Doing Japanese Order

The most popular cards at Top Drawer were these 'age cards', but without the ages, so just saying happy birthday + the image. The piles on the table show what the trusty workers John and Leo will be assembling (I do the printing and cutting).

Top Drawer Follow-Up

This was home for 3 days last week and I got a badly swollen ankle from standing in it and not getting any exercise.

I was mad enough to say 'yes' to minimum orders and worried if I'd cover my costs when people ordered in 2s and 3s. Thanks to sterling crashing though, a Japanese buyer bought in 40s - which made the whole show viable.

Finished Charity Christmas Card

This is the finished screenprinted Housing Justice card. We have developed a little family firm over the last few months with retired husband and 'home-educated' 17 year old helping out...

Housing Justice is 'the national voice of Christian action in the field of housing and homelessness', for more info on them, go to www.housingjustice.org.uk.

Commissioned Christmas Card

This photo shows the 2nd colour (sepia) having been printed on to the 1st colour (white with silver glitter sprinkled while ink wet). All my A6 cards, except ones with lettering, are produced in this way, 4 at a time. For the ones with lettering, I have to 'flip' the two that face the 'wrong' way and fit them into place with masking tape. The images shown here will be cut and stuck on to recycled card after the client has OK'd the sample.

Leaving Card - Adjusted

Here is the final version of the three colour print.

Leaving Card

This picture shows the papercut ready for the final layer of the card mentioned below. This was the 3rd colour - sepia - going on top of ochre (for the church) and red (for the clocktower). It was only at this stage I realised the top image would be in reverse, so I cut out the three layers and flipped them over and reprinted.

This picture shows the pencil stage of a card I'm going to produce for someone leaving Christ Church in Highbury. The pencilling is on A4 paper folded in half and I'll cut through both layers. When I come to printing, I'll be able to print two images at a time on my A4 screen. I'll do a limited print run in three colours, ochre, sepia and red.

Commissioned Christmas Card

Housing Justice have commissioned me to design their Christmas card. They've just emailed to say they've chosen the top right hand pencil as the design they would like (this is the second lot of roughs I'd done, edging closer to what was required - see roughs below). I will now trace it through on to 100gm good quality photocopy paper, thinking about how I'll separate into two colours...

(1.15pm) Have now done colour rough of how screenprinted image could look (shown above). Next stage will be to cut paper for the sepia colour layer, then trace through on light box to define areas that will be white (with glitter or gold dust sprinkled on). The blue will be the blue of the paper I print on...