Strikingly Sukie

I recently stumbled (happily) upon a ridiculously sweet product site called Sukie, Ltd.. Based in East Sussex, Great Britain, Sukie offers the kind of items that inevitably create a snowball effect of adorability (?! just go with it, please), leading me/you to an insufferable state of indecision and head-scratching delirium. So, ultimately, you just end up buying a bajillion dollars worth of stuff because it would be inhumane to have to decide between the plain notebook or the lined one, for example.

See for yourself. You'll feel my pain, I swear.

















 

See what I mean? Are you in pain? I bet you are. It's just too hard to discriminate among all the awesomeness, right? Which is why there are a gazillion images above. I mean, how could I possibly choose?! Way too difficult. Ugh.

In any case, you should totally visit their website and check out all their products (yes, there are even more than what I posted above, I assure you): SUKIE, LTD. 

Enjoy, please.

 

 

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Paper Source-induced coma...

I visited a local Paper Source store this afternoon. It was my first visit since sometime last spring. My health can only handle infrequent trips to the holy mecca of paper divinity for, otherwise, I'd live a life of fainting spells and smelling salts (preferably lavender scented, thanks). I bow in your general direction every night/morning before I sleep, and I faithfully declare: There is no god but Paper, and Paper Source is Her prophet.

Yeah, that's right: I said "her." 

So, yeah. I had heart palpitations with pretty much every glance or step around my "church." You make it so easy to love you, Paper Source. And yet, so hard. So, so very hard.

Here are some reasons why:

Your gut-wrenching gift wrap:

       

Your cough-provoking calling cards:

        

Your head-throbby thank-you notes:

   

Your satanic stationery & crazy-@ss cards:



Your achy-breaky-heart-shaking animals:



Your jack-knifing journals:



And, finally, your gasp-worthy gift ideas:

Illuminated manuscripts make me happy.

Mont Saint-Michel

First, it was the illuminated initial that shook me. Next, it was the calligraphy. And, finally, it was the entire freakin' manuscript. The ornamentation in the margins, the calligraphed epic tale, the parchment, the scriptorium from whence it came... EVERYTHING. But nothing rocked me more than my visit to Mont Saint-Michel, in France, where I had the opportunity to set my eager feet in the scriptorium of that breathtaking monastery.

Afterward, I made a beeline for the gallery and purchased a ton of cards, souvenirs, and 3 separate books on illuminated medieval manuscripts. One love, Mont Saint-Michel.

The following images are borrowed from the brilliant Scholar's Resource site, which contains images of all varieties of art. But the manuscripts are obviously the coolest. I'm not at all biased.

And in the beginning was the word*...

...and the word was transmitted by scribes in medieval monasteries. This was an extremely expensive and time-consuming method of production, however; therefore, only the very wealthy could afford the written texts, which meant that the works were scarcely being seen, let alone read. The printing press would change all that. From the Digital Printing website:

Printing from wooden blocks was probably invented in China in the years around the birth of Christ. However each plate had to be hand carved with each ideogram in position on the plate, which meant a completely new carved block for each new page.

In 1457 Gutenberg invented the first printing press with moveable type. That is each letter was a separate carving and could be used again and again in different pages on different books. Gutenberg lived in Mainz in the heart of Germany's wine growing region and his press was built on the same idea as the presses that are used for pressing the juice from grapes to create wine.

Working the letterpress 

From humble beginnings printing presses spread over Europe, and with them a rapid increase in the number of people who could read, and the number of people who could afford to have their ideas reproduced in books. It is widely acknowledge that the reformation would not have occurred without the catalyst of the printing press. Printing presses across Europe rapidly produced copies of the thoughts of religous figures such as Martin Luther, because more people could read these ideas spread much more quickly than would have been possible with expensive and time-consuming hand-drawn books.

The idea of having raised type, applying ink to it and then squashing it onto paper to form an image, later became known as letterpress printing and was to be the most successful and most common form of printing until the 1950's.
 

The following beautiful images are courtesy of The Type Junkie's Etsy album, which you can find HERE. If you don't find it extremely difficult to keep your hands to yourself at the sight of these carved letters, itching to run your fingers across them, up and down, side to side, back and forth... well then, you might be on the wrong blog. (but please stay anyway.)

Don't worry: this is certainly not the last you will see of my beloved letterpress.

*Note: I am not at all religious, but I do believe that (non-religious) words are the basic building-blocks of any and all things.