Completed Save the Dates!

Hello!  Sorry for the lack of updates, the past couple of months have been crazy hectic, and it's not even because of the wedding!  Anyhoots, I completed the Save the Dates back in March but never got the chance to put them up.  So here they are!

One of the better ones

For some reason, my camera couldn't focus on the whole thing, just the top several lines >.<!

Here was the set up & the clean up!  The clean up was VERY time consuming.  I used goo-be-gone, which beaded up the slippery (oil?) based ink but then I needed to use a soap to remove both the goo-be-gone and the ink.  The theory is to use oil to remove oil, but then I had to use soap to remove the goo-be-gone completely.

Look at the sink!!

I probably used about five, six towels to rub the ink off

This is a picture of the setup! I used spray canola oil to thin out the ink a little. A teeeeeny bit, goes a long way, and it really made applying ink easier, as long as the oil is mixed well with the ink. I got this idea off of a forum because I was finding the Letterpress ink very viscous and difficult to work with. With a teeeeny spray, I was able to get the texture right after several tries.

Here are messed up ones! The problems that came up mostly had to do with the consistency of the ink. In my experience, the best way to do this, is to do them all at once and have a single clean up. Doing them two or three at a time after work or something doesn't work because you have to clean everything thoroughly to get a good print every time. At first, I thought I could do a couple at a time, be lazy and wrap up the roller with cellophane and continue where I left off. This did not work and so at least some of these were caused by an unevenly inked roller. Other messed up ones involved me trying to thin out the ink and I had to get it "just right" for it to be inked on properly.

Best advice??  Roll and roll until the consistency is completely even.  I think Letterpress ink made by L Letterpress is way too difficult and too viscous to use on its own.  It can and did cause over-inking.  After I got the groove of mixing the right consistency with canola oil, everything was easy peasy :)  For others pursuing this project, I'd suggest getting the inks that are recommended by Boxcar Press, I'm sure they work better.

All in all, I had 30 casualties and 50 mostly presentable Save the Dates :)  And I barely used half of the tube of ink.  Not so bad for a first timer!!