about L Letterpress. 6 stinking months after I ordered it. Can you sense my frustration? Hopefully. Before I tell you about the product, let me fill you in on the frustration. I ordered the Letterpress tool kit along with some inks and printing plates back in the first of January. I received one notification that they were overwhelmed with orders and I wouldn't be getting the order until March. So it came, in March. But not the three printing plates I ordered. Okay...those would be coming in 2-3 weeks, then June, then June was about over and I cancelled the order beause well... Hobby Lobby sells all their products and about every other weeks, they have 40% off coupons.
When you get the starter kit with the press, it comes with some printing plates, so I was excited to get started. About 10 impressions into using the press, "clink". The impression I rolled through was really deep and the printing plate cracked. Perfect. Below are the cracked plates and the little piece that broke off inside the machine. I called Lifestyle Crafts and they told me send back in my tool and they'd replace the plates. They ended up replacing my tool.
After I cancelled the plate order, I went to Hobby Lobby, and got a printing plate kit to make some invitations for my Grandma's 80th birthday. I was hoping/praying I wasn't going to have to send this thing back for good.
After reading some other blogs, they recommended using a different brayer (roller) for the ink than the one that comes in the kit. Luckily, Kayla gave me some print-making supplies for Christmas and this Speedball brayer is so much better than the little junky one they give you. This made a big difference in the starting out.
Above is the inked plate with the invite on the other side. The kit comes with some black, rubbery sticky stoppers to hold your paper in place. I didn't use them - they leave a nasty residue and I didn't have any trouble lining the paper on the grid before the printing plate went on top.
And here's the results:
This printing went much better than the time before. I don't think I'll be sending this back, so there should be some more projects going through the press. I do have to say, this doesn't
compare remotely to true letterpress (joy!), but for in home, relatively good price, and way less space than a platen press, it's a good little toy to have around
Back in that magical time when I was on vacation just last week, a few of us went to the Swap Meet that I suppose happens weekly in a huge vacant lot in Honolulu. This place had everything, and then some: fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, and of course what you'd expect from a swap meet - totally random assortment of everything. Some examples: weapons, bullet proof vests, Coach purses, hawaiian shirts, toys. Looking for something in particular, I'm sure you could find it.
