Christmas Cards

Last year for Christmas, BLady and Megs gave me the Epic Six Letterpress. It took a bit to get it back to WI, but it was here in time to do my Christmas cards. You'll see in the Ornament Swap post that Christmas Trees were my theme this year.

Thank you, to Boxcar Press for this review of the tool and tips on using it. There were a few other reviews and tip sheets that I reviewed before getting ink all over my fingers, so thanks to everyone who has shared information.

I got the Speedball Brayer from Hobby Lobby instead of attempting to use the supplied one, which did look dinky. As you can tell from the picture, though, I didn't follow all of the tips. I used the foam guides, but I took my scissors and snipped them in half after they were placed. 

The one thing that did take some time to learn was how to get the correct amount of ink. That E in the picture came from one of my first cards, when I had way,way,way too much ink. It took almost a week for some of those cards to dry! But, I got better and the last cards were pretty good.

I used a couple of sets of the Everyday letterpress letters. The design that incorporated two different styles of letters came about because, well, Tannenbaum has THREE Ns! Each set only came with one of each letter. So, instead of ending up with three sets of the same letters, I decided to invest in a script set. But, I am pleased with the design overall. 

The one lesson I learned the hard way was this - make sure you have the proper cleaners before you begin. I had to drive to Ace Hardware in a snowstorm to get mineral spirits to clean off everything.

Oh, in case you're wondering - the cards came from Paper Source as did the spruce envelopes. And, USPS also obliged by having evergreen stamps this year.

Photo Collage

Back in December, I visited the Etsy Dallas Jingle Bash and purchased some awesome letterpress letter cards spelling out our last name.  I didn't really think about where I was going to put them, so when I got them home, I tried holding them up around our apartment.  They never seemed quite right anywhere, but ended up on the wall in the corner behind our TV. They were looking really strange to me back there and it finally got on my nerves enough that I decided to a photo collage around the letters.


I'm all about cheapness, and thrifting at Goodwill led me to some fantastic frames for only a buck or two.





After clorox-wiping all of the Goodwill frames, I started arranging the frames around the paper templates I'd made of the letters already on the wall (pardon the puppy, she got curious).





Then, I made paper templates of all the frames and hung those on the wall with the letters to make sure it looked okay from across the room.





I don't have any pictures of the actual painting, but I hauled all the goodwill frames out to the top deck of the parking garage at my apartment complex (oh, how I wish I had a house with a yard) and spray painted them all black while my neighbors looked at me like I was crazy.





Ta-Da!