Firecracker Press

I took a letterpress pilgramige of sorts with Paul to Firecracker Press on Cherokee Street, St.Louis, MO.

Here it is - Firecracker Press - a beautiful little letterpress covey for Vandercooks, C&Ps, paper, type and ink.

Eric Woods, owner and operator was kind enough to give us a chat and a tour of his place after I mentioned Preston (my 10x15 C&P).

Here's Eric's C&P. Its from the mid 1930s - about 10 years newer than mine. They use is for finishing now - no ink - die cutting, folding and the lot.

I also chatted with Eric's employee (who's picking up ink on a brayer in this picture) about dies and Owosso. He was really nice too.

I bought some letterpress cards and Paul and I thanked Mr. Woods for the visit. I'm definitely going to try doing some wood cuts after seeing the beautiful results at Firecracker Press. I hope to one day operate a business very much like this one - and hopefully just as cool.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (Part 3)

Paul and I had the opportunity to print some birthday invites for a friend of Paul's from work over Christmas break.

My Dad had these hats stitched up for us - Paul's says: Printer's Devil and mine says: Triple S Letterpress. You can see the green ink color on the ink disc on Preston behind me.

A bit of goofing off while the press was being cleaned for the second color.

One of my "new" cabinets was a bit unsteady on its feet. My Dad did an awesome job cleaning and restoring and reinforcing the cabinet. Paul even built a few new cases (type drawers) for a few of the empty slots.

40 finished invites: 5 hits of the opaque green, with blow drying in between each hit (the paper was super absobent) and then 1 of black. 1 hit on the matching envelope. Total time: 13 hours.

RAR Birthday

Got a call from FedEx late last week. The gal told me I had a 17lb package from Design Within Reach. Hmmmm.... I wondered. Could it be? Would it be an early birthday present from my folks? I drove out to Madison to pick it up since I'd only get a window of 3 hours time for delivery - and they could not release it without a signature.

I had to open the box to put it in the car. And there it was, nestled lightly in bubble wrap - The Eames Molded Plastic Rocker - RAR (rocking armchair rod), designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1948 - a licensed reproduction by Herman Miller - producers of the original fiberglass molded version some 50 years ago. Ab-Sol-Ute-ly Beeaau-Ti-Ful!