[Alyson Kuhn] February 14 is a big day for hearts, flowers, chocolate … and mail. Big Card Companies love Valentine’s Day, and so do many of our Felt & Wire shopkeepers. Feast your eyes on these untraditional offerings that touch our heart, tickle our funny bone, and give us amorous “ideas.”
Someone Loves You print (8 x 10 in.) from Cleanwash Letterpress. Also available in gold.
Colleen Walsh at Cleanwash Letterpress made us laugh out loud with her Wood You? card. The typeface (and woodgrain texture) is from You Work For Them. Walsh says, “I thought the font was super-cute and “Wood you?” just sort of happened naturally when I purchased it. This goes along with a sort of unintentional theme that many of my cards have — the idea that a card can be used for many purposes, including forgive me, love me, be my bridesmaid, etc.”
A rose by any other name would stamp as sweet, fresh from an organic cotton bag.
Many people think of roses as the official flower of Valentine’s Day. We’ve always loved the rose furoshiki fabric wraps from Chewing the Cud for gift wrap that’s a gift. Now owner/founder/designer Viola Sutanto has deconstructed her textile pattern into rubber stamps, which you can buy in a little furoshiki-fabric bag. Wouldn’t this deco rose be charming gracing the flap of a valentine envelope?
Sutanto has also upcycled her popular Wheelie fabric into a wheelie bag (above) and also a mini-bag of rubber stamps (below). The bags, hand-printed in India, are part of Chewing the Cud’s Sustainable Collection.
Stamp your heart out! This set is highly handy for DIY valentines as well as thank-you notes.
You’re wheelie set with a matching letterpress-printed card.
Amber Favorite’s all-purpose card, below, is petite (4 Baronial, 3-and-a-smidge x 5-and-a-hair) and discreet. And rather brilliant if you happen to be tardy sending someone a valentine!
This letterpress-printed card from Amber Favorite comes in a rich red envelope with a deep V flap.
Bessie Anderson of B. Impressed is printing her heart out for her first Valentine’s Day as a full-time letterpress printer. She recently printed the alphabet flashcards below on a Chandler & Price platen press at the shop in Jamaica Plains where she had interned before graduating last spring from the Massachusetts College of Art & Design (MassArt).
Letterpress alphabet cards from B. Impressed include 26 letters & a romantic ampersand.
Backs of the YOU & ME cards feature “Youth,” “Old sofa,” “Underwear,” “Moped” and “Emerald Ring.” The & card is blank on the back — all the more room for a love note.
Although she’s now a graduate, Anderson volunteers one night a week as a monitor in the MassArt letterpress shop. This entitles her to use the school’s Vandercooks, on which she’s just reprinted Where’s the tequila? (a.k.a. her official Anti-Valentine’s Day Card) and her 2.14 card.
Arrows are a splendid Valentine’s Day icon. I love to “type” them in e-mail —> any time. February 14 just might be the arrow’s big day of the year. There’s a clever arrow lurking within Anderson’s tequila card.
Inside the tequila card, the red letterpress-printed arrow is the exact length of the word happy.
The tequila card is square, prompting this Important Reminder: A square envelope requires 64¢ postage. (Social butterflies: Click here to see the perfect stamp.) It wouldn’t do to have Postage Due stamped or scrawled on your valentine, now would it?
Anderson’s new Valentine Postcard, which she’ll be sending to her friends and family, including her twin.
Dock 2 Letterpress offers four endearing postcards, with this enticing option: “White A6 envelope available upon request so the postman isn’t all up in your romance.” Seen below, the delightful duo of Schmoopie and Darlin’.
Treasa Ewing of In-Haus Press is a pâtissier turned printer. We end this feature on a delicious note with Ewing’s Arrow Caps Monogram note cards.
This on-the-mark typeface is called Pijl, which is Dutch for arrow.The font is a collaboration with type designer René Crol, whom Ewing met last year. Ewing adds, “I love monogrammed stationery. It’s so personal. I think it always makes people happy to receive something with their initial on it. When René and I were working on these, I was researching my Native American and Gaelic ancestries. I like to think they inspired me.”
Resolve to share your love of paper on Valentine’s Day! You have almost four weeks to get creative — including Leap Day on February 29.
Alyson Kuhn also loves the boxed sets (10 cards) at Cummings & Good, featuring beautiful artwork by Cummings or Good, some with a lovely literary quote and some on lovely Mohawk Superfine.
