Ponyboy Press - zine maker, design lover, dedicated homebody

Portland Zine Symposium 2019

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sat, 13 Jul 2019 22:07:00 +0000

Hello Poor, lonely, loyal blog,

I am addressing the blog and not readers because I pretty much don't expect any readers considering I haven't posted in 3 years.

Time is shorter. Instagram is easier. Zines are not being made as often as they were (by me) and when they are they are made in smaller quantities.

However, the Portland Zine Symposium is next weekend and I continue to table every year. Next year will be the 20th. I may choose to stop my streak at 20. I have been to every one.

There will be lots of great zine makers and comic artists at the Zine Symposium next weekend. I will be there on Sunday. I don't have a new zine, but I have copies of the I Love Lucy zine, the Postcard Zine, and others.

I am also working on some zine related crafts ( but currently having some hiccups, so fingers crossed) and I will be back with some vintage mail related goodness).

I hope to see you there on Sunday. But, go both days, if you can. There will find new vendors each day.

Thanks for listening, dear blog.

Forever your old chum,
Krissy

Vintage Color Palette - Wisconsin Dells

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:09:00 +0000

The Vintage Color Palette today comes from a postcard from the 1930's or earlier. This big letter postcard from the Wisconsin Dells has a really inspiring color palette. I love the rosey-coral with the acid yellow and the mellow blue. And I always love a good vintage olive color. A great combination that would look awesome on pottery, packaging or in vintage home decor.

The hex color codes are from left to right: ee5b65, dccd4a, 7faecf, 92944d

Just for fun,I found a site where you can match interior paint colors to the hex color code numbers. I randomly chose the Benjamin Moore Color Collection. What the site will do is give you the closest four matches and it shows you the RGB breakdown so you can see easily how they differ.

Here are the Benjamin Moore paint colors to match this palette. Pretty great matches. Now you can find your favorite Vintage Color Palette (browse quickly on Pinterest) and start painting your walls.

Portland Zine Symposium this Weekend! 3 New Zines!

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 03:07:00 +0000

The Portland Zine Symposium is this weekend and I will be there at the Ambridge Event Center on Saturday. This year the Sunday event will be only workshops and will take place at the IPRC. So, if you want to buy zines you have to go on Saturday. Doors open at 11 a.m. and it's free.

I have three small zines that are new and have some more copies of last years I Love Lucy fanzine that I sold out of last year. I will also have a small collection of vintage postcards with vintage stamps you can use to mail them. Hope to see you there!

Vintage Color Palette - Gems U.S.Postage 1974

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 20:39:00 +0000

I really don't need more things to collect. Believe me. However, I have recently gotten into stamps much more than I have been. Last weekend I went to a vintage paper show and mostly brought home a lot of vintage postage. I absolutely fell in love with these unique gem postage stamps from 1974. I adore the color choices they made and that they are designed to be used on the point like shown below:

Dreamy, right? So, back to the colors. Such a great choice here. The purpley grey, the seafoam blue/green and the unique pink and purple used all create a really interesting palette. If you like the combo, too, here are the hex color codes so you can use them in a project. Hex color codes are from left to right: a09294, bfe1db, f36a78, a16fad

Read more here if you're not sure how you can use the Vintage Color Palettes? Follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Vintage Color Palette - 50 Jahre Postauto in Österreich

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 19:58:00 +0000

This pretty vintage color palette comes from a 1957 postcard celebrating 50 years of the automobile in Austria. I love this illustration and the choice of colors used. I did some research and found other postcards and stamps commemorating the same thing. These illustrations are so great. See below for images I found on the internet. I believe that artist for the postcards is Atelier Harnisch.

