Letterpress Chairs

Dusting off the L Letterpress today. I've wanted to try embossing with it for a while. With traditional dry embossing, you can see the image on both the front and back sides of the paper. Using a letterpress plate with letterpress paper, however, means that the debossed image is only visible on the front. The back is still as smooth as ever and could easily be written on.

Aside: I'm sure I'm butchering the lingo on this. When I see what I would call embossing, I see people use the terms blind embossing, dry embossing, impressing, depressed image, etc. If any of you know the correct use of these terms, please share! I'd love to know.


Part of the charm of letterpress is its clean and simple style. When I hold letterpress paper in my hand, I immediately feel the difference. Even a blank sheet is elegant. There's no need to fuss it up with patterned papers and embellishments.


I made today's cards to play along with the latest Moxie Fab World challenge: Three Cheers for Chairs. As always, it's fun to stretch myself and try something new. Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies (all from Lifestyle Crafts).
Printing Plate: chair from Damask -> Everyday collection.
Ink: yellow.
Paper: A2 flat white.
Tools: Letterpress starter kit, Big Shot.

Let's Make A Deal (pretty please)

Do you understand terms like

• press-ready PDF with fonts embedded?


• CMYK?


• lineart, bitmap, linescreen, halftone?

If so, will you please keep reading? I came across a reputable company that makes custom letterpress plates. The thing is, the company asks for either a press-ready PDF file (with fonts embedded) or an EPS file, but I don't think my free version of Adobe whatchamacallit makes high-res .pdf files and I don't have a clue what an eps file is.

I have a good idea of what I'd like to make, but I don't know how to prepare it. If this sounds like something you could help me with (please, oh please!), may I babysit for you, or treat you to dinner, or make a stack of custom letterpress cards for you, or (insert grand idea here)? Here's the info from the printer: here and here. My local print shop charges $0.30 per minute to use their software, so that's an option for me, but if you already own appropriate software and can navigate me through the process, I'd rather a friend pocket my money than Kinkos.

*crossing my fingers*

Meet Letterpress

Dear blog buddies,

Meet Letterpress. Though Letterpress and I have only known each other for a few short days, I can tell we're going to be best friends. So cozy up and let's get on with the introductions!









Don't you love that clean and simple style - classy and timeless, I tell ya'! I tried and tried to get a good picture of the debossed image (the dent the paper), but my meager photography skills just wouldn't allow it.

Since this was my first time using the Letterpress system, my focus was on getting through the lingo in the instruction book (and I thought I knew papercrafting lingo - ha!), experimenting with how much ink to use, and seeing what colors the ink turn when they're dry. I ordered the inks based off color swatches viewed only on my computer monitor. It's never the same in real life. Check out their red and my red card above - quite a difference, eh?

I'm thrilled with how my first projects turned out. Now I just need to make time to play some more. :)

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. This home kit is relatively new and, though I'm a roll-up-my-sleeves-and-dig-in kind of girl, it would have been nice to have someone teach me the tips and tricks. As of now, there aren't many truly helpful videos on YouTube, so if I can help you in any way, I'll do my best. :) Take care and enjoy your day!

Supplies: All supplies from Lifestyle Crafts using white A2 flat paper.
Hello card: Everyday Printing Plate Set 5, yellow ink.
Happy Birthday card: Everyday Printing Plate Set 5, Starter Kit Printing Plate Set, bright green ink.
Blank notecard with blue decorative element: Starter Kit Printing Pate Set, navy ink.
Thank You card: Everyday Printing Plate Set 5, Wedding Printing Plate Set 1, red ink.