Do you ever have those days where a new combination takes you by surprise? A cute top and pants you’d never before considered layering… or a totally out there combination of spices and ingredients you throw in the skillet for a spontaneously delicious dinner? Or maybe it’s a conversation or idea that blooms when you’re in the presence of friends who’ve serendipitously come together over Zoom calls to offer support, love, and encouragement during this honestly very strange time we all find ourselves navigating right now. No matter how simple or elaborate the *surprise*, these moments of awareness can connect us back to the present, and simultaneously, the creativity that lives inside of you and lives inside of me.

Creativity is experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.

I have been noticing, this quiet, but steady theme of creativity over the last few weeks. Honestly, it’s been quiet a journey for me to even get to this point. I’m (Katherine speaking here) very guilty of having said for too many years “I’m not the creative type.” Well, can I just tell you that grateful does not even begin to describe how I feel about having a dear, dear friend/business partner (looking at you, Megan!) who has helped me see beyond that limiting mindset and negative self talk. Honestly, I think we all need a Megan in our life! :) Someone who lives and breathes the mindset that every single human being is creative and has creative potential. Someone who has taught me what it looks like to flex my creative muscle.

We’ve been overwhelmed by the creativity coming from the #bppgreenhouse community since we launched this project at the start of the year. I think we’ve made it abundantly clear how dang hard it is to choose just ONE submission for each month, so we're going to let you in on a little secret. We broke our own rule! Did you see above?! Creativity is also breaking rules…even if you’re the one who made them to being with ;) So without further ado, let me introduce you to the first of our two Greenhouse prints for the month of April — The Laura Print!

‘The Laura’ is the fourth print in our Greenhouse series and is based off of a submission from Laura T. in Gainesville, Florida.  This print has four custom colors that we print on our Vandercook printing press one color at a time.

This happy little arrangement is what we envision tucking into every nook and cranny of our house…Laura grew these dainty Feverfew flowers (variety ‘Vegmo Single’) from seed from @floretflower. When she’s not working as a Pastry Chef in Gainesville, Florida, she like to spend the majority of her time outside in her small backyard flower garden. She got the bud vase from Ikea and loved the proportions of a chunkier vase with smaller flowers. We do too, Laura!

“These Feverfew flowers were grown from seed (from Floret Flowers) in my small backyard flower garden, and where I spend the majority of my time outside of work as a Pastry Chef.

-Laura T., Florida @yolaura

After selecting our two April winners (double the fun, right?!!), Megan began drawing the daisy like flowers and creating this cheerful design while experimenting with ink and color to bring it to life. After the plates arrived from New York, it’s time to mix up the custom colors and create this handmade print one run at a time. This print has fours colors which means it was hand run through our Vandercook SP20 Letterpress a total of fours times for each print! One run = one color.

This print has four colors:

1. A bright cherry yellow center

2. White dainty petals

3. Happy green for stems and leafs

4. And a milky cream and slightly speckled bud vase

After that, the paper is trimmed down in our paper guillotine to it’s final 10” x 8” size. Next, we carefully wrap, package, adn mail the first copy of the 50 limited edition letterpress print to Laura! As the first edition makes it way via snail mail some 309 miles from our studio to its namesake, we feel a deep gratitude for each and everyone of you who shares your creativity with the #bppgreenhouse community.

Stay safe, stay connected, and we’ll leave you with one last thought from Oscar Wilde:

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use it, the more you have.

Use your creativity today. 🖤

-The Brown Parcel Press Team

Enjoy a few sneak peeks of “The Laura” print coming to life!