The hex color codes for this VCP are from left to right: 9bd6d7, e47ec3, 678a9f, 89873f. Not sure what you can do with these? Use your VCP of choice to design web colors, logos, patterns, room colors, any design or color work. Want to get more ideas. See this post on Using Vintage Color Palettes. Find more by clicking on the tag or on see our Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Found here

Vintage Color Palette - Pride of Madeira

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 23:08:00 +0000

It's the first day of spring today and it's pretty grey and rainy here in Portland. This Vintage Color Palette, however, is spring-like enough for me. I love the muted pastel colors. The title of this postcard is Pride of Madeira and Peach Blossom. It was printed in London and it's over 100 years old.

Madeira is a town in Portugal and the periwinkle-colored flowers on the cliffside here are called Pride of Madeira. What a lovely scene. I'd love to be there,

The hex color codes for these colors are from top to bottom: d85a77, f5b6bb, 7d9abd, adab8a

You can use these vintage color palettes to help design rooms, fabric, patterns, websites, backgrounds...all kinds of things. Follow us on Pinterest or Facebook to see all new Palettes posted.

Vintage Color Palette - Il Tinello Ristorante

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 23:13:00 +0000

Here is a springtime Vintage Color Palette inspired from a postcard for a restaurant in Rome, Italy. This postcard looks to be from around the late 1950's. It looks like a lovely place. I'll take a Sgroppino.

The hex color codes are from left to right: fa4994, 1aa7d9, fffcb9, fca794.

Not sure what to do with Vintage Color Palettes? You can use them to design the colors for your website, your living room or your next project. You can also use them to color patterns for online website design. Read more on this post about using Vintage Color Palettes from Ponyboy Press.

See all Vintage Color Palettes here or follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Vintage Color Palette - House of Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:40:00 +0000

This vintage color palette is super interesting. The postcard was made for the Century of Progress Expo which was held at the 1933 Worlds Fair in Chicago. This was The House of Tomorrow.

This house was what they envisioned for the future. The inside looks pretty mid-century and not that surprising from what I saw online. The garage has a pace for a small airplane.

The color palette must have been what they also envisioned for the future. It evokes luxury, ease and modern technology. I really like this combo. I think it would be great in a wallpaper pattern.

The hex color codes are left to right: f78b6a, f5a490, f9e3b3, 8a9ebe

Here is an photo of the house from The Worlds Fair.

Built for Chicago’s 1933-34 Century of Progress International Exposition, the House of Tomorrow showcased modern home convenience and creative practical new building materials and techniques to nearly 50 million visitors.

This three-story, 12-sided house of the future held was made of steel and walls of glass with modern technologies like air-conditioning, a dishwasher, electric “eyes” to open the kitchen and garage doors and a built-in airplane hangar.

Vintage Color Palette - La Cascade du Chateau

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 22:37:00 +0000

I love how the color choices of this postcard from the early 1900's make this waterfall at the castle look like it's on another world. Such an interesting combination of colors that you wouldn't think go together, but they work so well to convey the magical feeling a person must experience there.

The hex color codes are from left to right: 4281c5, fdb6d6, b05741, d0a7ac

See all Vintage Color Palettes here or follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Vintage Color Palette - The Scaup Duck

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:36:00 +0000

Here is a lovely pastel Vintage Color Palette from a Wildlife Series vintage postcard from 1939. I love these muted and unique versions of these colors. The hex color numbers from left to right are: f7f0ad, 9dd1c6, d9e4b6, d2b59d

See all Vintage Color Palettes here or follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Mail Art with the Portland Correspondence Club

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 23:08:00 +0000

Last March I joined the first year of the Portland Correspondence Club (PDXCC). It was started in January of 2015 by two mail artists and it's held at the IPRC in Portland.

I met Niko, one of the founders, at the Portland Zine Symposium the summer before and he somehow knew I would love mail art, even though I had never done it before and I didn't think I was that into it. Niko invited me to join and finally after missing the first three months I went to a meeting and found my people and a fun new hobby.

