(Inside A Black Apple)

New To + From Labels

It's been a long, long while since I've had To + From stickers/labels available in ye olde shoppe, and they're such useful little things, so I thought it was about time.
They're now available in the shop! 

I drew this little Bunny Rider scene a little while ago in my sketchbook, with the intentions of doing something along these lines with it - and I was very excited when these came back from the printer complete with all of the teensy ferns and leaves looking just right.

 
These labels are just perfect on gifts, letters, and packages alike.

Thank you for the kind words about the new paintings...there are still so many you haven't even seen yet! This series has really swept me away - in a good way, of course.

Okay, I'm going to go finish up an imaginary portrait of a sweet albino miss that I began last night so I will see you soon.
Happy Tuesday, and I hope your week is coming along nicely!

New Beeswax Cards

Every time I get to design and order new business cards, I'm convinced they are my favorites yet.

I think this is a good thing - and I tend to apply this "Is-this-my-favorite-of-these-yet?" test to almost every aspect of stuff-making, picture-making, baking, and dressing too.

And I can say with utter certainty that these really are my favorite business cards yet...so they passed the test. I woke up with a fiendish migraine today, but I think I've recovered 75%. This is very good, since I'm hoping to be using my eyes a lot today, and that's pretty difficult if they're squeezed shut with my head wedged betwixt two pillows.

Happy weekend to you!

Strawberry Fields

On Monday, we went out to the wonderful, calm, restorative Sauvie Island Farms with the lady Berkley for the last of the season's strawberries.

 

Ashley blogged a couple days back about her trip out there...and I think they brought something like 20 pounds of strawberries home because the fields were so bountiful just a few weeks ago!

We had to peek under leaves and crouch and search for our berries, but the last of the harvest were so sweet and just perfect (if a little shrimpy). They were like little jewels.

 

 

But we persevered, and eventually Josiah, Lu and I had each collected a respectable harvest.

Not too shabby!
We took home enough to have some for freezing (future smoothies), jam-making, and just gobbling up.

We also took home a few enormous heads of spinach.
I'm including my feet (also enormous) for scale:

Such a good, chilly, Portland afternoon...and then we had delicious spinach and strawberries, and a day later, jam!

 

I like tart, not-too-sweet jam, and it ended up just right on that front. That's one of my favorite things about making things for yourself - you can tailor whatever it is to your exact persnickety tastes.

Happy Friday!

Daniel, Dean of Good Deeds

More Oddfellow's Orphanage work...I promise that place isn't populated entirely by fellas! It's just that the first few that were completed happened to be.

Daniel, Dean of Good Deeds      9"x12"x1"     Acrylic on wood panel

Through unwavering gentle heartedness and dutiful service, Daniel became the youngest ever student dean of Good Deeds at Oddfellow's. Since then, not a day has gone by that his badge hasn't been firmly and proudly pinned to his chest.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Sweets For The Sweet

A few sweets-related items for you from the last couple weeks!

I made some key-lime macaro(o)ns last week, and they turned out pretty darn good. The lime macs from Pix are Josiah's favorite, so I wanted to try to approximate something like them.

I've realized in all of my experimenting that the key with the fillings is to have them contain as little cloying sweetness as possible, since the cookies provide so much of that on their own (being one-half powdered sugar and all). This filling had a huge amount of zest and juice in a buttercream that was very light on sugar. Tart and lovely!

The other day, we picked up a six-pack of tiny cupcakes from one of our favorite cupcakeries, Cupcake Jones (which is just a few blocks from Powell's, and is therefore a required stop when we're in that neck of the woods). I thought to snap a photo, but the sun was almost gone, so this photo doesn't really do their adorable tastiness justice:

Their treats are wonderful, but very rich, so we've realized a couple of these little minis are the way to go! Plus, I always want as much variety as possible.

And...

Ms. A sweetly brought me these beautiful pansy chocolates a little bit ago, and I've had them in a little jar in my kitchen where I can admire them.

So pretty!

They're perfect. I've nibbled on a few, but I still have some for looking at.

Little Hedgies for Your Library

 

I'm very pleased to introduce the newest addition to my bookplate-offerings...
Little bibliophile hedgies! Visit the shop to snap some up.

 

They are just like my other sets, except they're sweet and square. Measuring at 3"x3", they are printed on heavy, lightly textured stock, and will take any sort of writing implement with ease. They have rounded corners, and each bookplate is self-adhesive, and will be permanent once applied. And like the other sets, each one is packaged up neatly in a pretty glassine packet. There are 15 labels included in each packet.

And, hey! Thank you so much for the Oddfellow-love...I'm thrilled that you're excited about it. It will come as no surprise, but I'm pretty excited, too!

See you soon & Happy Wednesday!

Envelopes of Spring

Hello there!

The lovely, dreamy Springtime Girls Notecard set is back from the printers and is now in the shop!

They are a bit different from my other postcards, in that they are just a smidge taller, and are on matte, uncoated stock - which is really elegant.

And they have rounded corners, which make them extra nice.. They are packaged up with 10 cream-colored envelopes (to keep the elegance-theme going).

I've squirrelled away quite a stack for myself of my favorite girls - they're right beside me at my desk, waiting for those moments that come so frequently in which I run around like a crazy person looking for a notecard to write on. It's a little like the old saying about water, water everywhere...

And thank you for all of those sweet comments about our living room! Our house, like most people's, is always evolving, but I sure do like that room just as it is.

Happy Monday everyone!

