Many changes afoot at the Lunalux studio. John, our beloved printer who ran the Heidelberg here for nearly 10 years, has left the studio to invest more time in his own card line (you may have seen it in our shoppe – Dude and Chick). This left studio owner Jenni in need of a new wing-man. And we’re thrilled to announce that position is being filled by a familiar face, former intern Morgan. Morgan rocked the Vandercook for a year or so after graduating from MCAD and before pursuing an advanced degree. But grad school wasn’t her cup of tea, and it just so happened that we had a position to fill right when she wanted to move back to the cities. We’re thrilled to have her on the payroll now, helping around the studio with all manners of tasks, chores, projects and jobs: typesetting for Stationery Saturday, processing orders, cleaning up Jenni’s messes, and getting to know our excellent customers. Since she came back a few weeks ago, she’s already had her first lesson on the Golding jobber. Here she is scoring  Lunalux greeting cards on our hand-fed job press. If she keeps going at this rate, pretty soon she’ll be running the joint! Next time you visit, be sure to give her a high five and welcome her back to the Lunalux team. Watch for more personal news soon – we have at least one intern joining the rank this fall too.

As the summer winds down, we’re feeling nostalgia for mom-baseball-and-apple-pie kinds of comforts. With love of country in our heart and the national anthem on our mind, we created a series of four red-white-and-blue buckslip notecards. During the September 10 Stationery Saturday event, all four designs will be available for personalization while you wait! The 4×9 flat cards will be pre-printed with navy and scarlet icons. The Heidelberg windmill press will be loaded with gray ink, and our case of 14-point Caslon Italic will be at the ready. Stop by our shop between 11a.m. and 6p.m. and we’ll do your stationery biding – the name or phrase of your choice can be printed on a set of 10 cards for just $29. Cards will be paired with parchment-style number-10 envelopes (your choice: gray, tan or natural white). It’s gonna look nice and old-timey!

Our store is jam-packed with great greeting cards, notebooks and other papery treats right now, so there’s good shopping to be done while you’re waiting for your turn at the press. And we’ll have coffee and homemade cookies to share as well. There’s really no reason for you to not stop by this Saturday.

We’ve created a facebook event for this weekend’s Stationery Saturday, in case you feel like RSVP-ing and/or inviting all the stationery-o-philes you’re connected to. And if you can’t come in this Saturday, no worries – you can order on line! We’ve added this weekend’s designs to our online storefront at feltandwireshop.com.

This weekend’s Pride festival in Loring Park will bring thousands of folks to our neck of the woods. We invite everyone to stop by our studio for a little printing project, to raise money to combat the Minnesota Marriage Amendment on the ballot in November 2012. Our Vandercook proof press will be set up with bold wood type and a rainbow of ink; visitors can try their hand at printing or pick up a ready-to-go print. We’re asking $10 for each poster – we’ll keep $2 per poster to cover our costs, and donate $8 from each poster to Minnesotans United for All Families, the campaign that is working to defeat the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in our state. We try to steer clear of politics in our work most of the time, but we’re so sickened by this proposal, and we’ve been struggling to think of ways to raise awareness and help prevent this yucky amendment from going into effect. We’re envisioning these posters hanging in windows across the Metro, and brandished at rallies for months to come. We’ll be open Saturday from 11a.m. to 6p.m., and are looking forward to printing with all the festival-goers.

This week’s Stationery Saturday notecards are inspired by a recent trip to England. We’ve prepared three regal crest designs: Red Rose, Gold Lion and Celadon Trefoil. Stop by our Loring Park studio on Saturday, June 11, to get your very own set, letterpress-printed before your very own eyes! You pick the crest you like best, and we’ll personalize your cards while you wait. The name, phrase or royal title of your choice will be printed in a stony taupe ink, using vintage 18-point Eve Roman type. The hefty natural white flats measure 6.25×4.5 inches, and will be packaged with matching natural white envelopes. The cost: just $29.00 for 10 cards and envelopes (additional cards with the same imprint are available for $2.00 each). You can watch as we work, snap photos and ask questions about the letterpress process, or snack on homemade cookies and browse in our shop while we make the magic happen on the press. We think these cards might be just right for the dad in your life (Father’s Day is June 19, hint hint) or a soon-to-be gradute who’s job-hunting this summer. We’ll be printing from 11a.m. to 6p.m., so we hope you’ll pop in for a visit.

Are you feeling a little deja-vu-y? It’s not you, it’s us! We debuted these designs in May, but due to a variety of snafus on our end, the event didn’t get an appropriate amount of fanfare! We so fond of these crests, we wanted to give them another moment in the Stationery Saturday spotlight before we move in to other designs. Take a look at our Stationery Saturday page for more details, including a list of upcoming Stationery Saturday dates. Help us spread the word properly this time around by telling the letter lovers in your life to check it out too – you can use the Stationery Saturday event on facebook to invite them. Cheers!

Mother’s Day is Sunday May 8. This year we have an incredible selection of greeting cards for mumsies of all sorts, including some stunning new designs from Hammerpress, Regional Assembly of Text (from Canada!), Dude and Chick (from Minnesota!), and a.favorite design. Stop by our studio store to snag a card or two for the gal who brung ya (and while you’re here, you might also want to think about a card for Father’s Day cards, that’s coming up on June 19).