i finally got some printing time squeezed in during this oh so busy labor day weekend. it all started a few days ago when i finally got my hands on some lettra- crane's exclusive letterpress paper- and it is just as fantastic as i've read.. the paper is 100% cotton, soft, pillowy, thick, EXPENSIVE, and worth every penny.
after cutting my paper, i got to printing, but it wasn't as quick and easy as i imagined. in my head the play by play was supposed to be: cut paper, stick on photopolymer plates, place paper on press, pull print, finish, reach for next paper, repeat last three steps until complete, clean press, sleep. that is not what happened. but of course i waited until the eleventh hour to print so i have no one to blame. after hours of fiddling with roller height, finicky grippers that kept running into my rollers, horrible registration, poor make-ready, trial and error with packing, over inking, and lack of sleep.. i finally finished my weekend of printing invitations at 4:30am. what? i know. in addition to being over tired, it probably didn't help that i had poor ventilation in my room and probably got high from hours of inhaling press wash and mineral spirits. {i'm weird and gross because i'm actually starting to like the industrial chemical smell. ill, i know.. i'm probably still high from the fumes.} so here's the first set of invitations- mickey mouse kid party- the first picture are all the mickeys drying-
after finishing those, i took a break from printing {which probably led to my demise} and didn't start my second set of invitations until two days after. i originally intended for the invitation to be a little larger with a big "60" blind debossed at the top of the invitation, but the 60 wasn't working with me so i had to reconfigure the plates to make it work. in the end, i was happy with it despite the changes and i think my friend was too {or she has a really good poker face}.
my friend loves to bake for friends and family. in addition to the notecards i decided to make these cute tags that read "for your tummy-made with love from elaine's kitchen" so she could attach a tag the next time she gives homemade goodness away. i put my husband to work and had him help me hole punch the tags when he caught it. instead of the tags reading, "made with love", i letterpressed "MABE with love.." what a dummy! and to the recycling bin they went.. so sad. i need to redo them and will post pictures in my next post. wow this was my longest post so far. delirious from lack of sleep and intoxication of fumes. lesson learned this weekend: i prefer metal type over photopolymer, do not wait until the eleventh hour, and open windows for ventilation when handling chemicals. all in all, it's been a good weekend; mended an old friendship, bears game, friend's birthday, friend's baby shower, apple picking tomorrow, and painstaking yet successful printing! good times.