Mail Art people are into mail, envelopes, office supplies, stationary, stamps, stamp pads, typewriters, history, snail mail, writing letters. They're the kind of people who squeal with excitement over a box filled with vintage penny stamps and who hoot and applaud a mailman when he's introduced to the group.

Mail Art people understand when I swoon over a certain washi tape or a get a little obsessed with fountain pens. They get me.

A banner I made and sent to each member for a Meet Make Mail themed project

The club meets once a month and each meeting usually includes a few to several vintage typewriters you can use, often there is a skill share or project, but mainly we visit and exchange our faux postage made for that month. Each member gets a passport book and people who make stamps each month put them in your book and often cancel them. It's damn official and fun to see what everyone makes.

Every month members can choose to be a part of the monthly mail art exchange based on a theme.
Here are a few I did in 2015

This was my first project. The theme was food and this was a study on the different menus on The Titanic. It folds and I sealed the sides before sending.

Postcards of a Tea House with images from old photos. The other side has a fake stamp and Tea themed address. This theme was collage

October's Mail Art Project

Here are a few of the mail art projects that I received from other members.

Everyone likes getting fun things in the mail. If this interests you, there might be a correspondence club near you. I know there is one in San Francisco and Olympia, Wa.

Vintage Color Palette - New Years Day

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 21:21:00 +0000

Here is a pretty New Years Postcard from the early 1900's. It is written on, but never sent, so no postmark.
The hex color codes are from top to bottom: a21722, db8a54, f8ed7c, 97b67e

It was sent from Bessie to Mr and Mrs H.A. Hunt. The wishes sent I would like to also send to you. It reads:

Please accept this little token as a New Year Greeting. I hope the new year has riches in store for you.

Vintage Christmas Gift Tags Free Printable

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 23:57:00 +0000

I collect vintage Christmas tags. I just love the artwork on them. Not all are good for reproducing. Any ones with glitter or foil don't scan well and some are way to difficult to cut out, but there are still quite a few that can be copied and used without ruining the original.

So, as a Christmas gift for you I created a new Vintage Christmas Tag Printable. It's free. Just go to the Vintage Christmas Tags image on Flickr and choose download, and then choose original size.

Print out on your printer and cut and use. Hope you love them as much as I do.

Also, in case you missed the Vintage Christmas Tags printable I made a few years ago, follow that link and do the same thing to print out that one (seen below)

Looks like I did a couple of repeats. Note to self: Look at this post before doing this next time.

Vintage Color Palettes - Best Thanksgiving Wishes

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 20:13:00 +0000

I love this Thanksgiving Postcard. The colors of this postcard that is probably about 100 years old are just as vibrant as this image shows. There is nothing written on the back. I am guessing the person who bought it couldn't bare to part with it and the lovely rich colors. I would hang on to it to - and will.

I love an autumn color palette, so this postcard is a favorite for that reason, too. This autumn color palette is deeper and a little different than what you would see today.

The hex colors are from top to bottom: af3d08, cca139, 4b764f, 386a73

Not sure what to do with Vintage Color Palettes? You can use them to design the colors for your website, your living room or your next project. You can also use them to color patterns for online website design. Read more on this post about using Vintage Color Palettes from Ponyboy Press.

See all Vintage Color Palettes here or follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

This Vintage Owl Book Plate - A Gift for You - Limited Time

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 19:49:00 +0000

It is a week till my birthday and for a birthday treat I wanted to give you a present.

I've had this wise old owl vintage book plate for a few years and I decided to share it with everyone. This book plate is from about 1925, I would guess.

I created a hi-res pdf so you can download it, print it up (on adhesive paper would be best) and then place in the books you treasure so much.

Did you know Ex Libris means "from the library of" and that book plates bearing that phrase have been used for hundreds of years?

In honor of me making it to another year, you can get this bookplate download for almost free. I say almost, because Etsy wouldn't allow me to mark it completely down. So you can get the download for 50 cents through November 6th. Use the code owlbday.

