Maryland Blue Crab Dishtowel

Maryland Blue Crab Dishtowel, originally uploaded by krakencrafts.

A custom order for Maryland blue crab dishtowels, printed in red. At some point I'll print some of these in blue as well.

Salty Seagull

Salty Seagull, originally uploaded by krakencrafts.

Inspired by the logo on my Tony's Fish Market plate I made this print of a seagull fisherman.

Twins in Desert Bird Onesies

Twins in Desert Bird Onesies, originally uploaded by krakencrafts.

I forgot to post this picture of my friend from work's twins in the onesies I screen printed for her baby shower.

They are too cute.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing. I finally figured out how to transfer my flickr pictures directly to my blog. Now I really should be posting more often.

Engagement

Nate and I got engaged last weekend!! Yeah!

It was really shocking. He was really good at pulling of the I'm just not ready to get married act so I was rather surprised. Supposedly my words when he pulled out the ring box were "Holy shit, are you serious?" I was ridiculously happy though, as you can see in these pictures.

He took me to the cove in Palos Verdes where we had our first date. He got the ring on etsy from LaurieSarahDesigns.etsy.com.

Funny the last time I posted to this blog was when I bought my print gocco machine. I bought it thinking someday I would use it to print wedding invitations and now I can. I'm going to attempt to post more often with wedding crafts. Maybe.

Christmas Cards

I finally bought a print gocco machine a couple of months ago. It seem like they really are completely discontinuing them and they are really not available in any american online shops or brick and mortar stores anymore. I bought a used B6 machine from japan on ebay. I guess the B6 is the old version of the PG5 but is basically the same and was going for way less than new PG5's on ebay. Mine was $99 I think but I was seeing some PG5's go for more than $300. Anyway I figured this was my last chance to get a gocco so I went for it.

Mine was used so it was missing some screens and bulbs and I was afraid to waste what I had just playing around with it. The bulbs and screens are also being discontinued but I was able to find a US based art supply store that still had some so I stalked up a little bit.

The first thing that I printed were Christmas cards. I used this tutorial on the small object blog. It was one of the few ones I could find for the B6 model and my instructions were all in Japanese so I really needed it.

I thought I was all prepared. I had drawn a picture, photocopied and reduced it at work to the right size, and was ready to start printing. Then I red that if you use a photocopy you need to used the blue filter so you don't get too much carbon on the screen. I searched and searched but my used model didn't seem to still have the blue filter. There was another option though. I could use the carbon pen instead of a photocopy and then I wouldn't need the blue filter. So I retraced my picture with the carbon pen and tried out the machine. It worked sort of but some of the lines blured together and the solid black areas were splotchy. I also thought I had had red ink but didn't so I used green which turned out kind of odd. Here is the result.

I wasn't too happy but I was paranoid to waste another screen on the same christmas card if it still wasn't going to turn out. I did some research and found redid the image so that there weren't any more solid areas and the lines were spaced farther apart. I photocopied it again and decided to not worry about the blue filter.

It turned out much better. Not quite perfect but pretty good. I printed them in black and then water colored in the had and crab in red.

New Prints

Wow, I really haven't updated my blog in a really really long time.  I just wanted to share some screen prints that I have made since my last post.  Some version of all of these are available in my etsy shop. 

First is my newest which I'm kind of obsessed with the cuteness of right now.  My platypus.  I've made a couple of shirts so far but he is actually a little big for the dishtowels I usually use.  I hope to print him on different dishtowels and possibly an apron soon. 

Next is the love bugs.  I made this print from a watercolor sketch I made actually several years ago.  They are these cute true bugs that look like they have little hearts on their backsides.

These two I first made to print on these onesies for my friend who just had twins.  She is kind of a country girl and lives way out in the high desert so I figured her boys needed something both cute and prickly.  The first is a roadrunner with a prickly pear cactus and the second is a pygmy owl with a saguaro cactus. 

I should really update more frequently.  I've just gotten out of the habit.  Possibly sometime soon I may post pictures of our new (rental) house.  We are just about done unpacking and decorating and I have gotten a few good shots so far.