Let's Share: The Berkley Blog

Press bonanza!

It's been a good press week over here at Berkley headquarters (aka, our house). Ryan is thrice featured in the printed form.

Example A is this week's cover of the Portland Mercury:

 

Massive thanks to the always delightful and recently de-bearded Justin Morrison for the art editing.

[Pssst: Prints of the original image are available via Monsieur T right here!]

Example B is his illustration acknowledged in the 2009 Communication Arts Design Annual:

 

 

You may recall this Sherry project Ryan did with Creature Design in Seattle.  If you haven't checked out the mysteries that await you on the Secret Sherry Society website for this, do it now.  It's still awesome.

Example C came as a surprise to us via our eagle eyed friends and fans of Country Living magazine:

 

 

The cover image has been edited to suit vegan Thanksgiving eyes. [That also reminds me that I need to start thinking of a fun new vegan Thanksgiving food item for this year.]  Country Living featured the Urban Outfitters version of our goat which, at this time, looks to be sold out.  Plenty of goats are still to be found in our Etsy shop, though you'll have to find your own snazzy oval frame and, as I write this, the Cheetah is still available from Urban.  Rumor has it (and I am starting the rumor right now) that a few more animals will be making their way into oval Urban Outfitters frames soon.

Another rumor I would like to start: a new animal vote will be coming tomorrow so put on your zoological thinking caps!  (I'm such a gossip.)

Happy Halloween!

Last night we warmed up the Halloween vibes with a spooky party at the home of a couple Black Apples we know. [And please check out that Halloween link.  I promise you won't be sorry.]

We received this warning in the mail with the invitation:

 

so it seemed rather imperative we attend if we wanted to keep all our digits.

Unfortunately we did a terrible job of party and costume documentation, though we did retain ten fingers a piece.  Good thing we have tonight to photographically make up for it!

We did manage to get shots of bits and pieces of our own costumes (even though we never got full body shots) so we'll just work off a slow reveal...

    

 I swear I am not making this next part up.  While we were on our errand hunt for costume bits and pieces, we were almost taken out by a hot shot driver in the Halloween Superstore parking lot. After he parked, we got a look at his license plate.  Are you ready for this?...

 

Spooky!!!

James Bond Red Hots

Intrigue!

Today I found this little parcel waiting for me at my desk:

 

 

 

 

We bought a bag of these style of boxes candy treats for a party last week. [Side note: What is the classification for these things?  You know, Lemonheads, Boston Baked Beans, Jawbreakers, etc...do they belong to specific confectionery category? Boxed candy doesn't seem quite appropriate.]  [Second side note: In case you were wondering, the Orangeheads were the first to go among party-goers.]

Since then, I've had a real thing for the Red Hots in particular.  In fact, we still have a mound of this {insert box candy genre here} waiting for anyone who would like to come trick or treating in our living room but that mound has been picked clean of the 'Hots.  So, just when I thought I was out, this little package magically appeared.

Secret packaging + trendy candy desires = good husband!

P.S.  Please don't tell my dentist about this.  I just had my cleaning last week.

Wheels for Henry

Okay, let's get blog things back on track the right way, shall we?

We're happy to announce that starting today and running through October 31st we'll be donating 10% of our Etsy shop sales to Wheels For Henry.

 

(Illustration by the unstoppable Kate Bingaman-Burt)

Henry is one cool kid and is the son of our pal Chloe (who is also the proprietress of one of Portland's greatest shopping treasures, Reading Frenzy).  It just so happens that Henry rocks a wheelchair and he and his mom would benefit greatly from a vehicular upgrade.  They have received funding to convert a van in the necessary ways to make it wheelchair friendly, but they don't have the funds for the van...yet.  You can read more about Henry and his mom here.

Enough talking, let's do this!  Why not start some holiday shopping now and spread some of that moolah around for a good cause.  I've already been eyeing some of the other 30+ shops participating and plan to put my money where my bloggy mouth is.  