I hope you enjoy them. Print up a bunch and give them as a gift or put them in those books you always end up loaning out. Such a clever little owl.

Vintage Color Palettes - Birthday Greetings

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 19:15:00 +0000

This lovely Vintage Color Palette comes from a birthday greeting postcard that was sent to a young boy from his "Gramma". Most likely it was sent in the 1920's.

The colors in this palette are some of my favorites. I love the rich, muted colors. From left to right, the hex codes are: 978778, 606887, b16241, 758060

Vintage Color Palettes - Witch Tree & Ramona's Wedding Place

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:04:00 +0000

Two Vintage Color Palettes today because sometimes it's too hard to chose just one. I went through some postcards I hadn't been through in a long time yesterday and found these beauties.

This one above is a gorgeous "Phostint" postcard from the early 1900's. It is of the Witch Tree in Monterey. A lone cypress that was full of history and mystery. From what I can tell it was destroyed in a storm in 1964. At one time it was considered the most photographed tree in the U.S.

I love the unique colors of the palette for this postcard. Rich antique versions of modern colors. I especially love that dark cypress gray/green that is almost black. That's a color you don't see much these days.

The hex color codes are from top to bottom: 7e5154, fcbbbb, 6eadb5, 595f5e.

The next color palette is from a linen postcard from around 1940. The postcard is of Ramona's Marriage Place in San Diego. It's one of the oldest surviving examples of Spanish architecture and still stands.

The color palette of this postcard is filled with sunlight and summer shadows - a pretty vintage southwest color combo.

Hex color codes are from left to right: fad5a8, e47e62, 9183ab, a6b96b

See all Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Vintage Color Palette - Yamato Bros. Co.

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sat, 25 Jul 2015 20:37:00 +0000

This is a beautiful vintage color combination from this unique piece of advertising scrap. The company who distributed these was Yamato Bros. Co, in Kobe, Japan. I am guessing this is from around 1910. Can you read Japanese? I'd love to know what it says.

The hex codes for these colors is from top to bottom: f8b4c3, a7b15f, ce3041, 296e8f.

All the Zines you Could Want in One Room - The Portland Zine Symposium 2015!

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 23:49:00 +0000

It's that time again! The Portland Zine Symposium is this weekend and I will be there. Need convincing:

Top Ten Reasons you should go to the Portland Zine Symposium:

It's free
It's air-conditioned
There are free workshops where you can learn stuff
There are thousands of zines there for you to browse
Because you've never known for sure what this whole zine thing is about
There are lots of comic artists there, too.
You will have some great conversations
You'll probably end up with some free stuff
You'll get to see me
You can see my new zine!

Hope to see you there! I will be near the far front door.

Vintage Color Palette - Souvenir from Moro, OR

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 20:40:00 +0000

This vintage color palette is from a postcard that was sent from a small town in Central Northern Oregon in 1909. Written on the back it just says "Well, did you get this?" It was sent to The Dalles, OR.

It's a lovely and unique postcard with an interesting combination of hues. The hex color are from top to bottom: f6bbba, f4454f, fdde53, 759552.

If you like a vintage palette you can use it to make patterns and backgrounds or use it as the basis for decorating or web design. Just for fun I quickly made a background on Colourlovers from a pattern someone else designed. Here it is as a background for this image:

Follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

How I Got Into Zines

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:25:00 +0000

I ran across a zine today called "Entry Point" that was put out in 2009. It was a comp zine where different zine makers wrote about how they got into zines. It was neat to see the page I contributed again and I thought I would share it, now, 6 years later! Wow, can't believe it's been that long.

Vintage Color Palette - Charleston Garden & The Sherman Chicago

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 00:43:00 +0000

These two Vintage Color Palettes are perfect for showing off the unique colors used in vintage mid-century advertising illustrations. This is total Mad Men territory.

