New Dock!

Inspired to do some New Year organization and this wonderful post by Jessica Hische, I now have a nice new shiny dock!

What new projects are you going to do this year?

-Ellen

Delicious Cake Designs

Since our wedding business has really picked up, it made me start wondering how wedding cakes can also be fun and funky. Here are a few examples from across the country that do an amazing job of looking both delicious and whimsical.

Nancy Kay Confections

Oak Mill Bakery

Martha Stewart Weddings (of course!)

Luscious Layers

Mark Joseph

Mark Joseph (again)

Mark Joseph (and again!)

Wedding cakes that inspire!
- Ellen

Fabulous Fall Wedding

Wedding invitations. They set the tone for the big day in a big way. So when you agree to work on a family wedding, the pressure is on! Thankfully, it was a smooth ride. And the results are, if I do say so myself, freekin' fabulous. Check out the photos below::

The workspace – aka the dining room table. Oh, how I long for a bigger house with a giant office! Photo features our great Gocco machine – we are still mourning the possibility that it will be extinct soon...


Detail of the invitation. Font is Bickham Script - with all it's gorgeous glyphs and Open Type features. Love love.


Thank you cards.


Finished invitations and RSVP cards. Incorporated the organic swirls into the basic lines on the RSVP so it looks super finished and cohesive.


All packed up and ready to go! Sometimes simple twine can make things look really classic and beautiful.

Until next time... Cheers!
Tamara

Privacy please!

In our house we have an enclosed porch that is currently being used as a guest room. For the longest time I just had a sheet thrown over the door. Although it gave our guests privacy, it did not look good and did not allow the door to shut all the way. Not particularly ideal, so inspiration hit and I went to work.

Before

A little careful planning with the dog's help.

After
Jinky Wink's very own gift wrap put to another good use!

-Ellen

Holga Photography

Digital cameras are wonderful. Personally I love my Nikon D60 with its amazing speed, quality and sharpness. However, if you want to try something completely different, you should look at a Holga. It's an unassuming plastic camera, that at first glance you wonder if it's a child's toy.

Then when you look at some of the pictures you take, you realize that you have something special. The picture quality is soft and dreamlike, with a lot of character. You will see a lot of photographers try to emulate this look, but this is the real deal!

(Want to see more pictures? Look here at a website all about Holga.)

And if you weren't already having enough fun, look at this fabulous white version available at Urban Outfitters.


Happy picture taking!


- Ellen

QuickKutz Letterpress

There is a new letterpress machine available at Paper Source, that will allow you to make your very own homemade projects. I'm intrigued. Anyone out there tried this yet?


- Ellen

Think Ink

Our friendly Neenah rep stopped by to visit us last week and turned us onto this fantastic application for the iphone called Think Ink. It lets you explore color combinations from the Dewey Color System, create custom color palettes and order coordinating paper samples.

All you need to do is take a picture with your phone, or pull up an existing photo. Then you can select the specific spot on your photo you want to sample. Think Ink then provides you with various coordinating color combinations that you can use on your projects. How cool is that?

9/11 Memorial

Landor has created a new logo for the 9/11 memorial. The simplistic and subdued design allow the events of 9/11 to speak for themselves. It also represent the strength and solidarity of all those affected.


- Ellen

Font Humor

A hilarious video about fonts. Seriously…it really is funny!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

- Ellen

YeeHaw!

I looooove letterpress. You can produce work that has such delicate and whimsical emotion. However sometimes letterpress with a sense of humor is exactly what you need. This are a few posters from YeeHaw Industries in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The ultimate Grudge Match!

Who doesn't love a good roadshow?

Nuff said.

- Ellen

2009 Fall Color Trend

Pantone has released the fall color trend for 2009! This year the subdued colors are representative of today's economic climate, but with a touch of elegance. It will be exciting to see which color will be the stand out this year.


- Ellen

Yudu

Since Gocco seems to be going the way of the Dodo Bird, the next big thing appears to be this fancy gadget called Yudu. It is more like traditional silk screening but a lot less messy. Better yet, they even carry it at Michaels! No more waiting for supplies to arrive from my online dealers. If I mess up I can just run to my local store and I'm back in business. Hmmm… maybe something I start looking into.

-Ellen

Moving Card

We've been busy with more custom work...

The guillotine cutter is an invaluable time saver!

Inking of the Gocco screen.

Printing...

And ta-dah! Fabulous, custom designed moving cards.

Oh Baby!

This weekend was dedicated to finishing up custom baby shower invites. These are hand stamped on the same paper as our invites on the website. They turned out so cute! Check out the pics:

The materials

The first stamp

The second stamp

The envelopes
The finished product!
We love doing custom work! Need more info? Check out our custom pages.

More Gocco

In order to get some more practice with the Gocco, I decided to design some Invitations and Thank Yous for my daughter’s first birthday. With my husband's help we were quickly able to produce some wonderful new creations. Here we are inking the screen:

After creating all the invites, we then proceeded to make the Thank Yous. We did this by using the same screen with some paper taped over the area we did not want printed:

Here are the cards drying:

And the finished product:

This whole process has been a lot of fun and I am so excited to create even more things with it. Can’t wait to start the next project!

-Ellen

Loco for Gocco!

It's been a while since our last post... but believe us, we've been busy! After months of playing around with our new Gocco, yesterday marked our first official project. For those who don't know what Gocco is, it's basically a way to silkscreen, all contained in a little machine. Check out our step by step from beginning to end!

Ellen is creating the screen. Two toxic (seriously!) lightbulbs go off and your screen is burned from a printout of your work.

The screen after it has been burned (the printout is still attached to the screen).

Using weird foamy strips, you can divide your screen for multiple colors.
On this pass we used two: red and gold.

Then you apply the ink.

We used two screens for this project, one for the top, and a second for the bottom. Here, the top portion is drying before we ink the bottom.

The finished product!

We are very excited with how this turned out, and can't wait for more projects to use with Gocco.
Insider info: We're currently working on custom wedding invites!
Cheers!
Tamara & Ellen