New Website & Blog

We've moved! – we moved the studio and our website too. Come check out the new site & blog over at www.silverplatepress.com. There are lots of cool new things that's we've been up to – like our first ever wedding show and launching our very own line of templated wedding stationery. Check it out here.

Woodgrain Save the Dates

This last little while has been busy to say the least! For starters, I've been finishing up projects that started quite some time ago. Like this little number that I designed and letterpress printed for Temerra & Marc. They're a really cool couple that wanted a rustic and natural looking save the date. They are lovers of the outdoors, so naturally I thought it would be so amazing to print woodgrain. At first I thought it would be neat to just print the woodgrain as a blind impression on thick kraft paper, but it just wasn't showing up as much as I wanted. You could totally feel the grain, and it was amazing... but I thought it needed a bit more. So I use a bit of clear varnish to bring out the grain a little more on the dark paper. I love the way they turned out! A note for printing on kraft paper, however, colours absorb easily in this kind of paper, so the orange for instance turned out darker than what I had hoped. I'll be doing some test prints on kraft to see if I could somehow "brighten" it up for next time. I'm looking forward to finishing the design and printing for the rest of this wedding suite. Stay Tuned for more.

Sandi & Nick's wedding invitation workshop

Back in the summer, I helped out my very amazing friends Sandi and her (now) husband Nick with letterpress printing their wedding invites. It was a full-day extravaganza and was basically an all-day letterpress workshop... complete with some paper cutting, ink mixing, polymer aligning, caliper measuring for accuracy and general letterpress finessing. The invites turned out amazing! It was the first time that I printed on French Paper's muscletone line of papers, but I had wanted to for sometime already. (I had read it was great for letterpress) It's smooth to the touch but super sturdy, not at all like cotton papers (like Lettra), it is still perfect for letterpress. Leaves a nice bite in the paper without tearing.

It was nice to help out these two very dear friends of mine, and give them hopefully a little gift of letterpress know-how and the pride that they printed their invites themselves. They printed like champs!  And once they really got things moving, they only needed a little help when things went astray... which usually took a press adjustment to fix.

What a fun memory!

Daniella & Rick ~ the invitation

This is long over due but a while ago, dear friends of mine, Daniella & Rick asked me to letterpress print invitations for their wedding. I loooove the way they turned out – especially with that beautiful blind-printed emblem. The off white cotton paper was perfect for the deep brown and lavender. They're super classy, and lovely, just like Daniella. :)

Doesn't Daniella looks just stunning?! The wedding was gorgeous! Every detail was perfect.

Save the Dates for Daniella & Rick

It's been a good few weeks here in the studio were I got to wrap up a few nice projects – One for which was for a very good friend who is getting married soon. (Yeay Daniella!) These are the "Save-the-Dates", and I'm just so excited with how they turned out. They're printed on a super soft, natural white cotton paper. Printed with a lovely deep brown, a light lavender colour with a uber deep blind-emboss emblem. (I think that was my favourite part)

Sometimes mixing a specific colour is way more challenging than others. This lovely, soft lavender was one of those mixes that took some extra love and care to get perfect. A glob of transparent white, a drop of violet and the tiniest bit of black. At first it was way to dark... and took a little bit of time to bring it down to the colour I was looking for. But getting the colour right on was just SO gratifying that I honestly didn't care that it look me a day and a half to get perfect.

I'm so happy for Daniella & Rick as they get all the preparations together for their wedding, and I'm so honoured that I could be part of their day by printing these cards for them. It totally feels a little extra special printing for a close friend! Thanks again Daniella for asking me to letterpress these for you!

Steph & Sanjay ~ letterpress invites

Over the past little while I've been pretty busy printing in my spare time. I'm not sure if all of you know or not, but letterpress is one of those things that I do when I'm not working. It's an absolute labour of love and often I still need to pinch myself to make sure I'm not just dreaming that there is a Vandercook in my living room. Since I don't print every day, during the best natural-light times of the day... I truly cherish the time I spend printing. I've been getting requests here and there to letterpress invitations or business cards for designers and clients of designers... and it really got me thinking hard about what I want Silverplate Press to be for me now and what I'd like for it to become. How much of a part of my life will it be when we have kids for instance? Anyway, I didn't get everything answered, but it was nice to just reflect and think about what is important. I realized that since I'm not just a printer, (I'm a designer too)... one that just happens to have fallen head over heals for letterpress... that I should really print the projects that make me happiest. For now.... with my limited time with the press, I've decided that means that I mostly take on work that I get to design. (Even though the creative process almost kills me sometimes... you can read about that here.)

This invite for Steph & Sanjay was one project that helped me come to this realization. I worked with them for the past couple of months; designing and testing printing, (as I wrote about previously, here) and sorting out paper and colours. It was a lot of work, but immensely fun and I'm so proud with the result. It's got that rustic and handmade feel to it! Just great for them.

Thanks again Steph & Sanjay for trusting me to design & letterpress these for you! It was great working with you!

Chris & Sarah Wedding Package

I've wanted to share this wedding package for some time now, and I'm so pleased to finally be able to post it here. Now that the last piece of the pie was finished (the thank you notes), the set was finally complete. I had such a fun time printing these for Chris and Sarah. It was a serious combination of woodtype, lead type and polymer plates. Those invites went through the press 7 times each! Unreal, eh?! The invites match up to the beer coasters and strawberry-vanilla jam labels, (what a cute take away).

This was my first real big job for the vandercook and it got my butt in gear to set it up and figure out all the quirks. (Forever thankful to Sarah!) I'm still adjusting and feel that my ability is slowly getting better. Thank goodness there is such a wonderful letterpress community out there on the internets! I don't think I could have come to this conclusion if it wasn't for Briar Press, Tanya from Snap & Tumble, George Walker (my letterpress prof) and keeper of the Lovers of Letterpress along with his lovely wife Michelle. Your help has been incredible! Thank you!