The above VCP is from a postcard for Altman's Charleston Garden on 5th Avenue in New York. This was the restaurant in B Altman & Co - a department store at the time. It seems to still be there as an event space. This restaurant was on the fifth floor of the building! Oh, I wish I could have seen it.

This postcard was sent in August 1956 to Laguna Beach, CA from Flushing, NY.

The hex codes for this palette are from left to right: 287e68, 2e7a9a, 994c59, 70b4a4.

This illustrated advertising color palette is from a postcard for The Sherman Hotel in Chicago.

This color palette is so sophisticated mid-century. I love the colors and could totally imagine a living room or office lobby done in these colors. This postcard has no message on the back.

The hex colors for this palette are from top to bottom: d07828, aa4b0d, 76949a, d8cea8.

Not sure what these Vintage Color Palettes are about? You can use these color palettes for inspiration in decorating, painting and design. The hex colors are provided so you can use these color palettes in web and graphic designs. Follow this link to learn more about using Vintage Color Palettes.

Follow Vintage Color Palettes on Pinterest.

Between Holidays - French Toast Muffins with Clementine Maple Icing

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 01:41:00 +0000

I always really like the week between Christmas and New Years. Don't you? I love the way things slow down and everyone's okay with it. The Christmas lights and decorations are still up, but the grand hoo-ha is mostly over. A new fresh year is on the horizon with lots of plans, but not quite here yet, so just relax and wait till it arrives. It's a good week.

On Christmas day I made a late brunch for the mister and me. At the last minute I had a brainstorm to make a new dish that I kind of made up right then. It turned out great and I wanted to share it with you.

I'm calling them French Toast Muffins, but they might be more of a Bread Pudding. I don't really know. Basically I took some of the delicious gluten-free Challah Rolls that I got at the local Gluten Free Bakery here in town called New Cascadia Traditional. In case you don't know, Challah bread is a traditional Jewish egg bread. I've always wanted to make great french toast with it, but I didn't think I could because they only had the rolls. But, this recipe made it work.

So, back to the recipe. I took the rolls and broke them up in pieces and put them in the muffin tin (previously sprayed with Coconut Oil). Then I beat a few eggs with some half and half, vanilla, cinnamon and a little maple sugar (the granulated kind, I got mine here). I poured this mixture over the bread, sometimes smashing the bread a bit so it absorbed it all. I then baked for about 30 minutes on 350°. See, how scientific I am? It's all abouts and kind-ofs. But, what do you expect for a last minute made-up recipe.

Then - and this is the best part - I juiced 2 clementines and mixed the juice up with a lot of powdered sugar and a smidge and a splash of more granulated maple sugar until it looked like I wanted it to look. Once the muffins were cooled down a bit I drizzled it all over. You could also skip the icing and just put syrup over them.

These were delicious hot or cold, They were great that day and just as good two days later. The icing even seemed to get a stronger taste of clementine as it got older and thickened. Having only juice and sugar in them, I just left the icing out. These were super easy and there are so many variations you could do. They'd be great for a potluck or picnic breakfast.

I hope you enjoy this quiet week and have a great New Year. Thanks for keeping up with me.

Vintage Color Palettes - Xmas Greetings and A Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 22:07:00 +0000

Here are two Vintage Color Palettes that also wish you a Happy Christmas Season and a very Merry New Year. These are unique colors for Winter Holiday postcards, don't you think? I really like the combo of both of these postcards. Both are from the 1910's.

The Xmas postcard's hex number colors are from right to left: d1db67, b1d1c6, fb878a, 658a28.

The New Years hex number colors are from top to bottom: b7b156, 9d6d48, ebcec6, b4a6ad.

Not sure what you can do with these color palettes? See this blog post about Using Vintage Color Palettes by Ponyboy Press.

Thank you for following Ponyboy Press over the years. I hope you all have wonderful holidays and a terrific 2015!

