Playtime with Victor

The weekend before Valentine's Day I did it. I FINALLY inked up my letterpress & did some printing. I wish I had tons of pictures but I don't. I just didn't trust myself to keep the ink off my camera. Sometimes I think I can see into the future...

Here I am opening my ink can for the first time! Look at all that!!!

This is me 5 minutes later. It took no time at all for my hands to be covered in ink. Taking the top packing off the ink should be done with gloves from now on. I got enough off to start touching things...like the paper...or anything that I didn't want to turn pink, but clearly this is stubborn stuff.

I hit some snags. For some reason, the lower half of my platen prints deeper than the top half. The platen (which is a fancy name for the front part of the machine) needs to be leveled. For now, I used some wide painter's tape in my packing to get an even print.

Cleaning up was actually less messy than starting. I think by that point I was more comfortable moving around the machine, in general. I will still get gloves for this part. I am an ink magnet & I would prefer not to walk around covered in it. If anyone is thinking about getting into letterpress, read the forums on Ladies of Letterpress. GREAT resource. That's where I picked up some cleaning tips like the one above - standing my roller up in a board. It was so easy to steady it, clean it & leave it to dry.

Here's the finished product...Oh, that's right. I forgot to take those pictures. I was so concerned with getting my cards in the mail that after they dried I wrote them immediately, addressed, stamped & mailed them. Done!

So??? How'd I do?

Thanks to Mr. B who took these pictures for me!!