration #2 before I share what I’ve been working and my final product.

From the first inspirational images we all gathered (see Jack + Jenn and Brin & Nohl inspirational images, too), I thought about creating a pop up card — I never seen a letterpressed pop up card and I thought it’d be fun to make and it’d be nice to see in 3D format. I also love the surprise / when the paper comes to life moment when you open the card, too…

so I went over to upon a fold (one of my favorite paper shops!) to get some more inspirations around the pop up cards….

Bloom Card:

This is so very cute! I love that it’s so small first and it opens like the flower’s blooming and the flower itself is a card with a message.

This is so awesome, I would hang it in my room forever!

Retro Balloon Card:

These are a bit more straightforward and simple (not simple to make, but it feels simple), but how pretty are they?

Popcard — Butterflies:

Popcard — Birdcage:

These are not pop up cards, but I love the idea of making pretty flowers out of re-used envelopes, books, lottery tickets, diaries, buttons and more… I do have lots of misprinted letterpress prints that I’ve been wanted to turn into something pretty rather than just throwing them away…

Handmade Flowers:

These come with double-sided tape on the back so you can attach to gifts… so cute.

(all the images are from upon a fold)

So fun!

Posted under Inspiration, project

I enjoy crocheting here and there, it is such a pleasure making something by hand and be able to use/wear them. I purchased this Japanese crochet book in February (I love Japanese craft books, they are the cutest and easy to follow instructions) and so I started crocheting a scarf for the Spring!

This is what I’m trying to make…

Using 100% organic cotton… I can’t wait to finish it and start wearing it :)

Posted under project

I mentioned a little bit about this before, but Jack + Jenn, Jody from Brin & Nohl and I are starting a project together! It all started over at Twitter ever since we found this Origami Jewelry… and now, we are each creating something with our own medium and exchange it at the end of the project. Today is the starting point of “Folded :: The Origami Collection” — sharing our inspirations.

We decided to go with the flower theme. Perfect for upcoming spring!

Here are my inspirations…

via Abby Lanes

via sofigiraldo

via anodyne*

via Alis Volat Propriis

The product we create through this project will also be available at our etsy shop so stay tuned! Make sure to visit Jack + Jenn and Brin & Nohl for their inspirations as well as their shop, Jack + Jenn and Brin & Nohl to check out what kind of medium they use.

I’m so excited about this collaboration!

Posted under Inspiration, project

I can’t believe it took me this long to post about this project… but I am so happy to report about my Live Now project (click this link to see the project details) I participated!

I knew from the beginning I wanted to print something with wood types because you just can’t get that same texture on computer, I thought it’d be so special for the project… so I printed a quote from William Arthur Ward — “If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; If you can dream it, you can become it.”

My wood type blocks are limited and so when it’s a long sentence, sometimes I don’t have enough letters…

so that I have to print some words first…

and then, set the type to fill in the blank space…

to complete the first half of the quote.

Second part of the quote, I had all the letters so I could print all at once.

After I printed these, I scanned them in, send it to Eric, and he took it from there — and it’s been up on the “Live Now” site since! Thank you so much!!

I actually printed a few more to share at my shop… if you are interested, it is available here!

Limited to only 20 sets :)

Posted under letterpress, project

I wanted to share another lovely website Randy and I launched recently: Suga Jewelry shopping site.

My friend, Suga wanted a very simple and clean website to showcase her one of a kind handmade jewelry and she also wanted to be able to sell them online so we’ve been working with her on this website… we are still working on some features, but overall, it came out really lovely, simple and shows her nature inspired work very well.

Homepage:

Store page: I love how she used branches and wood background. It ties everything together nicely, I think.

Product thumbnail page: I love this page. So clean, simple, very easy navigation, not overwhelming shopping experience (like some websites are…)

Product detail page: everything is made to order! Her work is so cute!

About page: you can find out more about her here.

It’s so nice to see it live and I’m so happy to get to help her and work with her! Please check out her website at www.sugajewelry.com :)

Congratulations, Suga-chan!

Posted under project

Good morning! Hope everyone had a nice weekend…

Over the weekend, lovely Victoria, Randy and I finally launched sfgirlbybay! We’ve been working on this new site for a long time so seeing it’s actually live makes me so happy :) When she said “let’s go live” I felt like the wedding day finally arrived or something because we’ve been planning for a long time, making sure all the details one by one, and yes, it was stressful at some point when I had to deal with PHP and CSS madness, and of course it was such a fun process designing and awesome to work with Victoria (like old days! It’s really fun to work with her!), and the launch was just beautiful! We are still working things out here and there, but I think she is happy and she is getting lots of good comments from her readers and that really makes me happy.

Her new home. Very clean and I love the color scheme she decided to go with. It has a really nice feeling and makes me want to spend more time here.

I love how all the categories are organized by polaroid films! So cute and so Victoria.

and of course, her famous “Sunday in the City” has its own section.

and there are more nice features…

If you haven’t already, please go to www.sfgirlbybay.com and look around her new site, you will have a great time. Congratulations, Victoria!!! Cheers to you, your successful blog and many more years to come!!!

Posted under project

Remember I posted about my iPhone wallpaper and the inspiration from Poolga? Well… I got invited and my wallpapers are up on their site today!! Aww I am super excited! Make sure to check it out from here and download them for your iPhone or just for fun! :)

Thank you soo much, Poolga!!!

Posted under project, studio news

I have been working with Jana for a while on her logos and website – she is a great interior designer in bay area, just launched her new business / design blog called “Rooted in Style” and I am so honored to be a part of this exciting journey, thank you so much!

Logo design: Love the concept behind this name and her vision. We had a lot of ideas around the concept, it was fun to think and come up with different ideas. At the end, she went with more elegant and simplified version of “root” on the ground and also show a new life above the ground.

Her blog design: Her posts have been so inspirational! She featured about me on her first post, too, thank you so much!!

She also has an interior design studio and I got to design her logo, too:

The succulent flowers you see on her blog is coming from her interior design studio logo – they work nicely together actually – I love the background!

I am going to check out my letterpress studio today – I am renting one starting this month! Many more letterpress projects to share very soon!

Posted under project