52 | A SCREEN PRINTED SATURDAY

Taking a break from this season's orders (and a new obsession: Neutraface), fueled by Ritual's Mira Flores AND a Blue Bottle NOLA done burly (less milk, more coffee),* LOTUS&ASH spent an entire Saturday learning how to screen print - the perfect holiday treat!

Because of limited resources, the chance of failure was high, but every challenge was met with a successful solution:

No printer to transfer images to transparency? Draw them with a sharpie.

No darkroom or lightbox to expose the images? Turn off all the lights in your bedroom, and use a construction flood lamp.

(so dark there aren't any pictures!)

No wash station? Use a shower!

No experience screen printing? Find a friend who knows how. ^

The result? Two sweet, hand-drawn, bay-area pride holiday cards... and entirely new technique that opens up a dangerous amount of possibilities.**

*The SF Coffee obsession has officially set in.  Don't tell the roasters that I'm tw0-timing them.

**Like my "cooking," until refinement and perfection, this will have to remain a LOTUS&ASH hobby.

51 | L&A HOLIDAY & CHEER

*  *  *

The season is upon us, and the L&A holiday workshop is in full swing. Dean Martin is blaring, and the spice candles are burning, and there are ribbon cuttings all over the place.

December snuck up especially quickly this year - dreidels are already spinning, and the christmas countdown is well under way!  But despite the hustle and bustle, there has still been time for:

custom letterpress greetings...

personal illustrations with metallic touches...

brown paper packages tied up with string...

stationery gift sets...

in this year's L&A holiday gift wrapping.

HARK! There's more work to be done... including more greeting card and gift designing...

to my favorite holiday tunes.

So, before Christmas arrives in a blink of an eye, L&A wishes you a happy December, filled with present-wrapping, friends, plenty of merriment, and of course,

paper.

*for holiday paper inquiries, click here.

43 | Celebrate Creativity & Beans

| SPREAD CREATIVITY . designed 06.2010 |

By far, the best class I ever took at Stanford was CREATIVITY&INNOVATION. Besides the amazing teachers, my enthusiastic peers, and the awesome Stanford d.school building, one of the assignments was to design a line of greeting cards for "national creativity day" - the brainchild of neuroscientist, creativextraordinaire, and one of my personal heroes - Tina Seelig.

After a class-long brainstorm, prototyping and presentation of the new line of greeting cards, I threatened to make a line of LOTUS&ASH greeting cards inspired by the class. That threat has become a reality with a set of 4 greeting cards that are intended to ignite creativity between two people, or an entire group of people...

| SENTENCE STRUCTURE . designed 06.2010 |

| ODE TO CREATIVITY (fold it poem exercise) . designed 06.2010 |

| CREATIVE NOTE . designed 06.2010 |

~

the life of L&A:

Graduation celebrations continued last night at AXE restaurant in Venice.

I highly recommend the Vegetable Pistou - even on a hot summer night, the soup was a delight. WARNING: Do not order it if you do not intend to soak up the garlicy broth with the chunks of rustic bread accompanying.

The night was a double celebration for myself and a very good friend, who got into a very good grad school. To commemorate her achievements, nothing less than a semi-inappropriate greeting card was in order:

| BRA*VO . designed 04.2009 |

~

Graduation celebrations, part 1002030:

Congrats to Erica & Teddy on their beautiful new home.

{ taking a page out of erica's book }

celebration made easy

add one part prosecco, two parts sweet lady jane cake, and good company, and you have yourself the perfect post-dinner plans.

| CUSTOM DESIGNED hanging MANTEL PIECES by ERICA . 06.2010 |

41 | TIME FLIES...

... when L&A is having fun.

I cannot believe it has been 2 months since the last L&A update.

If anything, the silence has been an indication that the L&A office has been flooded with fun projects, as I've been trying to soak up every last bit of Stanford that I possibly can.

a glimpse at the past 2 months

[slideshow]

up next?

my printer will continue to bleed cardinal red until graduation.

which, I'm half dreading, and half looking forward to, for the reasons explained in Kim Anderson's College Candy post.

&&& thanks to Kim for recommending L&A for custom calling cards for graduating seniors!

40 | PAPER PROCRASTINATION

LOTUS&ASH here, coming to you live (and a-live), from DEADweekendFINALS 2010, perhaps the most exhausting weekend in the life of a Stanford student. The end of Winter Quarter always proves to be the most brutal... which provides even more cause for paper happiness (read: paper procrastination)

So, for all you fellow procrastinators, good luck with your finals, and I now pass on the torch of distraction to you:

| FRATERNITY FORMAL ... 03.2010 |

(special shout out to SAE for their support of chivalry & handwritten, paper invitations)

| THREE little SKULLS ... 02.2010 |

&&&

you know it's dead week when...

you design greeting cards inspired by your classes:

or use your presentations as an opportunity for good design:

| slides from LINX DATING PRESENTATION ... 03.2010 |

lotusandash(dot)com