we love edge-painting things

Posted on October 9, 2008 by debbie

We fell in love with edge painting a year or two ago — it’s such a cool way to add a second or third color to a printed piece, and you can still pantone match the edge color (we mix edge-painting inks by hand, and then apply by hand too). We flat printed these invitations for Talbots announcing their Spring 2009 collection, and then we did the edge painting too — we love the BRIGHT PINK edge painting they chose. They added the embossed pattern on their end. Printed on our cotton paper.

Boxcar donates paper to local public school art teachers

Posted on October 2, 2008 by

This is one of our favorite days of the year…..

A few times a year, public school art teachers come to Boxcar Press to pick up our overstocked paper, offcuts, excess envelopes, cool boxes, and other odds and ends that can be transformed by students into art. The supplies we donate are met with such enthusiasm from the art teachers….though art budgets vary from school to school, we’re told by some teachers that they only have about $.70 to spend per student on art supplies for the year(!). We love our little community of Syracuse, and we love doing things like this that help us feel connected to where we work and live. Also, though recycling is good, reusing materials is even better…..we hope this will spark some good donation ideas for other letterpress shops. If you have other cool ideas about how to re-use your extra letterpress Stuff, we’d love to hear about it! (Our great neighbors Partners for Arts Education help organize all of this….thanks, Partners!) (photos by Carol, our operations manager. Thanks, Carol!)

Sycamore Street Press (and Boxcar Base!) on Design*Sponge

Posted on September 30, 2008 by

Go letterpress love! Congrats to Syracuse Street Press for this great write-up in Design*Sponge. We loved seeing Sycamore’s beautiful home interior, and their beautiful Vandercook, and their beautiful printing, and (gasp!) their beautiful Boxcar Base! We’re in Design*Sponge (kind of) — hooray! See more of Sycamore Street Press’ letterpress magic at their web site: http://www.sycamorestreetpress.com/. (photo from design*sponge)

Mandarin Oriental Hotel letterpress invitation

Posted on September 30, 2008 by debbie

This is a save the date we letterpress printed for Mandarin Oriental Hotel’s new location in Boston. We flat printed the liners on our offset press in a pattern that mirrored the blind deboss of the save the date. There was rumor that the actual invitations were going to be cut in stone (!).

Boxcar Baby goes hiking, takes parents with him

Posted on September 12, 2008 by

The Boxcar Baby decided he wanted to see the Canadian Rockies, not next year, not next month, but RIGHT NOW. He booked a flight, made reservations at various places of lodging, and hoped to sneak away with his parents noticing, because he is 22 months and can do things by himself now, thank you very much. However….his parents spotted him in his Little Tykes car on the way to the airport and decided they probably needed to go with him. So the Boxcar Baby is taking his parents on a grand tour of the Canadian Rockies! We will have all sorts of adventures to tell you on this blog once we return. Look for more posts in early October, and take care!

Letterpress coaster in sunlight

Posted on September 12, 2008 by

Ah, nothing as pretty as letterpress coasters in sunlight, even if the beautiful room where we’ve been doing our photography was about 110 degrees! The only thing about letterpress coasters: they seem too pretty to use, don’t they? But then again, functional pretty things are good. Designed by Don Kilpatrick III.

Recycle your letterpress plates at CBA (NYC)

Posted on September 12, 2008 by debbie

Last month, Boxcar Press launched BPPPPRP, a photopolymer plate recycling program to help keep letterpress plates out of landfills. We’re now working to set up drop boxes at several book arts centers across the country, so plates used by the centers’ students & members can be collected and recycled. Thank you to Sarah Nichols, the program manager at Center for Book Arts (CBA), for setting up a box for photopolymer plate recycling last week at CBA. The box is in the vicinity of CBA’s presses, and plates will be collected and sent to Boxcar Press every so often for recycling. Way to go, CBA!

Thank you wine from Two Letter Press

Posted on September 4, 2008 by debbie

Victoria Wilder from Two Letter Press in Saint Helena, CA, sent us the sweetest California thank you wine for helping her with her rush platemaking orders. It absolutely made our week over here. Thanks, Victoria! Our letterpress customers are honestly the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Here’s the Boxcar platemaking team with the wine.

Golding Jobber romance

Posted on September 2, 2008 by

Thanks to Boxcar Press’s Cathy Smith for finding this gem of a book cover.

I only wish Jenna was printing on her Golding Jobber on page 124 when we read: “She found a cry of resistance welling up in her throat, but as he [censored by Debbie], [censored by Debbie], something happened that changed it, turned the sound into a moan of sheer, unexpected joy.”

Remember when…

Posted on September 2, 2008 by

Compare Dave Tribby’s excellent list of letterpress resources today with the same list in 1995. It’s amazing how much the online letterpress community has blossomed. Even more amazing: that Dave has been updating this resource since 1994 (pre-Internet Explorer, pre-Netscape, from the era when you would use Mosaic to access the web). Way to go Dave!