Fun Blogs!

Wow, I have come across some really fun blogs lately and I thought I would share!

This first one if full of printables and costumes ideas for kids. But I think a lot of these could be adapted for adults too! And I LOVE FREE printables!!!!

http://www.familye.com/

And speaking of free printables and all things to do with beautiful paper, check out Paper Crave. She even frequently blogs about letterpress. Be still my heart!

http://papercrave.com/

Going with the theme of offering printables, here is the site A Field Journal. It’s just plain gorgeous!

http://afieldjournal.blogspot.com/

Now, if I can just talk Normer into purchasing me a color printer….seems like I’m always trying to talk him into something.

Meet the Vandercook

Some of you have requested more letterpress and here it is!
I meant to bring my camera to my class but forgot so iPhone pics will have to do for now.
Here’s the Vandercook press. We have two types of presses that we are using in class. I’ve used the Vandercook the most because I’m scared of the other press. We’ll meet that one next week though.

I’m still learning so I can’t remember all the correct terminology but I’ll do my best to explain the process. First thing you have to do is set your type. There are huge drawers of metal type and you just pick out what you want. It takes forever. I’ve only set 2 words at a time so, I can’t imagine setting the type for a whole book!

After you set your type, then you lock it up in the base of the press. You can see here how I have that clear block surrounding by wood blocks. The wood blocks are called furniture. I am running an experiment in this pic and trying to print with acrylic stamps instead of type. It totally worked and I’m super pumped about it.

I’m excited because it is really expensive to buy graphic blocks to print with. They are called ornaments and are very, very expensive! This is a cheap way to print and get pretty much the same effect. Anyway, so you build your furniture up and make sure that everything is really tight.

Then you have to mix your ink. I mixed up this really fun blue and inked the press.

Then you print! The Vandercook does have a motorized roller, but you have to print by hand. You put the paper in the top, hold on to it and then roll out the press with your right arm. This is a very slow way to print. But the results are quite beautiful. Here are the tags I printed. Next week I’m going to print “To” and “From” on them in red. Then I’ll punch a hole, put in a piece of ribbon and sell it on Etsy! I’m also working on Christmas cards next week too!

Fall Craftiness

Last weekend my fun friend, Amy, came over to work on some sewing projects. We both have a ton of friends that will have babies soon, so we needed to make lots of gifts! We decided to make an Amy Butler pattern of a little butterfly pillow. Boy, we didn’t know what we were signing up for.
Here is Amy tracing her pattern on the window.

There I am sewing, I’m still happy at this point…

And here are our finished projects…those are forced smiles by the way. Our butterflies did NOT turn out well. They look great from afar..but man, they were bad, really bad.

In other news, I’m taking a letterpress class. I’ve been in the class about 3 weeks now and I got to print on a press made in 1897. It was pretty amazing. This week in class I’m working on gift tags. I’m going to print To and From on the cards and then sew little designs on them.

I’m also working on Wedding Invitations. Here is one design I’ve come up with:

And here’s the other:

Just to give you a preview the text will go on the right side of this invite but will be letter pressed! I’m excited about it!

I’ll post pics of the finished product. It might be a few weeks because it will probably take me an entire class just to set all that type!