Letterpress Calendar process

Photo by Miranda Anderson

Just thought I'd share some links to posts that some of our 2012 Calendar printers wrote on their experiences designing and printing their pages!

June printer, Miranda Anderson, shows step-by-step photos of her printing process.

Molly Moran, half of the February duo, posts on her blog about her and Laura McLean's page.

Alyson Hurt (January) walks readers through her process.

For photos and purchase information, see our 2012 Letterpress Calendar page.

2012 Calendar Assembly Party!

Last week, a group of calendar printers got together to assemble the final product! Some photos:

All the finished pages, lined up in order:

Three of our official hole-punchers (Erin, Leslie, Kathryn):

Our two official collate-ers (Laura and Lauren):

A group shot of everyone hard at work:

The final product, a set of 118 beautiful calendars:

We should have information on how to purchase the calendars very soon!

2012 Calendar Sneak Peek #3!

Got some new photos some newly finished pages of our 2012 Letterpress Calendar, courtesy of June printer, Miranda Anderson:

The theme for today's Sneak Peek is the letter J....

January (by Alyson Hurt):

June (by Miranda Anderson):

July (by Alison Whitty):

And a couple shots of the completed front and back covers (Kathryn Hoeppel, Sarah Hanks):

So exciting! We've now got 6 completed pages (not counting those that were printing over the weekend). Check out the other Sneak Peeks here.

Letterpress Happy Hour - July 25th, 2011

After the last busy, busy happy hour with all the presses pressing, we had a much quieter happy hour last night. Kendra, Miranda, and Molly were all there to set type.
Miranda was there with Baby Eliot setting type for his birth announcement. Being the smarty pants that she is, she had already printed most of the announcement design before Eliot arrived. Now she's just working to fill in all his birth date details. He was a welcome addition to the happy hour crew!
Molly was a student in a recent Using Photopolymer on the Letterpress workshop so she got a crash course in typesetting last night. She was a natural!
Kendra was hard at work setting type to print a short poem. Kendra is a new member at Pyramid and she's been taking screenprinting lessons with Becca. We were happy to steal her for an evening in the letterpress studio.

All these photos were taken with the Hipstamatic app for iPhone during our Hipstamatic vs. Instagram discussion. We like mixing new technology with our old school hobbies at letterpress happy hour!

Happy Hour 4.20.11

Fun Happy Hour tonight!

Miranda set some type for an annoucement of her husband's graduation from law school:

Beck set type for a postcard:

And Kathryn printed some business cards on paper that she'd watercolored:

The paper:

The prints:

And the trimmed cards:

Didn't they turn out great?!

Birthday Card Fundraiser Preview #3

(Note: You may want to see Preview #1 and Preview #2 for background info on this project!)

I love that each time I go to Pyramid, I see new finished birthday cards in the studio! Here are some photos of the newly finished cards:

Bridget's added a yellow exclaimation point to go with her yellow envelopes:

Here's Melanie's card (unfortunately my camera had a hard time picking up the pretty blind impression pattern):

Bea's colors actually look really similar to Melanie's! Too bad they didn't coordinate to save on clean up!

Miranda's card fun word search card:

And the newest one, Tess' Marie Antoinette inspired card:

I really can't wait to package all of these together!

Happy Hour 3.16.11

Hello there friends!

Better late than never.... I've finally gotten around to posting pics from last week's Happy Hour! The card above was printed by Miranda on the tabletop. Here's really cute action shot:

The yellow "hi" was printed using some wood type here at Pyramid. The "hello there friend" was a bit of type that Miranda added to a photopolymer order that was going to Boxcar.

Steve and Morgan came to work on some typesetting projects. Can't wait to see what each of them cooks up!

And lastly, Melanie and I spent most of time prepping for printing.... Mel worked on an inventory of all the various papers she has and I worked on cutting my 22" x 30" paper into 4.5" x 6.25" sheets. We're both preparing for our upcoming Grey Moggie/Orange Tabby joint ventures!

Tabletop class

I happened to be at the studio while Melanie's Introduction to Tabletop class was going on. It's  always great to see a group of new and enthusiastic letterpressers! Here's a few shots of the class:

Introductions:

 

Going through the basics of setting type (with volunteers Miranda and Maggie to help):

Students plugging away at setting type:

Locking up in the chase:

 

Maggie helping some students with their lock up:

The first student, getting ready to print:

Unfortunately, I didn't get any shots of the prints that were made. I hope to see everyone in the studio again soon!

In the studio...

Here's a great "Thank You" card by newly certified printer, Miranda Anderson as a part of her sister's wedding suite:

I was prepared to go over the ins and outs of printing two colors on the Vandercooks, but amazingly the registration was perfect on the first try! See more photos of the process at Miranda's blog!

Happy Hour 2.16.11

We had lot going on yesterday at Happy Hour!

Steve and Miranda working with type side-by-side (it was Miranda's first Happy Hour!):

Tess came by to practice setting up on the C&P. Here she is locking up her chase:

And here's her test print (without ink):

And lastly, here's Sarah (another first time Happy Hour-er) contemplating some spacing issues:

Erin also stopped by to help me cut some paper, but I'd already put the camera away!

Hope to see you in 2 weeks!