Movember Madness

We love facial hair.

That’s why we’re shaving ours off.

For the month of November, the Old Tom Foolery team will be joining millions of other stache-lovers in participation of Movember, a worldwide event that asks men (and women) to sprout their fanciest mustaches to raise awareness and money to fight men's health issues. Movember asks participants to start clean-shaven on November 1st, then proceed to wax, groom, and comb their lip-jungle into a proud piece of art for the rest of the month.

In celebration of Movember, we're releasing a limited-edition “Field Guide to Typestaches, Volume 2” poster just for our fellow face-fuzz fiends.

A second take on our original tag-team with designer Tor Weeks, this hot-off-the-press print features 30 all-new typestaches. Each poster is screenprinted by hand with metallic gold ink on 80lb black paper.

And here's the best part: for the entire month of November, we’re donating 10% of all Typestache sales to the Movember cause. Visit our website for more info.

Want to join the fight but Typestaches aren’t your thang? No probs. You can donate to Old Tom Foolery’s official Movember page RIGHT HERE. (You can also view a gallery of each team member's mustache progress.) Your tax-deductible donation will help promote men’s health, specifically prostate and testicular cancer initiatives.

Thanks in advance for helping us give prostate and testicular cancer a swift kick in the nuts.

Come say hi (and place a huge order) at the NYIGF!

Are you a wholesale gift buyer? Are you going to be in NYC this weekend? Do you think our stuff is funnier than the bees' marginally laughable knees?

If you answered yes to all of those questions, come visit us at Booth #4245 at the NY International Gift Fair from August 19-23. We've got show specials and are unveiling a brand new line of letterpress coasters called Cocktail Notes!

If you visit our booth, you'll get a free half-dozen cards with any order over $200! What a steal!*

*A steal that comes with any order over $200.

And if you visit our booth and say the word "rhubarb," Joel will do a dance for you. (We haven't told Joel about this show special yet.)

Thanks, Old Tom Fools! Hope to see you in The Big Apple!

Extra! Extra! Big News from OTF

We're excited to introduce COCKTAIL NOTES—a new series of coasters guaranteed to make boozing even more fun.

Cocktail Notes, Vol. 1

Cocktail Notes, Vol. 2

Cocktail Notes, Vol. 3

These letterpress-printed coasters look like classic cocktail napkins, but with a twist: they each feature a unique, handwritten one-liner from humor writer/international man of mystery S.H. Carlyle.

Cocktail Notes are perfect to hand out as conversation starters at parties, give as hostess gifts, or share with anyone who likes to drink and be merry.

Read more and order from our website, or stop by Booth #4245 at the NY International Gift Fair to see the real deal in person.

Party on, Wayne!

Meet Kelli. With an "i."

While we were super sad to lose our good friend (and phenomenal employee) Jen to a new career opportunity last month, we've been incredibly lucky to fill those giant shoes with perhaps the nicest person in the history of the planet: Kelli O'Keefe.

Kelli comes to OTF from a little store you may have heard of called Anthropologie, where she used to be an Assistant Store Manager. (Incidentally, Kelli is also the owner of an extensive Anthropologie wardrobe, making her, hands down, the best-dressed person in the office every day she's here--and making Lauren extremely jealous.)

A former intern at the world-famous letterpress shop Bruno Press, Kelli came highly recommended by the company's candid owner Mary Bruno. When checking references, we asked Mary to tell us about Kelli. Her response? "Kelli's the shit. You'll love her." We hired her the next day.

When she's not busy being the jill-of-all-trades for OTF, Kelli is also a freakishly talented illustrator. Her artwork is influenced by children's stories, and she's using her new part-time schedule to focus on growing her freelance illustration business. If you have kids, and you really love them, then you'd commission some of Kelli's custom art just for them. Check out her work at kelliokeefe.com.

In all her spare time, Kelli enjoys running marathons with her new bionic legs, planning her wedding (slated for next year), watching sci-fi movies, and admiring men with ponytails.

Welcome aboard, Kelli!

Once...twice...three times a winner.

We're shocked and awed to have won three LOUIE Awards at this year's gala in NYC, including one for the "Most Humorous" card in the world. (We shite you not.)

Here are the lucky winners. For overall "Most Humorous Card," the LOUIE went to...

For "Humorous Friendship/Encouragement Card (Above $3.50)," the LOUIE went to...

And, finally, for "Humorous Birthday Card (Above $3.50)," the LOUIE went to...

A huge thank you to the judges for accepting our lavish gifts and cash bribes. We couldn't have done it without you.

The 2012 National Stationery Show is upon us.

And we've finally got some new stuff to show for ourselves, including two brand-spankin' new card lines: The Marquee Collection...

and The Magnetic Poetry Collection...

In the words of every snowboarder ever, we're "totally stoked" to finally be releasing these little babies out into the world. They've been a long time comin'.

Let us know what you think. (Unless, of course, you hate them--in which case, keep your words to yourself, you stupid fart face.)

It's Movember!

Among all the gross, sleazy-looking mustaches in the world (see above), there is the occasional follicly gifted gentleman who is able to nurture and cultivate a majestic bushy mass above his upper lip. Let's hope that rare talent lies within the thousands of men who are growing mustaches this month for Movember.

