My classic Tahoe designs are restocked at Riverside Studios in Truckee, and I’ve printed my “greetings” stamp in a new pattern on Kraft-colored postcards. Get ’em & snail mail! Currently I’ve got the premium register-side display so you can find them easily.
A sampling of some things I made this winter: stamp for a yogi friend, custom-crocheted thumb cover for a friend with an injury, logo stamp for Clay & Pine Pottery, knitted corn-hole bags (in cheddar and Swiss colors) for ultimate frisbee team Wheel of Cheese & a majestic snow deer!
I’ve added another retailer for my postcards – the Yoga Room in Tahoe City. I hope in this comforting space, yoga-goers will think of a loved one, see my postcards and be inspired to snail-mail some thoughts… or at the least, it’s some local art on the walls!
I also reconfigured my old snowflake print, adding some pen-ink lines. I have it in postcard version at the Yoga Room, and in mini cards with envelopes at Riverside Studios in Truckee.
My block-printed postcards have a new retail location: Alpenglow Sports in Tahoe City. For now I’m just selling my new Freel Peak design. Look for them currently in the storefront display, next to the Raindrops on Roses cards!
I handmade block-printed postcards for Beaverstock again this year, and Castoro Cellars supplemented them with some printed photo ones. In all, festival-goers sent out 224 postcards! Viva snail mail!
I also made some little herb packs from sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano that I picked from the Udsen garden and neighborhood streets in Templeton and then dried—forgot to take a picture though! Max made an epic craft gift for his friends, old books turned into succulent planters. Mine, pictured below, is in an old Reader’s Digest anthology.
Hello world, my little postcard printing business has doubled, ha! I’m now selling my hand-carved and printed designs at Dudleya Studio in Atascadero on California’s Central Coast near Paso Robles. Two of my new designs (blooming cactus and thank you mountain goat, pictured above) are for sale there. Dudleya is the cutest little shop with art space for classes like felting, which Max recently surprised me with a private lesson in! We made miniature felted llamas of course (ironically, with alpaca wool). Here’s a picture of my postcards on the rack at Dudleya:
And of Max and I in action felting:
Max and I collaborated on a project for Castoro Cellars’ Beaverstock music festival in Templeton (Central Coast, California), and I’m so very excited on how it turned out. I made a bunch of postcards that we put on display in the artist lounge area. Festivalgoers could fill one out for free, place it in the mailbox, and then Max mailed all 300 of them out after the festival. It was a huge hit – I was out of postcards in the first few hours of the festival so had to restamp to resupply the booth. I made two versions: one a spinoff on the Tahoe state stamp I do, with the Castoro Beaverstock beaver with sunglasses marking the spot where Castoro Cellars is on the map; and the other a replica of the Castoro winery logo.
I also spent some good time creating a tumbleweed (from my postcard paper scraps) with my friend Brittney for our campsite, which had a saloon theme. A lot of heart and soul went into creating this little guy, who we leashed to our “covered wagon” tent so he wouldn’t tumble too far!
One of my recent carvings was a gift for the Udsen family of Castoro Cellars down in Paso Robles — a hand-carved stamp of their winery’s beaver logo. I made it into patterned postcards, and then handed over the stamp for them to take over. Check out Castoro next time you’re on the Central Coast and look for my beaver stamp in action at the upcoming Beaverstock music festival, September 13-14, 2014. I also just finished a quick proofreading project for their wine club newsletter… gotta keep their grammar sharp like beaver teeth!
In the spirit of love this Valentine’s Day, I sent some of my friends a selection of llama print postcards. I call this series “llama courtship,” ha! I carved the stamp at Bona Fide Books’ monthly Print Club. I am going to work on more of these prints with llama groupings as I love how these turned out.
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