New Window-Dressing

Yesterday, we got new curtains in the mail (these pretty flocked ones) and put them up in the living room straight away. We had lovely deep-teal velvet curtains up, and while elegant, they were also quite dark and encouraged our slightly vampiric tendencies. 

So! We were looking for something completely different. Yellow? Check! Linen? Check! Cheery? Check!

Here is Miette, testing them out to see what a lovely backdrop they'll make for the hours he spends peering-out-of-doors:

Then I realized I hadn't shared our living room in its entirety...only bits + pieces here and there. And the light was really lovely...
So, here it is!

With the addition of the new curtains, I've really fallen in love with it. It's just as I'd like it to be - cozy, with touches of (my approximation of) a natural history museum.

I'm pretty crazy about that magazine rack. We thrifted it a few weeks back. I always thought of magazine racks as horrid and cheesy, but this one manages to be old-timey and modern in the best way.

 

I also thrifted this old metal dish-rack recently, and it now sits atop our player and perfectly holds the cds that are in heavy rotation at the moment.

  

My comics are all there in those short little shelves with my sweet monkey-lamp on top. The huge book wedged between shelves is the wildly big current Kramer's Ergot. And that blur to the right is Miette, rolling around like a crazy on the floor.

  

The roses are all in bloom here, and so we happened to have some sitting around. We don't always (or even usually) have fresh flowers sitting out, but they do make things so much nicer!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Big Prints!

I've been working out the specifics for these for a few months now (and quite a few of you have emailed, asking when I'm going to have them ready), and I'm happy to say:

Big prints are here!

There are two very limited runs of beautiful 11"x14" prints of both:

Escape From the Black Forest

&

The Pale Carousel

Edition Size of both is: 25

Each is printed on a watercolor 400 gsm textured paper,  and printed out-of-house with pigment inks by a specialty Giclee printing house I worked with to make these really lovely editions. 

 

Happy Tuesday!

So Good

On Friday night, we headed over to Ashley + Drew's opening at Redux. There were lovely things to look at, fun people to rub elbows with, and a baby black bear -
I swear it was!
But I've been informed that it was actually a tiny black dog with very fluffy fur.

Here is my favorite part of the show (which winds in and out of the length of the space)...
little gals in lovely old tiny frames:

This one (the be-dotted one in the white frame) is coming home with me after the show closes:

I love her and her demure ways...Ashley outdid herself. I plan to name her Eunice, or something equally demure-sounding.

I just love clusters of things, and that whole school of art-show/display. Especially if the contents are in lovely banged-up frames.

Thank you for the beautiful show and the fun night, excellent friend of mine!
You dazzle me.

Supervisor

As I think I have mentioned before, at Black Apple HQ we have a supervisor.

He is made of fur. And he is a pretty tough customer. Today he was scrutinizing our post-Post-Office stamping, assembling, and general Black Apple elf work. I was stamping up packaging for a new product, and he made sure that every stamp-job was up to snuff and standards.

"Hey you! Get back to stampin'!"

And I dutifully followed orders, until my stamp looked like this and my hand was aching.

But after a while, even the toughest supervisors get sleepy...

And we're left to muddle through on our own.

On a totally unrelated note, thanks for all the notebook orders! You've been keeping us so busy, which is why I haven't been around the blog in a few days. I am thrilled that you like them so much!

Also, I have to add my voice to the chorus and mention how good Up is. We had a date last Friday to see it (without our supervisor, unfortunately), and just adored it. It's so terribly sad and full of truth - and also whimsical and beautiful and crotchety and funny, too. And I love imagining them pitching a "kid's" movie with something like this: "So, it's about an old man, coming to grips with loss and being alone. Also, a flying house and a boy scout and a exiled pulp adventurer".

Highly recommended. Although I do think I'd advise you to bring a handkerchief.

Pocket Notebook Three-pack!

UPDATE: I WAS UNABLE TO ACCESS MY ETSY SHOP FOR MOST OF MONDAY, BUT MY INTERNET IS BACK (THANKS TO A TINY SWAPPING OF WIRES). SO, THE NOTEBOOKS ARE BACK!

Don't worry, they are not sold out!

Hello there!

So here is are the sweet, clever, useful little things that we picked up from the printers late last week.
And they're now available in the shop!

Ta-da....

A trio of pocket notebooks!

Josiah and I fawned over these for at least an hour after picking them up from the lovely folks at Pinball. They are my favorite printing-partners-in-crime!

Specs:

-They are packaged up neatly with a pretty grey-striped paper band
-Each notebook measures 3.5"x5", and is filled with a just-right 32 pages.
-The cover is sturdy recycled chipboard, and the interior is a creamy, recycled medium-weight paper
-The offset covers are printed with soy inks in an ocean blue, acorn brown, and elegant black
-Edition size of 300
-The set of three includes three cover designs, and each has a different interior (gridded, blank or lined):

Also, as a bit of a bonus, each one has a cheeky little poem printed on the back...

"A notebook is meant for thinking thoughts,

For making notes, for jotting jots.

So don't be stingy with the pages,

Or you'll have an empty notebook for ages!"

 

At ten clams a piece, these are certainly one of the most affordable products The Black Apple has ever offered...and it's definitely one of my favorites. I use pocket notebooks all the time (grocery lists, brainstorms, sketches, addresses, phone numbers...you name it!) and it's high time that we had some Black Apple-ish ones made up.

I think these would make great little gifts, as a set or split up as individual mini-gifts and slipped into letters or packages. Of course, if it were me, I'd probably just be squirreling at least one set away for myself!

Happy Monday!