Screen Printed Wood Panels

I have always loved the beauty of birtch and I've been dreaming of screen printing on it for quite some time. I finally got a chance to experiment with printing my patterns and designs on birtch plywood and I really love the way they turned out. The grain of the wood adds so much to each print making it completely unique! Check them out in the shop. There are currently four in the set, but I hope to add more in the near future. My dream is to fill an entire wall full of these 8 x 8 wood squares with my patterns. Maybe one day.

There is a lot of love that goes into preping these wood panels. I sand them smooth and take of as many imperfections in the wood. This belt sander was a life saver. I debated on the most economical way to get these babies sanded and it ended up making since to buy the tool to get the job done properly.
I preped the production file so I could print two images at a time. That ended up saving me a bunch of screens, it just took a bit of coordination.

In the Studio with CuriousDoodles and Michal Garcia

My good friend Michal Garcia, who happens to be a very talented photographer and musician paid me a visit recently all the way from Hong Kong! He was very generous with his talents and we had 2 photo shoots while he was in town. The first was in the screen printing studio, The Pull, while I was printing up my 2011 Calendar. I wanted to share the photos with you as well as reveal some of the behind the scenes process that is necessary for screen printing.
I start by taping my screens with a waterproof tape. There are two main purposes to this:
1. the tape at the top and bottom of the screen creates a nice ink well
2. Masking out the unused areas of the screen insures that ink is only going where it belongs.
Once the screen is taped up, I start the registration process. There are crop marks on that transparency that indicate where my calendar pieces of paper should go. Once they are correctly placed, I put little red pieces of tape along the top two corners to indicate where to set the pieces of paper down throughout the entire print run.
Now its time to mix the paint. For this particular job, I used a pantone ink so there was very little work getting the ink prepared. I just add an extender base that keeps the ink from drying so quickly. This is a preventative measure to keep the ink flowing nicely through the screen. If it starts drying in the screen it will cause clogging and all kinds of hair pulling.
After I print the front of the calendar, I use a mobile heat unit to cure the inks so I can flip the cards over without getting wet ink all over everything. The heating unit (the gray thing pictured above) is on an arm that you can easily swivel on top of your print for about 15 seconds and then swivel it out the way. Its a very handy tool!

This is a small piece of the overall process, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Watson Wedding Screen Printed Invitation Suite

The Watson invitaiton suite was hand screen printed with two colors at The Pull, in Portland, OR. I designed the invitations, but it really was a group effort. Matt, the groom, is a designer so he had a lot of imput into the design, and Donathon, helped a ton with the printing.

This invitation was for an outdoor wedding in Sisters, OR which is a beautiful location with gorgeous pine trees and mountains all around. That being said, nature elements became a big element of the wedding identity. The tree made a really nice metaphor for the marriage.

This old western type makes since when you see the city of Sisters. It's an old cowboy town and all of the shops on the main drag use western fonts for their signs. It's very charming. The bride and groom's silhouette was another graphic used throughout the wedding identity.
I worked in some cute little icons into the invite. I like the way the dancing shoes turned out.


The RSVP notecard is a 2 color screen printed card on one side. We wanted the blue tree to be a subtle element so I made the color a slightly darker blue than the paper. The tree became a strong element of the visual identity. I will show more of that in a follow up post. Matt and Jess, the couple, had fun with the copy which set a nice tone for the actual event.

You Fill-In Screen Printed Party Invitations

These invitations are great for a variety of parties such as bridal shower, baby shower, summer bbq, etc. You fill in the details of the occasion. Check them out in the shop.






They are printed with water based inks on 97% post consumer waste chipboard (one of my favorite materials) at The Pull, an independent screenprinting shop.

Hot Off the Press

This is a little sneak peak at a new card line that is in production right now. I'm loving the white on kraft.

Behind The Scenes- Screenprinted Jelly Fish Blank Cards

I was inspired to make these cards after watching the underwater Planet Earth series. I fell in love with the beauty of the transparent jelly fish floating along so gracefully. Mother nature does a fantastic job of keeping me inspired! This is my abstracted representation of those ethereal jelly fish. using carefully considered eco friendly materials. The cards are blank on the inside for your message. There will be slight variation from card to card due to the nature of screen printing.


Thats me lineing up the paper so everything is registered. All the cards were printed at The Pull, an independent screen printing shop.

Check out that pink ink! I'm really not much of a pink kind of girl but I really like the way it turned, especially on the green paper.

After the cards are printed, they go through the scoreing machine so they have a professional fold. Then they are packed in a cello sleeve with a CuriousDoodles insert label.
All of the paper is 100% recycled from post consumer waste which is really cool.

They are ready to ship from my etsy shop.

2010 Desk Calendar has Launched!

After many weeks of frozen pizzas and long hard hours on the printing press I am thrilled to announce that my 2010 calendar is for sale in my Etsy Shop. They will also be for sale at the Black Friday Handmade Holiday Popup Show at Tribute Gallery if you live in Portland and want to see them in person.

My main inspiration for the illustrations was nature + geometry. As with alot of my work, pattern is a heavily used element. I absoutely love sitting down and making patterns so it was only natural for me to have several in my 2010 calendar. I also tried to keep my line work feeling free and I really tried to embrace the little imperfections. Sometimes its hard to predict how your illustrations will change when they go from paper to computer to print, but I'm getting much better and smarter with the way I work. The ink selection has such a big impact on the final print. I think I was even suprised how changing one color can totally change the emotional response to a print. In the end I hope people enjoy the prints and can get some bit of happiness by seeing them on their desk.





I have learned so much the past two weeks while printing. I want to give a huge thanks to diskgrunt for all of his help printing the calendar. It would not have ever happened without him. Also, if you know of any botiques in your area that would be a good match for my calendar, please let me know.

Calendar Process Photos

I am soooo close to finishing the 2010 calendar. It should be up in the shop by Friday. Woot! I wanted to share some of my process photos.

Sneak Peak at 2010 Silk Screen Calendar

I'm printing this years calendars again with the assistance of Diskgrunt over at his independent silkscreen press "The Pull" in North Portland. It is awesome to see my ideas come to life. I am deep in the production process of getting all of the calendars printing. It is fun and intense and so different that my normal day of 8-10 hours in front of a computer. My back isn't happy with me but I'm enjoying myself. So far I have 4 months printed so I'm a 1/3 of the way done. Woot! Stay tooned for more updates.

Also, if you ever have a project you want to silk screen, make sure to contact Diskgrunt. He is a very talented illustrator and runs a nice silkscreen shop.

Lee Meszaros

I'm enjoying these merit badges made by Lee Meszaros this afternoon. I was always secretly envious of my big brother in boy scouts with all his badges. Now we can all buy these uber cute merit badges for our various accomplishments in everyday life.

Merit Badge for Knocking Socks Off

Merit Badge for Sweet As Pie

Merit Badge for Pushing the Envelope


I'm getting ready for my trip to Vancouver and I have a ton of work to do. Why do I put things off until the last minute? I guess thats how I roll.

Etsy Love

A very special friend of mine has some cool new silk screened goods in his etsy shop. Check out more of Diskgrunt's work here. I own the inspired yarn ball tee-shirt, and its one of my favs! 

New Calendar in my Etsy Shop

Check out my latest etsy item here. This project has been really fun for me becuase it forced me to get off the computer and make with my hands. The process of screenprinting is very time consuming and I spent every free moment for 2 weeks preping the screens or running the press. That being said, the final product is worth it. There is something very satisfying about seeing the ink on the paper and feeling the textures. You can find more photos of my process here. Special thanks to diskgrunt! I would not have been able to do this project without you.