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.