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.))

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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

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

I made some custom mini print for myself yesterday… “FLOSS”! I know, it’s little random, but I always forget flossing my teeth, which I am supposed to everyday, and our bathroom needed (well, I wanted) one more art on the wall so why not remind myself to floss everyday while I’m in the bathroom!

I picked this pretty blue to match our toothbrush holder / soap holder…

Wood type setting:

I printed 12 or so… (it just doesn’t make sense to print one…)

It is 5×7, fits in the 5×7 standard frame perfectly and it looks great in our bathroom!

Now I have no excuse. I am going to floss everyday.

The rest of the 11 prints are available at my shop… :) — ALL SOLD OUT now, thank you so much!!!

Posted under letterpress, studio news

Do you have art in your kitchen? I have a few and I have been wanted to print something just for the kitchen because having an art in the kitchen makes it fun and special. So why not something that says “kitchen”… so here it goes, my new mini “Cucina” letterpress print (cucina = kitchen). I hope you like it :)

The first color yellow — I had this printed for a while, I was just waiting for the right time to print the 2nd color.

Setting up the plate and the base.

Testing the impression and the placement — adjust whatever it needs to be adjusted here. (I also love the blind impression!)

Put the second color on the press, ready to print!

Printing away…..

and here it is. Now available at my etsy shop!

Let me know what you think! :)

Posted under letterpress, studio news

As you saw the “making of”… here is the finished letterpress print! Can you see I’m so ready for the spring? :)

I started using soy-based ink now and of course on 100% cotton paper so it is eco-friendly all around!

This means “iris” in Japanese (Sho-bu/Ayame)

All the overlapping part came out so nicely!

Available here.

Posted under letterpress, studio news

Continue reporting on my new print in progress… (see #1 and #2 also)

Mixing the 4th color – light peach color:

on Vandercook Press:

Printing on top of where I left off… the background completed:

Mixing the 5th color… before:

and after:

on the press:

Printing on the background: love the overlapping part! (the studio doesn’t have a good light so all the pictures come out not as good as I hope they would, unfortunately…)

Mixing the last color – violet:

on the press:

and it’s almost there!

I will have another post about this print later soon so you can see it more in details! I shipped all 43 prints to Kelly yesterday, I can’t wait to see what other people did! It was really fun working on this as you can see :)

Posted under letterpress

I posted about my plates for the letterpress swap before and I was so excited to start printing at my new studio! I am renting a studio in Brooklyn now so I can print more and more!

The first color, yellow:

It’s the same Vandercook press, but each press feels so different when you use it. Each press definitely has a personality, I think. This guy is cool, a bit tricky at first, but prints very nicely.

Mixing the second color – pale green:

Printing the second color:

Overlapped area:

The third color – using almost same green, I printed this on the green graphic from the second print…

Like this:

and I had to go… There would be one more color and the background will be completed.

And then, the main art will be on top of this background… do you like what you see so far?! The final print will be coming very soon!

Posted under letterpress

I’m happy to annouce that I have new prints in my shop! “Music is My Life.” I’ve been wanting to make this for a while, inspired by this song that I like. I admire people who are passionate about music, who live with music – if you can say that Music is your life, that is so awesome!

It’s only limited to 41 prints and I only printed in black. Available here! It makes a great gift to your music lover boyfriends, girlfriends, family and friends.

Posted under letterpress, studio news

I really wish for world peace and happy holidays to everyone in the world.

I hope this reaches out to the world…

“PEACE” print and card at my store.

Posted under studio news

I can’t believe I only have 3 more classes left… I can say that I am more comfortable using Vandercook Press now, from beginning to the end, I can do everything by myself! (well, I’m sure I have a lot to learn still, but I feel like I got the basic of it)

We can now do whatever we want to print, work on our own projects, so I continued printing my holiday card first and some new prints for my shop.

I took wood type blocks and printed “PEACE” on my holiday card — with everything going on in the world, I really wish peace on earth….

Printed on top of my snowflakes linoleum prints from last week:

Printed some more “Live What You Love” in red and blue � Thank you, everyone, the green one is sold out!

Available at my Etsy store.

I ordered 100% cotton paper (means tree-free! I’m so excited about that) and so from here on, I am going to try as eco-friendly as possible with my work and store. These new prints are of course printed on tree-free paper and the paper is made for letterpressing so the impression of the print is more awesome than ever!

Posted under letterpress