(I'm sure I went to college with a Van der Cook...)

K and I had a very fun afternoon, down in a giant stone basement ("It's like a museum!" exclaimed K, upon descending the steps), last Saturday... on one of the most beautiful days of weather we've had in ages.

*sigh*

Anyway, we were quite happy to give up our sunshine and warm breezes to go to the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, to design and print our own Christmas cards.

Did I remember to take the camera, as I had planned?

No. I didn't.

(But you'll get even better! Video! Just wait!)

K and I attended a kids' class, 1st grade and up, for "Holiday Card Printing" using a Vandercook press and a Platen press. First, while we sat completely surrounded by drawers of thousands of type, the 2 lovely teachers Aki and Tom, explained a bit about the history of what we were doing and showed examples.

Then we (K and I and two other little girls and their moms) went into the production room and designed our cards. We were doing pressure printing with the Vandercook, meaning, we would make a template to use that, with cardstock sandwiched against it, would press against the ink and make a sort of colored embossing. Here, it's easier to show you...

Here is K's template, which she designed herself, after many false starts:


Note that the shapes are cardstock glued to a paper backing. The thicker areas will print darker, we could go up to 3 layers thick.. Since this is just a template, the colors didn't matter.

Then our teachers showed us how to print! The Vandercook is a machine from the 1940's, and it looks and sounds like it - very very cool. Once we learned the process, they (the teachers) just hung around to help out when we needed it - we could do whatever we were ready to do "by ourselves!"

So, we took this, put a piece of cardstock the same size on top of it, then attached it to the Vandercook press's roller, then push away at the handle!



This person isn't printing what we were, but the machine's action is exactly the same (imagine the ink red instead of green) - it's actually video from exactly where we were, in that very same room! K loved pushing the roller along and seeing her cards, one by one, finished at the end. She actually did all 20 of hers herself.

Then it was on to the interior printing (the message inside), done on a 100 year old Platen press. Just like the Vandercook, they had everything all ready for us: all the type already set in the chase and the presses already inked up - we just picked which press we wanted to use to print!

The press we used was very similar to this one, except slightly larger and the handle was a long post mounted to the side of the press instead of a handle on the front.

Make sure your card is laying in the press in the correct way - then pull away!



K liked this part, too, but said, and I quote, "that handle made my arm hurt!"...


Do you see the little indentations near the lettering? The sign of a real printed product is embossing, it's how the process works. And in this day and age of laser and inkjet printing, a lost art.

Because we only made 40 cards between the 2 of us, and 10 of K's are already spoken for, I'll have to come up with something else for sending out to "everyone else"... ah, well. We're adding to the list of arts we know how to do! It doesn't get much better than that!