Grandma

My awesome grandma, Eleanor Koukol, who was 97, died about a week and a half ago. She was such a sweet, loving, strong, funny, and ornery lady. I read her eulogy at her funeral, and I think it was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. It made most everything I've ever done before seem so selfish, because I had never honored someone in that way or ever given anyone a gift like I did that day.

I took this photo of her my senior year of highschool.

nursery birds!

I just got back from South Africa and Lesotho (photos to follow), and I got an email from Kelli Taylor at Purple Tree Photography letting me know that she finished her nursery. She hung 3 of my FLIGHT hanging wooden birds over her baby's crib. Her photos were super exciting for me to see since the colors of the birds match everything else in the room perfectly, and because while I've sold a lot of my hanging wooden birds, I never have seen them in their new homes! Here are some of Kelli's photos of her new nursery:

block printed cards

I just finished my first venture into making cards for selling. These were simple to make since I used woodcuts and linocuts that I had previously made. I made these to take into a local gallery here in Anchorage, but soon I'd like to sell cards in sets on Etsy.

goods of paper

I've been preeetty busy designing and making our wedding invitations. I'm happy with the results, since they seem to have the quirky/natural/fun feel that I was hoping for. They also keep with the theme of the save the date postcards, which you can see below.


The cats with the heart over their heads just get me every time. There is a variation of them on the invitation as well, and it involves an umbrella!

new postcards!

I just ordered some brand new postcards to send with orders, or for random fun-mailing. The first is definitely my favorite, but isn't variety the spice of life?

new framed woodcuts

I just took 2 new framed woodcut prints to the Octopus Ink Gallery here in Anchorage.
Upstream, 20" x 24" framed
Weather Direction, 12" x 12" framed
I'm excited to start on some new, multi-colored linocuts very soon!

linocut wrapping paper

I decided to try making my own wrapping paper this year. I have plenty of Wondercut linoleum, so I got out my cutters and gave it a go! Below are the results:



I will do a lot of things differently next year, such as:
-Make larger "stamps" so that I can get more printed with each inking.
-Wrap gifts first, then print. Since my stamps were small and not totally covering every part of my craft paper, on some gifts I've wound up having very little printing in prominent places, ack!
-Reink EVERY print. I thought I'd save time and energy by using each stamp twice before re-inking. I also thought the faded, rustic look would be desirable... in the end, I think it looks too.. country? and not crisp enough for my taste.
-Maybe use ink instead of paint? I used paint because I have tons of it and it's cheaper than ink, but sometimes maybe you get what you pay for?