Letterpress Birthday Banner and Gift Tags

Now that I’m finished with my letterpress class, I’ve finally had a little time to add all of the finishing touches. Letterpress is not easy folks, and I have sweated and slaved over these prints but now I’m so happy to share with you the results! I will eventually put these items up in my Etsy shop, but if you would like to purchase anything, just email me- (staceeadams at gmail dot com)

Letterpress Happy Birthday Banner ($25)- Printed on a Vandercook Press then sewn on to Bias Tape.

Kraft Gift Tag (4 for $2)- Printed on a Vandercook Press

Present Tag ($1 each)- This little tag would be absolutely adorable to attach to your next wrapped present! Printed on a Chandler and Price Press.

Travel Tags (Set of 3 for $2)

My favorite is the Eiffel Tower!

Baby Gift Tags (2 for $1)

My whole Tag collection…

I LOVE letterpress!!!

Halloween Fun!

Normer and I had quite the halloween this past weekend! I spent about 2 days making our costumes. I have really learned a lot about costume making over the years so it was fun to put all of that to use this year for myself!

Here we are!

I never got a full shot of the Eiffel Tower but it goes all the way to the floor! And Normer is Big Ben if you didn’t get it. Last minute I decided to make a little beret for myself to wear. I asked Normer if he had any old dress pants that he didn’t wear anymore. He scronged up a pair for me and I cut them up to make the hat. It needed to be a little more poofy on top to look like an actual beret but I thought it did the job pretty well. It was super easy to make so that has inspired me to make more hats for myself!

Oh and sorry for the red eye in the pic. I’m too tired to edit it. We might be getting a new camera for Christmas! Yah!

Happy November everyone!

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!

Amsterdam Houses

I carved these stamps a few weeks ago after being really inspired from our trip to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Stationary

Sewn Envelopes

I think these are my favorite stamps so far!

Owl Themed Baby Shower

A few weeks ago, our small group hosted a baby shower for our small group leader, Lindsay. She is a having a baby boy in September and we decided to go with an owl theme! I found some adorable invitations on Etsy and based the whole shower on them.

I made an owl stamp (based on the invitation) that we used to decorate tree branches.

The guests were able to write a wish to the new mom and baby!

Gorgeous flowers!!

Yummy cupcakes!

Nametags…

Here’s the shirt I made for the new addition to the Speicher Family!

I made a shirt!!

I finally finished sewing a button up shirt! I took a sewing class this month and we just had our last class this week. I’m quite proud of it!

Embroidery

These images really inspire me to start learning how to embroider! I have a million other things to work on right now but it is so tempting to try it out. Just look at how adorable these are!!!!

 

Embroidery by Jessie Senese Photo by Danielle Thompson

 Embroidery and Photo by Mollie Johanson- Wild Olive

If only there were more hours in my day!!!

Recent Stamps

It’s been a busier than normal summer week. I’ve been helping out with VBS at Trinity all week so I haven’t had as much time as I usually do. I did find some time to carve a few stamps though. This flower was inspired by the Amy Butler fabric I used to make a skirt last week.

I also made this little guy for something special happening soon….

Here’s to summer with time to carve stamps!

Jackie’s Shower

A few weeks ago I was able to host a Lingerie Shower for my great friend Jackie. Her wedding colors are black and white so I was really excited to stay within her theme. I spent weeks looking for a perfect invitation and I could never find what I wanted.
Finally, I decided to take matters in my own hands and just make them myself!! I went to Sam Flax and found some paper that matched my theme. This was my first attempt at the invitation. I liked it but it didn’t have the lingerie feel that I wanted it to.
So I carved a stamp of a piece of lingerie and then made this:

I used my sewing machine to sew all the pieces together and it turned out perfect! This is the invite that I sent out to everyone.
I also decided to make decorations for the party. Jackie’s invitations for her wedding have a damask pattern on them so I decided I needed a stamp to match them. I traced the pattern from her invite and then transferred it to the stamp carving block. This was quite a difficult stamp to carve. I actually ended up carving it twice because I wasn’t happy with the first one. It took me an hour to carve the second one but it was worth it! Then I made some printed paper with my new stamp.

I also made some more cut-outs of the lingerie.

I used Amy Butler’s Paper Iris pattern to cut out flowers from my printed paper. Once I had everything cut out, I used my sewing machine to stitch everything together.

I hung all of the decorations over the counter where all the food was. I was so busy getting things ready for the shower that I forgot to take a picture of everything set-up!! Trust me, it was super cute! It was a great shower and everyone really enjoyed themselves! Here’s a pic of some of the girls who attended. Jackie is the one in the blue dress!