Erinzam News

New for 2012: Pocket-size planners based on our original Droplet planner design. Every monthly spread alternates with a spread of notes pages. The covers are hand printed (with a fun technique that I plan to feature in an upcoming Gift Wrap post!). Each notebook is hand bound with linen thread. Pick one up at my Etsy shop or, If you like the page designs and want to make a larger version of this planner for yourself, find a downloadable pdf at our Droplet Etsy shop.

Just a few items ready to head to Renegade Handmade’s brick + mortar store in Chicago. I don’t often sell on consignment, but this seems to be a good opportunity. I hope they look good in shop!

I found these two lovely illustrated books discarded from the library.

Ages ago I created a limited edition of perpetual calendars. The designs are hand screen-printed onto manila tags. After a long hiatus, a new edition of calendars are finally back in stock! True, it is past the January calendar rush, but not to worry. Why not pick up with April? That’s one of my favorites anyhow.

They are available through my Etsy shop.

Ben and I are busy, busy as we prepare for the upcoming festival on Saturday. I wanted to share a peek at one of the new projects that we are working on together. More to come!

I sure have not posted many fun projects lately, have I? I am doing some serious Photoshop work on my previous design projects, so the fun stuff is on hold for a bit. In the meantime, I began to post images of some these older projects to Flickr. Two projects are up and there are more to come!

After much anticipation, I recently received my copy of Fully Booked – Cover Art and Design for Books, published by Die Gestalten Verlag. I’m quite excited to be included in this fantastic collection! The second and third images above include my own work, and below are a few images including the work of other artists and designers. Fully Booked is filled to the brim with wonderful designs, including book covers as well as artist books. If you are looking for a good dose of inspiration, this is a great place to find it! It is available in many bookstores, and also at Amazon.

I’ve been working on a selection of earth-friendly goodies lately. In order to reduce my large collection of paper, linen thread and book cover scraps left over from other projects, I created a new group of “Recycle Bin Books”. Each one is completely different. They make me think of little patchwork quilts. A few are currently available for sale on Etsy, with more to be posted throughout May.

Another attempt at recycling studio scraps culminated in a series of mini collages. I had several screen printed tags left over from a previous project and thought long and hard about how to recycle them without actually dumping them in the recycle bin. This project turned out to be extremely healthy for me, as I wasn’t concerned about how they turned out. I just went for it and had a great time cutting, gluing, drawing and writing little phrases. Of course, some of them turned out terrible, but others I like quite a bit. A selection of the better ones are posted online here.

Please feel free to post links to some of the eco-friendly projects that you are working on lately! I’m always interesed in new ideas and love to see what others are creating.

I’m multitasking! This time, several of the projects that I recently completed involved the wonderful Print Gocco. Once you start a print gocco project, it’s hard to stop making more and more!

Project number one is a new business card. Ben and I are both setting up a booth with our goods at a local festival in May (this is our first booth experience and we’re super excited!). Thanks to tax season, we have very few funds to dedicate to this venture, so we’re getting creative. For a new business card, I used sheets of acid free chip board. We already had stacks of these that we use to ship with our prints to keep them stiff. I decided to create a design that related to my books and drawings… like part of a page pulled from a sketchbook. I combined scans of my own handwriting and sketches with the font Cyclone (I promise I had no idea I was once again using a Hoefler & Frere-Jones font when I selected it!). I left space on the back to write in extra notes and information. My favorite part is the graphite color, which is a mix of black and silver inks. I like the little bird walking on the page line like a tightrope, too. The fun parts are done now! I do still have stacks of them to cut down to size, which isn’t quite so fun.

Projects number two and three are mini tag books. I really liked the vintage inventory tags that I previously used to make into little books, but my supply ran out. I decided to design my own, made to be filled out with information directly related to the content of the book. The little squirrel book was an idea that I just couldn’t resist. Ideas and sketches are the little nuts that you squirrel away into this book.

I must admit, this is the very first time that I have ever used one of my own books that I made! I have always used sketchbooks and journals that I received as gifts, etc. Sounds kind of weird, I know. I’ve been carrying around one of the little inventory books and so far I really like it. Right now I’m thinking of using one for the car to log gas and maintenance, one for recording my purchases, and of course one for sketches and ideas!

Both of these are currently available in my Etsy shop.

At the start of the year, a fellow Etsy artist requested a custom weekly planner/sketchbook for 2008. I struggled to begin until I chanced upon some great inspiration by designer and artist Amanda Hawkins. She created her very own organizer and planner pages, which are available for download from here. Amanda’s fantastic approach to her own planner helped me to finally overcome my artist’s block and inspired me to create something exciting. Forget DayMinder!

I designed a weekly calendar page, complete with a system for stamping in the dates and the phases of the moon. I printed these pages onto a substantial drawing paper and interspersed various sketch papers and envelopes between each week. My hope is for each week to present a surprise and inspiration to the owner. The cover is machine embroidered canvas covering book board. The snap closure allows for expansion as items are added to the envelopes throughout the year.

I like how this project turned out so much that I almost considered creating one for myself. After remembering how much time it took, I changed my mind. I think I’ll stick to my current system/mess of little pieces of paper and sticky notes for now.