Kitchen Tea Towels by Ruff House Art

Ruff House Art — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:53:33 +0000

Kitchen Tea Towels! Hand Screen Printed locally right here in Lawrence, Kansas on 100% Eco-Friendly, Organic Cotton! The collection launches with three beautiful designs sure to fit within any Kitchen Decor. Sized at approximately 27×28 inches. Purchase one for you, your mom, your sister, your best friend, your daughter, your neighbor and anyone else you can think of! Functional, Beautiful, Organic – Awesome!

And unless you stalk Ruff House Art (let’s hope we have stalkers!), we failed to mention last week that we also launched a line of notepads!

The Garden Seeds Collection Cards (more specifically the Carrot, Celery & Pepper Cards) earned us a finalist spot in the 25th Annual LOUIE Awards we blasted The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie”. It seems only fitting right?

What is the big deal? For those of you that aren’t in the stationery industry, you might be wondering what the heck the LOUIE Awards even are. Well it is equivalent to the Oscars of the Stationery Industry. It recognizes the best of the best greeting cards, invitations and announcements marketed in the U.S. Submissions are blind judged by a panel of industry experts on the criteria of originality, impact, design excellence, sendability & value. Three finalists are named in each judging category and will be promoted, marketed and displayed throughout spring, culminating at an awards Gala in NYC at the National Stationery Show.

So yep, we get to put on fancy clothes and rub shoulders with fancy people at a fancy awards gala. What an honor to be recognized for our hard work and to see our name listed with such an esteemed list of stationers! Happy Dance Time!

Greeting Card that can grow vegetables? That’s ludicrous! Well seeing is believing and that is what we are here to talk about! One evening I had an epiphany! What if we were to create a line of greeting cards that were more than just cards, but a long lasting, fruit producing gift. Genius! And thus, the idea was born.

My concept was that each card would aspire to look like a vintage seed packet. And then I reached out to Porridge Papers, where I already order our popular line of Wildflower Plantable Paper, to see if my vision could actually be made. At Porridge, they hand make each sheet of paper from recycled paper scraps and embed each sheet with plant seeds. We landed on 6 vegetable seeds that had the highest germination abilities while also being popular veggies. I mean do people even know what reddico and endive are? Not me, so we moved forward with Celery, Carrots, Lettuce, Onion, Tomatos & Sweet Peppers.

Once the paper arrived, thus began the letterpress printing process which included 6 different colors on the series of cards. That means mixing ink, inking the press and fully cleaning the press 6 times. A laborious act, but I wasn’t about to cut any corners on this collection! This collection is beautifully designed, printed and environmentally healthy! Available as singles (for those of you that don’t like celery) or as a boxed set to share with your friends. The perfect Mother’s Day Card, Birthday Card or Just because card. I mean we all like getting cards in the mail, why not a garden too!

What took us so long to share this fantastic product with you? The first question we’d get after telling people about the collection was, “Does it work?” So, we had to prove it and seeing is believing! Feast your eyes on all these gorgeous lettuce sprouts, growing right out of the greeting card! This grew in the middle of winter on my bathroom window seal by a girl with a serious lacking in green thumb abilities! If I can grow it, anyone can. Seriously.

100% Handmade in the USA. 100% recycled. 100% biodegradable, plantable & compostable! The Garden Seeds Collection by Ruff House Art

Holy Toledos! Where has time gone! We have been a bit behind on blogging, however for good reason! First, the madhouse that we call the holidays and second, we are busy bees creating lots of new goodies for you. Like these beautiful gems, inspired by my own 2 year old daughter, Miss Mila Jae.

For quite some time now, Mila has been able to recite her numbers beautifully. However, it was all by pure memory and there was no connection to actual counting or quantities. I searched for the perfect game, puzzle and app to help aide in her learning and couldn’t find the right tool that had all the elements she needed to learn the meaning behind numbers. Thus was born Ruff House Art’s Letterpress Number Flash Cards!

Mila is getting fairly good at counting, now that we count everything all day. How many pieces of toast are on the table? How many marshmallows are in your hot chocolate? How many peas are left on your plate. Ok, we don’t only count food items, I must be hungry! Back on track…when I ask her to push the number 2 on her toy phone, she doesn’t know the answer. Our number cards have put all the elements of numbers : The Word, The Number & Counting : on one card. She can now count that there are 6 apples and know that the number next to it must be a 6 and that SIX must also represent six. Deep, Crisp impressions also allow her to trace the numbers to begin learning to write each one. In addition, she can count how many blue apples, red apples and yellow apples there are that make up the 6 total apples. Once she catches on to learning the numbers, she can work on ordering them from 1-10.

All you parents out there will agree that this is a great educational tool for your toddler! Deeply letterpressed on durable cardboard weight paper, they will not tear or bend under your not so careful toddler’s grip! Beautifully designed with primary colors and fun images, this needs to be a staple in your daily educational activities!