"Old" Friends Learn to Letterpress

I just enjoyed a wonderful weekend with my "old" friends from college. What better reason to get together than to celebrate a year of 50th birthdays? They joined me from Virginia, New York, California and Tennessee. We laughed SO hard at all the old photos! It took us right back to those formals, beach trips, weddings and baby showers. What a gift to have friends like this, still strong after 30 years!!

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I wanted everyone to take home something special to mark the occasion,  so I made a date for us at ​Lead Graffiti in Newark, DE.  According to Ray and Jill,  the creative gurus behind this amazing letterpress art studio, Lead Graffiti is "a laboratory of sorts for all things letterpress—a place where you can do some serious experimenting, as well as creative & playful tinkering." Let's just say, I'm hooked!

We got to use two antique cast iron hand presses and two newer Vandercook machine presses. The workshop was called Werkman Druksels, based on a kind of printing that uses the forms of letters and numbers as design elements. Each piece was individually inked by hand, then printed in layers to make cool shapes. 

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Letterpress is a BLAST no matter which press you use!

hint: one takes more muscles

These are three of my prints from the party - SO MUCH FUN!
​You've got to try some Lead Graffiti for yourself!! (twist my arm and I'll even go with you.)

You couldn't ask for better teachers - Ray and Jill even gave us birthday cupcakes for snack!

Who says you can't teach an "old" gal new tricks?? Cheers to my sweet friends - the ones who came to Wilmington to see me and cheer me up in the snow - and the ones who couldn't be here but still make me smile. 

The Bishop makes a fine DJ and bartender, but I'm voting for a tropical island with a cabana boy next time we get together...
maybe to celebrate turning 51?

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