Hi Alicia,Platen presses struggle with solids–it’s not their forte! 🙂 You can skip feed, meaning ink the forme two or more times before printing–or hit it twice, but it’s never going to be perfectly solid. We often have floods printed offset, which produces a much richer and more saturated solid.

I use Hodgins Engraving in Batavia, New York. They have both gold and silver foil, and it’s super shiny. There’s also a helpful site called Finisher Finder that allows you to search for people who do things like gilding, laser cutting, thermography, etc.

Yes we do! We will be announcing the time and place very soon!

I posted a how-to in the blog a while back–have a look!

That seems really really high. I order from Micon Steel Rule die in MA, and sometimes a local guy, and their prices range from around $45 for a simple shape to $140 for a complicated scalloped one.

Hooray!

Posting tomorrow–bad pics and all! 🙂

I took some photos the other day of the process, so will post tomorrow or Saturday! 

Your C&P can do this! Just take care to protect the platen and press bed from being marked by the die; as it cuts, the cutting rule will be pushed back and can make marks on your bed. Put a piece of red press board behind the die so that the rule of the die won’t leave a mark when you’re cutting. You don’t need a whole jacket–a piece of shim…[Read more]

Hi Heidi,Deirdre gives great advice. I would also think about what kind of printer you wanted to be: commercial/production (printing others’ designs), wholesale/retail (printing your own designs for resale on Etsy or elsewhere), or a combination of the two (designing and printing your own invitation line, for example). Do you want to be a…[Read more]

How about Judith’s story about her niece, who was b-r-o-k-e? Or Cat Realce’s moving presentation about women in printing? Not a dry eye in the room!

Atlantic Papers can duplex unprinted stock, and they have some pretty heavy printmaking papers available. You can email Trude at atlpapers@aol.com, and their website is atlanticpapers.com.

Woah, this is excellent! I guess there’s some sort of coating on the So Silk that makes the white “float” better?

The best advice is not to do it! Silver with some white in it is more opaque, but for bright white on black, foil is the best option. If the client is ok with a grayish white, you can hit it twice or skip feed, or lay down a layer of transparent white or clear varnish and then run the white.

Hi Jill! There will be a van and various volunteer cars going back and forth from the hotel to Bookworks. Hope to see you there! 

There is, and we’ll be posting it asap–definitely before early bird registration is past.

Hi Ren! Unfortunately we can’t prorate the conference registration. We hope you can come, even just for a little while!  

I do the same, but I require the balance to be paid before the job ships.