Everyone loves a coupon

And we have a coupon. For you. Order wedding invitations from Three Bells Press any time between now and July 30 and get 20% off your entire order. What a lovely day, indeed.

The Perils of Printing with a Kitten

Today I was printing a business card. Today, my kitten Calliope (pronounced Cal-ee-OOP, like the street in New Orleans) decided that my ankles were a fantastic thing to attack. So print a sheet, scream in pain as I am bitten, stop and talk harshly to said kitten, go back to press, print a sheet, scream in pain.

Calliope and I have had disagreements before about the press. He finds it fascinating, and I've had to start a program of giving him a bath whenever he touches the press. It has helped, and he's moved on to attacking me, rather than the press.

Eventually, Calliope took a nap and I finished my printing.

Acquiring "New" Equipment Part 2

This weekend was a trip to acquire another new old piece of equipment. This time it was a guillotine cutter. It's something we've needed for years-we would send all of our paper out to be cut down at another printer, then bring it back to print. And if there were any additional cuts needed, it was back to the other shop again. Not very efficient.

This guillotine was a fortuitous purchase on ebay. And it was relatively close-well, it was north of Atlanta, and the studio is located in New Orleans-but at least it was in the south.

I drove up in my boyfriend's truck, and picked him up from his Atlanta office, where he was (conveniently) working for the week. Then out to dinner with a college friend, and another drive to get the guillotine. It's back in New Orleans, and we'll be moving it into the studio this afternoon!

It's not in the best of shape-you can see from the picture that it's been slathered in gray paint. Originally, it would have been a shiny blue black, with gold pinstriping. I'm looking forward to restoring it to a somewhat more attractive state, and will post updates as I make progress.

Acquiring "New" Equipment

One of the joys of letterpress printing is finding old equipment, things that have been unwanted for years, and bringing them back into continual use. One of the difficulties of letterpress printing is the actual acquiring of those bits of equipment.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a posting on the free section of craigslist- "old printmaking equipment". A few pictures were attached, enough for me to realize that it was all old letterpress equipment:







They were in a little ramshackle shed-so dilapidated that the volunteers we spoke to were tearing it down later in the week. The floor was a layer of sludge and mud. Someone pointed out a little heap that I thought was a rag-a dead rat.

We arrived at the same moment as a couple of scrap metal men. They were running around shouting "we can take it all, scrap it all". And I was looking around in agony, contemplating daring rescues. But really, none of it was salvageable. It had all been flooded, so the cast iron was so rusted that the moving parts were all locked up. I rescued two things: a bracket that was missing on my press, and a brass pica pole (a ruler used to measure type).