As we planned our recent open studio event we commissioned a piece of original artwork from the Boxcar Toddler to be printed on letterpress coasters for our visitors. The result? Pure brilliance. But don’t take our word for it, take a look for yourself – the floor plan of our new print shop according to the Boxcar Toddler:
By now you’ve probably heard about the open studio event we’re throwing this Saturday, December 11. We hope you have and we hope you’re planning to attend! We’ll have tours of our newly expanded print shop, printing demos, refreshments, giveaways, goodies and fun activities for kids, and loads of letterpress fun. You don’t want to miss it. We’ll see you on Saturday between 10am and 4pm. The Boxcar Press Open Studio is on!
This fall Boxcar Press got a lot larger and moved into some new digs. Our expansion (17 letterpresses, 55 employees, 24,000 square feet) makes us one of the largest letterpress shops in the country. One thing that hasn’t changed – we still have an insane attention to detail, an overbearing enthusiasm for letterpress, and the same old mushy hearts. Come visit us this Saturday and let us show you around!
This fall Boxcar Press got a lot larger and moved into some new digs. Our expansion (17 letterpresses, 55 employees, 24,000 square feet) makes us one of the largest letterpress shops in the country. One thing that hasn’t changed – we still have an insane attention to detail, an overbearing enthusiasm for letterpress, and the same old mushy hearts. Take a look around our Syracuse, New York print shop and if you end up in our neck of the woods, come out and see us sometime.
The Boxcar Toddler turns four today and we celebrated with a great big birthday party! There were plenty of friends, crafts and painting, delicious vegan cupcakes from Boxcar favorite Strong Hearts Cafe, stacks of presents and a little face painting, too. It’s hard to believe this little guy is four already. Happy birthday, Jasper!
It’s possible that you may have caught wind on twitter that we’ve been working on a quite the renovation project ’round these parts. We’ve expanded our print shop and moved our entire operation from one end of a big old warehouse in downtown Syracuse to the other. We’re still cleaning up our dust but figured we’d give you an early heads up; we’re hosting an open studio and we hope you’ll join us. More details to come so stay tuned!
A couple of weeks ago we were excited to once again have the opportunity to donate a bunch of paper to local art programs and schools around the city. We’ve been donating paper to local schools annually (if not more frequently) for the last few years and it’s something that never stops being rewarding. We love doing our little part to help kids foster their creativity!
The teachers come in droves and bring big boxes and hand carts to scoop up as much paper as they can. We roll out big palettes and carts full of paper and envelopes and load them up with as much as they can carry.
Thanks to our esteemed press operator, Carrie, for helping organize our paper donation this year!
We printed these letterpress Halloween cards featuring a cool little spider for our good friend Rebecca Ashby of The Pink Orange. We love a good letterpress card for all occasions around here and Halloween is no exception.
Available now at The Pink Orange’s online shop.
It’s Tuesday, which in our neck of the woods means it’s CSA day. (At least during the summer and fall harvest season, that is.) Boxcar Press proudly (and enthusiastically!) subsidizes CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships for employees through a local organic farm, Grindstone Farm. Once a week, a big van full of freshly picked organic veggies shows up at our door and we always get a kick out of digging through the boxes to see what we have that week. This year we’ve been eating a lot of rainbow chard, kale, bokchoy, a variety of lettuces, onions, garlic, lots of beautiful tomatoes, potatoes, and zucchini galore.
Here is a quick peek at today’s share – parsley, patty pan squash, three varieties of tomatoes, baby carrots, two varieties of radishes, lemon basil, lots of tomatillos and the first of this season’s apples.
With tomatillos greeting us week after week, we’ve all been sharing ideas on how to best use them up. The verdict is that a great roasted tomatillo salsa can’t be beat. We love this recipe from epicurious – it’s simple, quick and tasty. Does it get much better?
Roasted Tomatillo Salsa
1 1/2 pounds fresh tomatillos
5 fresh serrano chiles (or sub the peppers of your choice; remove the seeds for less heat)
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons coarse salt
Preheat broiler or grill.
Remove husks from tomatillos and rinse under warm water to remove stickiness. Broil chiles, garlic, onion and tomatillos on rack of a broiler pan 1 to 2 inches from heat (or on the grill), turning once, until tomatillos are softened and slightly charred, about 7 minutes. Peel garlic and pull off tops of chiles. Purée all ingredients in a blender.
Allow to cool to room temperature and serve with your favorite chips or Mexican fare. Enjoy!
A while back we printed a bunch of letterpress samples for Gigi Press. We still get a kick out of the way edge painting can make a simple letterpress design look so cool.
A while back we printed these cool little letterpress cards designed by Rebecca Ashby of The Pink Orange. They’re small, business card size, with crisp black ink on white. They are the perfect the little pick-me-up to give or to receive. They come paired with tiny envelopes in rainbow colors and we find them quite charming.
