inspired by mother nature

photo: delphine

photo: salvatore ardillo

I'm in the midst of finalizing the new spring line of letterpress note cards. The designs were influenced by the beautiful wildflowers that are in bloom here in Southern California. Also inspired by Mother Nature, our newest products will be printed on recycled 100 percent post consumer waste paper. We have always used recycled paper and soy-based inks: our cards are printed either on paper that has at least 30 percent post consumer waste content or on 100 percent cotton (tree-free!) paper. But now that it is becoming more popular to go green there are many more options for us to choose from as far as papers go. It's exciting (and a bit daunting) to have so many choices.

As I'm planning my paper buys I feel like I'm spinning around in the middle of one of those convoluted word problems from eighth grade math class: If you have a press sheet that measures 7 x 10 inches, and parent sheets that measure 26 x 40 inches, and if the pink parent sheets come in cartons of 400 sheets and a carton costs $350, and the blue parent sheets come in cartons of 500 sheets and costs $625, and the blue parent sheets have a delivery charge of $45 and the pink parent sheets have a shipping fee of two percent, and you want to yield 10,000 press sheets of one color, what is the most cost-effective paper color to buy, keeping in mind that printing will waste approximately 15 percent of the press sheets and you many not break cartons? NOW I understand why we had to take math!!!