New: Imprintable Birth Announcements

I was in Eugene last week, and because of the heat wave we ended up driving out to one of the forks of the Willamette River. I brought my camera along and took some shots of Queen Anne's Lace and other wild flora. I have been wanting to do a wedding suite featuring Queen Anne's Lace -- it's on the way, with matching Thank You cards -- but ended up with birth announcement cards, too!

Very classic and traditional, in pink and blue. I silkscreened them on my standard 100% recycled, eco-awesome, cream pinstripe textured paper, and on a whim tried them out in my laser printer. Turns out my favorite paper is printer friendly, so I can make imprintable cards! How cool is that?

Perhaps the best part is that the design lends itself to just about any color. Want something less stereotypical? Green? Purple? I can do them in any color you'd like. I can also do custom printing on the inside very affordably -- laser (b&w), inkjet (color), or screenprint (the possibilities are endless).

They're available right now on my Etsy, and I'll be at Craft In The Village on Friday, and Crafty Wonderland on Sunday. Come get some! And look forward to more imprintables from Carly Bodnar Studio...

Paper = Magic

There's something magical that happens when I actually get to print a design I've been working on. No matter how detailed my color mock-up is, complete with a scan of the paper I'll be using, and just the right color to approximate the ink, it's always better on paper.

I've been doing test prints of some of the designs I've been working on for my August 1st official launch as a wedding invitation designer and printer, and they've been coming out great. Incredibly satisfying, the act of printing.


I don't know if that's just me, being an artist of tangible things. I like to get my hands dirty in my work; if it's someone else's, I like looking at an angle to see the shadows under each brush stroke, being able to visually feel their imprint on the piece. It's the reason no digital print, no matter how exact, precise and 'perfect', can ever compare to a hand-pulled print. It's that special something.

Structure...

I'm feeling really good about where this is going...

And in other news, I'm (super-extra) happy to announce that Plan B is the first brick-and-mortar store in the Portland area! Go in and check out this gallery-slash-gift shop on 2415 N.E. Broadway, and say hi to Brad and his adorable itty bitty dog, Pearl.

Desert Wedding

I finished putting together a set of wedding invitations late last week, and thought I would share. They turned out quite nice -- very simple, but that's exactly what they wanted.
Joel and Jessica came to me with the photo you see in the shot to the right. They were having what would probably be categorized as a destination wedding, but also a fairly small gathering of mostly family. They didn't want to go over the top on the invitations, like many destination weddings do. They just wanted one piece to announce the basic information, and were going to use the web for everything from RSVPs to directions.

I had paper in mind that I thought might be perfect -- Neenah's Peppered Bronze in a laid finish; the variegated color of the paper makes it look incredibly textured, but it doesn't present problems when it comes to screenprinting on it. Jessica liked it, and paired it with French Speckletone envelopes in 'Chocolate.' For ink we simply used the color of the opposite paper, and a clean script for the text.

The result is a compact little treasure, equally comfortable in a frame or on the fridge of its lucky recipients.

On a separate but related note, the rock garden is growing like crazy and blooming all over the place. It made for the perfect place to snap some shots of the new invitations.

Divide and Conquer...

Gotta start somewhere...

Mmmm... new. I don't regularly get to use Pthalo blue at all, much less as the base of a painting. But this painting isn't quite my regular thing, exactly.

In other news: after another cleaning session with A acting as facilitator and motivator, the studio is still not clean. The never-ending battle. Losing battle in his view, but I think it's actually much improved. Suffice it to say we have different standards.

Je Suis Arrivé

My new site is up. Finally. Yay! Only about a month later than I had promised people. Tomorrow is the second Craft in the Village -- at last month's, I was telling people that the new site would be up in only a few days. This time I would like to be able to tell people that it IS up.

I only have one good excuse, and that is that it's incredibly difficult to do php coding when your only tool is trial-and-error and access to google. In that vein, slowly I will add a couple more contact and inquiry forms, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with my e-mail list subscription form.

Anyway, go browse around! You'll see I have a fine art section and a design section, so paintings, prints, cards, wedding invitations, and so forth are all available in the same place now. Plus, there's an event calendar, which is pretty full these days. Come out and say hey!