If you're not familiar with Movember, it's an international charity organization that encourages men to grow mustaches to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer every November. And in addition to their hair-growing efforts, many businesses like ours are donating sales of mustache-themed products to the cause.

So if you've been considering snatching up some of our Typestache-themed products, now's the time. Because we'll be donating 10% of all sales for Typestache posters, totes, and tees to Movember for the rest of the month.

Just imagine how good it would feel to get some of your holiday gifts purchased before the calendar strikes December. Just sayin'.

Shop away, good citizens. Shop away.

We wo-wo-won!

OTF received the LOUIE Award for best funny Christmas card! Woo-hoo! Buy the award-winning card here.

Start spreading the news

Old Tom Foolery is in town. NSS Booth #2141-2143.

2-peat?

Exciting news for us Old Tom Fools as we found out we’re up for three more LOUIE Awards this year. We won our first two LOUIEs last year, and would love nothing more than to keep that winning streak alive at this year’s competition.

Some of our favorite fellow cardmakers are up for LOUIEs, too, including Amy Smyth Made It, Bald Guy Greetings, Dude and Chick, Screech Owl Design, and Zeichen Press, so a big congrats to all those guys.

The fancy LOUIE Awards shindig will be held on May 16th in NYC. Keep your fingers crossed, and we’ll keep you posted.

Come see us at the NSS!

Booth #2141-2143. We’re in a huge doublewide booth this year, so you can’t miss us. Yee-haw!

Gettin’ ready for Renegade

Now that the National Stationery Show, our wedding, and our honeymoon are nothing but misty water-colored memories, it’s time for us to get back to business—starting with the Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco. This is our second year exhibiting at Renegade, and we’re really excited to be back.

In addition to selling our Footnotes Collection and Headlines Collection cards, we’ll also be hawking our new poster, “A Field Guide to Typestaches," designed by Tor Weeks.

It’s the first time the poster will be on display for you, the viewing public, to touch and sniff and (hopefully) buy.

If you’re in SF, come visit us Saturday, July 31st and Sunday, August 1st (11am to 7pm each day) at the Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion. And for all you fellow cheap skates out there, fret not—admission is FREE.

Maui Wowie

Sweet Child O’ Mine is Maui ever beautiful. We honeymooned there for 8 nights and didn’t really want to come home. We stayed in 3 different cities on the island: Wailea (which, to reference another GNR hit, might as well be called Paradise City), Pa’ia, and Hana. Aside from the occasional gecko in our cottage in Hana and some nasty mosquito bites during a hike at Haleakala National Park, we loved every minute of our trip. Here’s a sampling of the horrible scenery we were forced to endure:

The knot has been tied

Finally! After an extended 4-year engagement and way too much wedding planning, we finally decided to stop living in sin and get hitched on July 3rd. The party was a blast. About 175 of our family and friends joined us in Lauren’s hometown of Toledo, Ohio, for the wedding weekend. Here's a photo from the big day:

Bazaar Bizarre SF, more bodacious than bizarre

Last weekend we attended the Bazaar Bizarre craft fair in Golden Gate Park, which we've been wanting to check out for several years now. Even though this show is located less than a mile from OTF headquarters, it's always been held around Thanksgiving, conflicting with our annual pilgrimage to Toledo. But the show was a bit later this year, so we stopped by and were not disappointed. It gave us a chance to connect with our friends at The Frantic Meerkat and The Mincing Mockingbird, as well as Claudia Reyes of b Green design, whose awesome wood-panel trees are shown below. If you're in the SF area around Thanksgiving-time next year, we definitely recommend checking it out.

Let's all go on a field trip.

Thanks to Smithsonian magazine, we can all get cultured this Saturday, September 26th. Museum Day 2009 lets you enjoy free admission to all kinds of top-notch museums across the U.S. of A. For a list of participating museums near you, click here.

SFCB Roadworks 2009

The San Francisco Center for the Book is a great place to learn about letterpress and take classes. This weekend was their annual Roadworks event, where huge prints are made by a steamroller driving over hand-carved linoleum blocks. It was a feast for the eyes.

If you're interested in purchasing one of the prints, they're going to be auctioned off at an event on October 3. More details here.

We’re renegades

Last month, we participated in the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco. We had a blast, and want to thank everyone who came by our booth to buy our cards or just to say hi. It was great to meet some of the crazies who think our cards are as funny as we do.

We also enjoyed meeting the people behind other lines that we admire, like Eva and Kirk of Sycamore Street Press, Mara and Anna of Dutch Door Press, Marina of Honeylux, and Hannah of Pie Bird Press.

We were especially psyched to hang out with our friends Matt and Kim, creators of The Mincing Mockingbird and The Frantic Meerkat, respectively. These guys were our booth-neighbors at the National Stationery Show this year, and we had a great time getting to know another pair of California cardmakers. They’re some of the nicest, coolest people you’ll ever meet.

Renegade was also a great place to indulge at bit and pick up some great stuff for ourselves. Joel walked away with this shirt from the fantastic Ohioans at Campfire. I snagged some cute silver jewelry from Anna at Handmade Whimsy. And we picked up a great print of a deer with ginormous antlers from illustrator Nate Duval.

Renegade Chicago is coming up, September 12-13, so if you can get to that, we definitely recommend checking it out. There will also be holiday Renegades coming up in Chicago and San Francisco. More information is up on the Renegade site.