Sesame Letterpress Blog

Still life paintings

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:40:05 +0000

I love traditional still life paintings with rich and moody colors. Our newest line of cards is inspired by this admiration. We’ve taken vintage etchings and experimented with coloring details of the pictures (having a five year old daughter, I spend a fair amount of time coloring in pictures…). We settled on a pairing of ultra bright ink for the detail painting and then darker grays for the overlaying images. We’re always looking to link our love of 19th Century everything with 21st Century style.

A bouquet with bright orange flowers

My favorite card with a blue urn and two yellow buds

detail of vase

I wish my teacups at home were as bright as this card...

New Letterpress Items!

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:59:40 +0000

We’ve been so busy this Spring with wedding invitations, note cards and designing and printing our new items that we’ve neglected the blog for a while. Now that our Spring line is finished, we’re finally getting a chance to show what we’ve been working on. We’re particularly excited about our journals. We printed 6 cover designs on beautiful Fabriano paper and had them perfect bound at a bindery around the corner from our studio in Brooklyn. It is more a little expensive to produce things here in New York City but we like to be able to support other local manufacturing businesses and the quality is so nice when someone is making and checking each piece by hand. Here are some images of the new books.

Detail of our new letterpress printed books

Detail of the silver book with gold beesOur favorite books with navy anchors on a bright blue paper

Pink needles and thread pattern on a bright pink paper!

A pair of ducks...

Real Weddings: Featured product

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:29:07 +0000

One of our bespoke, monogrammed coasters has been featured in Martha Stewart Real Weddings! A great compliment to any formal dining experience or a reception bar.

(click for larger image)

Modern Wedding Invitations: Martha Stewart Weddings

admin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:40:11 +0000

A couple of our wedding announcements were recently featured on the Martha Stewart Weddings “inspiration” section. Have a look at some great ideas from us and others!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

admin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:09:57 +0000

Our daughter, Greta, is five and making valentines for the 24 children in her kindergarten class seemed daunting so we decided it was time she worked on her first letterpress project. She drew a heart and signed her name on a sheet of paper and I scanned the image to create the plate for printing. She directed the ink mixing until it was the perfect shade of pink (of course). I printed the cards and she took them off the press and counted to make sure we had enough. We then punched holes and added the lolly-pops. Next up, birthday invitation designs…

Lilac Edges & Letterpress

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:29:43 +0000

We love painted edges on invitation stationery. It’s such an elegant way to add a subtle pop of color. Here is a stack of invitations and response cards with lilac painted edges. It is almost a shame to have to separate the the stacks to mail out.

Printing Scraps

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:24:42 +0000

Paper is precious to us and we hate to let anything go to waste, so when we set up a project to print, we will use scraps of paper or misprinted cards to test the color and impression. Once we get as far in the set up process as we can go using scraps, we’ll use clean paper to proof before we start the print run. Sometimes the text prints can be really beautiful with strange mixes of color and type etc… Here is a photo of a coaster created by testing the new graphic prints. I would love a dress made out of this pattern!

Graphic Invitation Designs

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:06:05 +0000

We’re introducing a new line of invitation designs featuring brighter, graphic elements. It’s really fun to work with the bright colors and patterns. We printed coasters to match and I think we’ll keep adding more designs to have a full range of textile inspired bright coasters for the Spring. It’s about time we start planning for the Stationery Show…

Valentine making events!

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:57:26 +0000

Happy first of February! We’ve just released our first set of letterpress printed Valentines. These are available on our shop site now. It’s fun to work with pink and red ink and print sweet little notes that will make someone’s day!

We’re excited to be participating in a couple Valentine’s Day events in the next couple weeks. Please join us to make Valentine Coasters or drink Valentine cocktails:

We’ll be at Etsy Labs on Tuesday, February 7th (from 5pm-8pm) with two of our hand presses printing Valentine coasters: http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2012/etsy-hands-on-valentines/ .

The next evening, Wednesday, February 8th, we’ll be at Thistle & Clover in Brooklyn for a Valentine Cocktail party and shopping event: http://www.facebook.com/events/223443284407275/.

We hope to see you at one of these events!

Happy New Year?!

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:11:00 +0000

It is almost February and we ‘re finally adding some new posts for the new year. We’re in the thick of the wedding invitation season and juggling meetings, designing and emailing. We have a bit of time this weekend so we’ll work backwards and add some studio updates to the blog over the next few days! To start, here is a picture of some of our stationery in a shop in Japan. I love the way they display the cards sideways…