restless

learning we’re totally biased

Our last Letterpress Class was Sunday. It was sad for a number of reasons.

The most sad for me was that we were away from our beloved Vandercook SP because another lady needed to use it. We had to use the Chandler and Price. It’s a very different press from what we’ve been using. 

This is what we were up against. (I’m doing a little pre-printing cleaning.) 

We inked up the press— you put little dabs around the plate (the metal round thing up top) and then run the press with the foot pedal. 

Inked and ready to go! (We actually didn’t end up using this beautiful green. Total bummer. But Valerie did, so that’s cool.) 

We didn’t initially use the green because I wanted to print the puppy paw in navy. And the other press was already inked in navy so we jumped on it.

To use the sticky back plate on the C&P machine, you place the image on the paper approximately where you want it…

…then you tape it down sticky-side up with tiny pieces of masking tape (so you can easily remove them later). 

Next, you can put the base (the grid you can see below) in the press. It goes vertically in this machine instead of laying flat like the Vandercook. Weird. And heavy. And awkward.

Then run the press with the card that has your sticky image on it and boom! It’s stuck to the press! Now you take the masking tape out and get ready to print. 

If only it was that easy. Measuring, registering. Remeasuring, reregistering. 

My card fell out mid-print and had a mis-fire. 

But we eventually got it right!

Now your puppy can send a thank you to his puppy sitter, favorite vet tech, etc. (Let us know if you want one/ a set? Blog friends get a special discount!) 

The cards turned out great, but I missed the Vandercook.

I think I can speak for myself and Laura when I say this: 

The Vandercook will be our first love and we really don’t want to leave it ever again. The C&P looks cool in a shop, but whatever. It’s hard to use, hard to register, hard to set, and it’s cumbersome. Oh, and I got my elbow stuck in the spokes and my foot stuck under the petal. I’m too accident-prone to use this machine for more than 3 hours. It’s just a matter of time. 

Vandercook, we’ll be back soon!