Ivy Blessing Clark
The first 3 months of Ivy love.

After my grand niece Ivy was born the baby pictures started to show up on my phone.
Right away I knew I wanted to make something special using the images and my rudimentary skills of letterpress and bindery.

   Ivy's first book.

 The size of the book was determined by how small I could edit the pictures and still hold their visual detail. I arraigned the images in an order that felt to me like a story without words and then drew up a pagination layout. .

                                           Making the inside pages

After printing the pictures the pages were cut, folded, collated, trimmed for the inside pages of the book. I stitched the pages together leaving a small loop at the top for an ornament hook so that the book could be hung onto a Christmas tree.

With the inside pages ready I could determine the size of the covers & how I was going to decorate them.

I was running out of time to finish the project so I went with simplicity. I stamped Ivy's name on the spine using 12 point Piranesi Italic and two little ornaments and matched it with 18 point on the cover.

I stamped the spine copy first so when I wrapped the covers the copy would be centered.

                                         Making the front covers

                                         
   After the covers were wrapped I hot foil stamped Ivy's name on the front.

Long story short, I then glued the inside pages into the cover 'case'. Colored the tassels, attached the ornament hook, made a die cut card case to hold the little bugger and just like that they were done.

Free 
    Range                                  
       Letterpress                                 Printing for Fun

Free Range Letterpress is the name of a portable letterpress printshop.

The shop consists of a beautiful Line-O-Scribe, Showcard Writer proof press on a custom rolling cabinet. .



< F R L  at Walker Art Center.
  



 
The panels on three sides can be branded with signage to fit any venue. 

Using the vintage wood type stored in the cabinets drawers,

                                                                                and the unlimited color selection from the ink mixing station.

Nancy Drew Calling Cards

Nancy Drew 
Business Card back story.

 The Making of my sisters business card starts in about 1964.

Nancy was an artist and in high school she wanted to take the Graphic Arts (letterpress) class.

She was informed that the class was only for boys. 

 Yet she persisted. 
Eventually the teacher (Bob Papas) advocated for her and, along with another girl,  became the first female students at Southwest High School to take the course.

 The next year my brother Chris took the class and liked it so much he asked for a letterpress for Christmas.

 I was in 5th grade at that time and was also bitten with the bug to print. 

My younger sister Mary also took the class, becoming the fourth child in line to take up the craft.

 I kept in touch with Bob Papas through the years and upon his passing inherited his press’s and type collection.

 My sister is now a quilter and collector of antique sewing machines and loves her cats. She lives on a farm in North Dakota.

during the summer she has a large, colorful, flower garden.

  So when she came across a fabric with clusters of cute kittens she decided it would be the purrfect 
material to back up her cards.

She also provided me with the image of a pair of ornate scissors she wanted on her cards.

I started the cards by duplexing the fabric to a very thick soft cotton cardstock.

 I wanted to give them a little ‘depth’ so I added a multi-color background wash by applying a little ink to a piece of cloth and lightly brushing each strip of card stock, this background represents her flower gardens.

The cards were printed on on Bob’s 1886 Golding “Pearl” treadle driven, floor model platen press, using handset lead type from his collection.

The scissor art was made into a photopolymer plate. 

This art was printed in a separate pass on a 1930’s era Sigwalt, table-top press which was previously owned by Bob Papas’ high school teacher. Junior Gossell.