I'm looking at this print by Betsy Walton (although it's really tough to pick out my favorite by Betsy):

 

And this letterpress calendar for 2010 by ilee:

 

We have their 2009 version of this letterpress calendar and I get really giddy about flipping over each month.  I try to never peek at what's coming up next so I have a little surprise each 1st.

I'm also pretty sure this thank you card by Power and Light Press could come in handy in virtually any situation:

 

We're going to be a releasing a few new things in the next couple weeks for purchasing motivation as well.  Today we start with three new bottle openers.  Thanks to Dane and Claire for helping us come us with some new slogans via our Facebook page.

We've got the sloth taking it easy:

 

The cardinal wetting his whistle:

 

and the gorilla having it his way:

Now let's go out there and get ourselves a van!  Go team!

Champion Festival!

Come one, come all to Ryan's new art show, "Champion Festival" tonight at the Black Wagon in Portland. (Sneaky head's up: free prizes for attendees!)

Ryan has really outdone himself with this collection and I think we'll both be sad to see it exit our house.  Photos of the show and the art will be available for public consumption soon.  We're in talks about possible prints and/or a calender?  Eh?  

A tip for you: if you'd like to see/talk to your friends, make time for blog updates, and/or not turn all your hairs grey overnight, don't plan an art show of new material back to back with a Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago. It's been one crazy week.  We have to be at the airport at 5:30am tomorrow so that'll be fun.

It's alllllllll good, though.  We'll have much more information about this and other items that may or may not interest you upon our return from the land of Da Brat.  For now, we'll leave you with a few choice moments from our inspirational trip to the State Fair last weekend, our one allotted extra-curricular activity.

Four years

Four years ago today we went and got hitched at a summer camp on a lake near the Oregon Coast.  Seeing as how it's looking that we'll be too busy to go out and celebrate tonight (waa waa), for now I think I'll just get nostalgic with some photos on the blog.

Happy Anniversary!!

 

(We made everyone camp t-shirts)

 

(Our friend Dan showed up in the "Jambulance" all decked out with our camp logo.  Inside, a bottle of champagne waiting for us right after we got married.  He is also the one who married us.   Public declaration: Dan Lieberman is the best!)

  

Usually we like to head out to the beach to celebrate but we're going to have to give ourselves a rain check until a bit later in the month.  Ryan has an art opening next week (more info on that soon!) and the next morning we fly out to do Renegade Chicago.  We did have a doozy of a celebration for our ten year dating anniversary earlier this year, so I'll live off fumes from that until we can get something going proper.

U times two

Ux1 = Uppercase Magazine!

Ux2 = Urban Craft Uprising!

Ux1.1:

Ryan has a drawing in the new Uppercase Magazine.

He was asked to do an illustration of Strelka, Russian Space Dog, to accompany a story on these intergalactic (or at least inter-atmospheric) canines.  Uppercase is a new magazine from the fine people at Uppercase Gallery in Calgary.  We're honored that Ryan gets to be included in their second issue.  It's pretty much one of the best looking art and design magazines we've seen - every page is captivating.  Take a look at the preview of this issue on their website if you don't believe me.  

It looks like they only have ten copies left of the current issue so a smart person might act now.  Better yet, subscribe.  We did and look at us now!  We have two great magazines on our coffee table!

Ux2.1:

We're going to be peddling our wares at Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle this weekend.

If you are in the greater Seattle area, please come say hello!  This is the first time UCU has done a summer show.  The last time show was in December and the crowds were bundled up:

It's strange to imagine those jackets and hats right now considering the heat wave that is currently annihilating the Pacific Northwest. I think the mercury hit 157 degrees today or thereabouts.  I'm fully expecting the Space Needle to be wearing Jams and Ray Bans to cope.

...and THAT's how you start a blog post with a beautiful design magazine and end it with a lame joke.  I thank you, and goodnight.

Renegade Ho!

We're about to embark on our big California Renegade Craft Fair tour and I still have about 2.3 million things to do before we leave.  Doing two shows back to back (I'm talking to you Los Angeles and San Francisco) certainly makes everything a bit more of a challenge.  Double the challenge, you might even say if you are into math.  How is it that no matter how hard we work, we just never quite finish getting ready?  

