Weddingbee Blog

I am absolutely in love with all things letterpress. Cards, gift tags, posters, save the dates, wedding invitations…I love it all. As I told you all previously, I wanted to purchase letterpress STDs, but my wallet just couldn’t take the hit. I had been doing a lot of research about letterpress, and even found a professor at the university I go to who taught me the basics of hand-setting type and showed me how to use a letterpress machine.

But alas, his press wasn’t set up to work with photopolymer plates and would cost me around $500 to outfit it with the necessary parts. So, I moved on to at-home DIY-style letterpress. Specifically, the L-Letterpress Tool by Lifestyle Crafts. I was really, really nervous that this wouldn’t work out. It seemed like all the reviews were either extremely positive or extremely negative. So…I took a chance and caved to the paper-lover’s voice inside of my head saying “Just do it…”

I purchased the kit from Amazon for a lot less than was advertised on the Lifestyle website. I also picked up some extra square cards and envelopes, and an extra six-inch Speedball brayer. I found this review of the L-letterpress by Boxcar Press awhile back, so I knew that I would need the extra supplies to make sure I used this tool to its full potential. The Amazon shipment took a little longer than I hoped, around 20 business days, but this is normal for shipments to Canada.

I really wanted to try this thing out before I spent another $200 on photopolymer plates and expensive cotton paper to make our invitations (and before I took a huge risk ruining the invitations). So I decided I would make a smaller photopolymer plate through the Boxcar Press platemaking service, and use this opportunity to make my “Will you be my bridesmaid?” crafts.

I designed my plate using Adobe Illustrator, and it came super fast from Boxcar. I think it took around five days for shipping, which is really fast considering it had to go through customs at the Canadian border.

Once I got the plate and everything, I cut it up so I could have the different words separated (since I was making two versions: “Will you be my bridesmaid?” and “Will you be my bridesman?”). I followed the instructions at the Boxcar review blog and tried really, really hard not to screw up.

The first step is to apply the adhesive-backed photopolymer plate to the “press” side of the L-letterpress tool.
I didn’t use the Epic 6 tool, because I already had a Cuttlebug. The L-letterpress tool luckily fits in the Cuttlebug just fine.

Now here comes the “creative” part—I decided that I would try to letterpress fabric. I had my doubts that this would work—I thought the ink wouldn’t soak in because it wasn’t fabric ink…I thought that it wouldn’t go through the Cuttlebug machine…I thought that I would probably break my L-letterpress tool, but I still really, really, wanted to try it. So—I did! I mean, after all, the handkerchief is cotton…the letterpress paper is cotton…it can’t be all that different, right? Right! (I hoped.)

To make it work, I taped the handkerchief tightly around the base plate of the L-letterpress tool and crossed my fingers that it would work.

I inked up the Speedball brayer with the letterpress ink from the kit, and then inked the photopolymer plate that was already applied to the press side of the L-letterpress tool. The ink is really tacky, so you have to roll it out for a while—I think it took me around five minutes to get it all rolled out evenly on the ink plate.

It is REALLY important to have the “roller bearers” that Boxcar recommends. It helps keep the brayer even and level and makes sure that you get even ink on all parts of the plate. Just make sure you peel them off before you close the press and put it through the Cuttlebug/Epic 6!

IT WORKED! I was amazed and so happy with myself (and secretly hoping that my future bridal party wouldn’t think that getting a handkerchief was so dorky). But, I was still a little worried that the ink wouldn’t dry, so I let the handkerchiefs dry for 24 hours before touching them. It seemed to do the trick. They were completely dry and the ink didn’t feel tacky at all.

I also did cards using the same procedure, except I used the foam placement guides that came with the kit. The cards turned out REALLY well. I’ve purchased quite a few letterpress cards on Etsy, and the depth of impression was the same, if not deeper. The ink was very even on all of them, and I thought it looked pretty great! In the photos, you can’t really see the depth of the impression, but trust me when I say that it’s actually quite deep. Deeper than some letterpress samples I’ve received!

To complete the project, and to “pretty up” the presentation of it all, we purchased four kraft jewellery boxes from Creative Packaging and placed a piece of white tissue paper inside of the box, and then put the envelope with the card on the bottom, with the folded handkerchief on top.

To make the card that “holds” the handkerchief, I just took a basic piece of kraft card stock, cut it to the same size as the envelope holding the letterpress card, and then stamped and embossed the corners. I then used my Martha Stewart heart hole punch to make two holes in the card so the handkerchief could be tied to the card stock with some basic cream coloured ribbon.

We then just folded up the tissue paper on top and closed the box, and we were done!

All photos personal

They all LOVED it (and didn’t think the handkerchiefs were dorky)! They all said yes. Because this project was so successful, I have officially decided that I will be using the L-letterpress to make our wedding invitations in the next couple months!

Have you ever tackled a DIY project that you thought was next to impossible?