Goose Hill

Anti-Valentine's Day Letterpress I can honestly say that my experiment with trend-tagging on Etsy was a success. After a few months of zero sales, I sold two items in the two weeks preceding Valentine's Day! Not to mention all the "favorite" bookmarkings I got along the way. So fun when these sorts of gimmicky things actually work. I have no interest in making anything that can be called gimmicky, but sometimes such tactics must be employed to get a buyer's attention and communicate your item's relevance to all sorts of occasion-related gift-giving.  The moral of the story: if you never show up on the search results page, they're not going to know you exist. I think I now have a new (albeit, still cynical) sense of appreciation for Valentine's Day.

I have been spending a lot of time with my secondhand copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes for the past month or so. When I started in on the third book in the set, I came across a passage describing how typewriters can be identified like fingerprints. Just a fun little bit of literary trivia. From Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story "A Case of Identity" from Adventures of Sherlock Holmes , in which Sherlock is quickly closing in on his weasel of a suspect: 'It is a curious thing,' remarked Holmes, 'that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over of the "e," and a slight defect in the tail of the "r." There are fourteen other characteristics, but those are ...

I finally found a use for the card catalog I bought last year. I found it on the cheap at an antiques store last spring and grabbed it fast. It is a 9-drawer maple set, formerly used to catalog the nonfiction section of some small library or other. But it is a very deep piece of furniture and the only place I could find to put it was on top of my dresser. It's been there for a year now, minding its own business, waiting for a new purpose. Then along came my printing press and its wonderful baggage, all of which needs sorting, organizing, and storing within my tiny living room studio. There are so many little (and larger) bits and bobs that are required for printing. So I decided to house my press furniture, longer leads and slugs, woodcuts, and linocuts in my card catalog. The depth of its drawers are actually quite well-suited for this job. It has been moved out into the living room (where it looks quite at home), given freshly typed labels for its drawers, and then stocked u...

1. I really do love everything typewriters. And when I saw this little change purse from Octopurse , my brain said, "Perfect!" The perfect combination of geeky and girly, and the shape of the purse even conforms to the typewriter pattern.  2. I can't wait until this book is released March 27! The first two books in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series were terrific. I am in love with the voice of the narrator, a Jane Eyre-esque heroine, matter-of-fact with a dark sense of humor. She is governess to three mysterious and lovable children raised by wolves, for whom the figure of impending doom always looms shadowy. 3. I adore these concrete cloud pendant designs from DrCraze . Who would think to use concrete as a gem? But it works so beautifully. 4. I am one of those unfortunate souls who has never known the luxury of a true bathrobe. But I find myself lusting for one now. I really like the kimono-style ones and this black and white prin...

I can now check quite a few items off of my letterpress to-acquire list . I discovered that, in fact, I already had a chase for my press. Silly me, I'm still getting the hang of identifying all of these cast-iron press parts; and what I had assumed was one piece was actually two--the chase being released by a little hidden lever at the back. Next, the rollers which had been held for me by my personal letterpress godfather, master printer Mike Kaylor, have come home. So I ordered the roller trucks from NA Graphics and they arrived a few days ago. Things are really starting to come together. Then, on Martin Luther King Day (a blessed day off work), Mike invited me to come along with him to move a local press and some type from a fellow printer looking to downsize. It was a cold day hauling type cases from a cold garage;  A strikingly similar Golding Pear but inside the house where the press (a beautiful Golding Pearl) lived, it was warm and cozy, heated b...

Lately I've been a bit feverish in my antique book re-purposing. I love having projects to work on. Here are some of the antique book cover collages I've been building: Old Silver Grizzle the Badger by Ernest Thompson Seton I thought this title was just wonderful. And by wonderful, I mean hilarious. Galahad: Enough of his Life to Explain his Reputation by John Erskine Close-up of text passage used in Galahad collage This is one of my favorite books of all time. And I loved the castle engraving on this battered hardcover copy that came through the library donations. This is my favorite collage so far. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith Close-up of text passage used in Castle collage And I'm not the only one who loves to use books for crafting. Apparently quite a few crafters have been using old books as materials and medium.  A couple of good related books I've been looking through recently: The Repurposed Library by Lisa Occhipinti ...

Anti-Valentine's Day card from JulieAnnArt on Etsy I have never been one to celebrate Valentine's Day. Ever since the hoopla of grade school, it has become more a source of unwarranted alienation than a victory for romance. It's silly, really, so I usually try to let it pass unnoticed. But I am trying to be a better Etsy shop owner, so I have updated my item titles and tags to reel in some possible Valentine's Day sales through keyword searching. You lone writer-types can show your typewriter some love with a kitschy typewriter cozy from Thread Lock Press! Or you can continue to look down your bespectacled nose at those lovers with secret rendezvous in the library stacks with this Anti-Valentine's Day, Library Etiquette letterpressed broadside .