Perhaps it's because I keep thinking of new things to add to our sales repertoire.  This time around, in response to public demand at Renegade Brooklyn, we created some animal pennant strands like the ones we use to decorate our booth.  

I'm really happy with these because they are made entirely from images with slight printing errors that otherwise would have gone straight to the recycle bin.

One of my favorite things about the frenzy of production is the looks of the scraps and discards.

If you stop by our booth, make sure to grab a business card because we'll be filling these thought bubbles with all kinds of nonsense whilst sitting at the table.

I loved doing this little project at Renegade Brooklyn.  It is extremely possible this is the type of project that only amuses myself but, you know, I'm cool with that.

Back then we only had cardinal cards so I can't even imagine what kinds of insight will be coming from the mouth of the T-Rex.

For a bit of progress report from the last post, here is my most up-to-date floor animal spread  featuring bonus feet:

Now we just have to pack all those up and we'll all be on our merry way.  The Lion has never been to California before and he's really excited to go rollerblading.

July Etsy Release

We're pretty pleased with ourselves right now because we've managed to release our new July animals within the first week of the month. Because the United States just turned 233, we decided to do a couple American-y animals for our country's birthday present.

Please welcome the Bald Eagle:

and the Wolf:

I thought this might be the month I'd finally get my bison, but I'm cool with suspense too.  Actually, Ryan did want to do one but with all the Renegade prep we still need to do, it just wasn't in the cards. 

Speaking of Renegade prep, here is a taste of what my day is going to look like:

And here is a taste of what our Fourth of July looked like last night:

Ryan took a bad tumble over a log stump at a french fry stand.  Don't worry, that isn't blood - it's just mysterious unidentified danger sauce. Ouch.  Not only is his leg all scraped up, but he lost all but two of his french fries after waiting in line for 15 minutes.  It was a bittersweet day for America.

Enchanted Summer

Summer just isn't slowing down.  In fact, I've invented the new word, "summertiming" to explain all the sunny adventures we've been taking lately. You can use it in a conversation like this:

You: "Oh, hey Lucy.  What have you been up to lately?"

Lucy: "Oh, you know.  Just summertiming, man.  To the maximum."

It's a helpful word to summarize all the picnics and barbecues and mini-golf adventures you've been going on.  Feel free to use it.

Anyway, picking up on what my last post alluded to, it turns out I was totally right about the secret picnic spot.

(Adorable heart PB&J's by our enchanted travel companions.)

We crashed Oregon's own tiny and time-warped Enchanted Forest theme-park with a posse of grown-ups and I didn't feel one bit creepy that we were the only ones there without children.  In fact, I think we might have been even giddier about the sites than most of the under-13 crowd we saw there.  Click on this map link and tell me you wouldn't be excited too.

I don't mean to bore you lovely readers who have been there before, but the park was built in the 1960s & 70s and hasn't had a lot of updates since then.  It's hard to pick a best part but I think we were all pretty dazzled with the initial walk down Storybook Lane.  How often to you get to see these things while on a stroll in the woods?...

I hadn't been to the park since I was a little lady but the two things I vividly remembered were the Crooked Man's House and the Haunted House (the latter of which I'm pretty sure I had to abruptly leave due to extreme panic at age six).  Funny thing - these two things stood out to me the most as a grown lady too.  

I wish I could tell you that I had outgrown my fear of the Haunted House but alas, no such luck.  In fact, I may have screamed more than I did when I was six.  I mean, who wouldn't crouch in fear of a site like this?

In cheerier news, we procured these trinkets for ourselves.  I'm smelling a Summer '09 collection box of amusement prizes coming on.  It was rather amazing how many of their trinkets had been on the shelves since the mid-70s.  I was tempted to purchase the magnet that said "T.G.F.M." (which stands for the topical, "Thank God For Microwaves", obviously) but I resisted.   

If you like fun and if you are ever in the greater Salem, Oregon area with three to five hours to kill, you should probably stop by.

Oh, and if you love summertiming too, check out Ryan's newest t-shirt design for Monsieur T. Do you like it when I have awesome marketing segues?