20 Years of Ponyboy Press - Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (PonyBoy Press) — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 21:05:00 +0000

It's been 20 years this year that I started my first zine. It was the beginning of 1994. I'd been submitting poems and prose to small journals I found listed in Poets and Writers. Some poems of mine had been accepted by a journal dedicated to Richard Brautigan and the editor and I became friends which resulted in long phone conversations late at night. He told me about zines and Factsheet Five. I picked a copy up of Factsheet Five and read all the descriptions of all kinds of zines that could be made. I'd never seen a zine like they had listed under perzines, but I began making one right away.

Despite having been a writer and a crafter most my life and despite having graduated form SFSU with a degree in Creative Writing a few years earlier, it still had never occurred to me to make my own little book.

I suddenly knew that a zine would be a perfect place for all the little blurbs of writing I was prone to create and all the vintage photos and ephemera I'd been collecting for no particular reason. I remember that in one of my first zines I had pasted in (no scanner access yet) a little business size promotion I had picked up when still living in Ventura 10 years earlier. I'd kept it all those years. It was an amusing ad for Desi Arnaz Jr. giving a talk in town for something like Scientology. Perfect.

My first zine was called Frank, Jasper and Me and was published in Feburary 1994. I think I made 25 copies and gave it out to friends. While I was getting it ready to print I thought it'd be fun to have a name for my "press". One night at a cheezy blues club in Mountain View Marilyn Wann and I (who was also starting her zine FAT!SO?) thought up press names as she drew little logos for me. The stick pony logo I use for Ponyboy Press still is the one she drew on a flier for me that night.

I made seven issues of Frank, Jasper and Me, which was just a personal zine with stories from real and imaginary friends and lots of vintage clip art from old magazines and my own collection. Even though I hadn't seen other personal zines, my zine looks surprisingly like a lot of other zines from that time that I later saw. Frank, Jasper and Me always had a cover image of two guys and a girl. I really still love all the covers of FJ&Me. They aren't all accessible to me right now, but next time I come across them I will post. Here is the cover of last issue. I probably made about 75 copies of this one.

I just came across these the other day. These are reviews that were listed in Factsheet Five for the first couple of issues.

Once I moved to Portland in the summer of 2000, my zine making really ramped up. I joined the IPRC and got involved in helping to organize the Portland Zine Symposium. I started the zines Figure 8, Imaginary Life, Paper Crush and Current Resident by 2002.

These are both issue one of the zines Paper Crush and Imaginary Life - out of print. From 2002.

The first issue of Figure 8 from 2001

I started making crafts (actually I had always made them, I just started making them to sell) and sold at the local crafts shows like the Handmade Bazaar for many years.

Handmade Bazaar around 2003

A lunchbox filled with magnets from around 2007

I estimate that I've probably printed about 1000 copies of the most popular Figure 8 zine. You can find some of the Figure 8 zines in libraries all over the world. I've had zines in art exhibits, mobile libraries and referenced in books. If you're interested in the Ponyboy Press zineography, you can find it here on the ZineWiki site.

If you think this is winding up to a good-bye, it's not. I will continue making zines and crafts, because that's how I am. However, the time between each is longer and the distribution of them will be smaller.

The Giveaway:

So, what it comes down to is this: I have lots of one of a kind crafts laying around that I am ready to pass on to someone. I don't really have the time to list them on Etsy and it seems weird to just have one item like that anyway, so I decided the anniversary of Ponyboy Press is a good time to have a giveaway.

2 winners picked at random will get a pile of Ponyboy Press Projects and maybe some zines. Some may be from ten years ago. Some may be things I made and never even offered for sale. And who knows what else I will throw in! You may get gocco printed cards, patches, pillowcases, little booklets, buttons, magnets, pocket mirrors, zines.....you never know!

To enter, please leave a comment here or on the Facebook post that mentions the giveway. Sorry, International people, but I can only ship these goods to people in the U.S. The last date to enter is September 20th.

Hope you enjoy this giveaway. Thanks for all your support over the years!