Labor of Love

Pictures Taken By Me: still learning to take pics of letterpress

Here is my first letterpress job. The one that gave me the bug.

I designed this for a friend that is getting married. I wanted it letterpressed more than she did, and I found a way. I called around finding out that it was going to be way out of her budget to have them "professionally" printed....so I started researching any place close to my area and found out that My Alma mater (USC) 3 miles from my house has a great bookarts studio, and they allow Alum to use it! You could have knocked me over! Well after a 3 hour workshop on the 10 X 15 Chandler and PriceI was let loose to work whenever I wanted.

This was in the beginning of August...Well about 5 Saturday's later, a few smashed plates (oops) , a bit of lost paper, and a lot of brain power. (boy putting a plate in a chase and setting up the press can be quite a puzzle.) Printing is the easy part!I had this beautiful design peice.(at least I think so). It was totally a labor of love, I felt like I was handing over a child when she picked up the box of work, I was sad I couldn't look at all the peices together anymore.

She and her family loved it, and that is so satisfying, to know that my hands touched every invite that went to such a big event in their lives...I am totally hooked.

Au jour le jour, (each day as it comes)

Gretchen