A Handmade Birthday

My husband's birthday was this past Monday and I ended up making a few of his gifts by hand. I showed you the embroidered gift tags I added to his present here. I have been looking for as many things to embroider as possible, so I combined my love of papercrafts and embroidery with those little gems.

Months before his birthday, I received a request to make him another book using my text block bookbinding skills. This present wasn't much of a surprise since I wanted him to pick out the decorative paper, but he loved it anyways. This time he asked for a little larger book with blank pages that he will use as a scrapbook. My husband tends to never throw anything away, so now he'll have someplace to keep all his tickets stubs and other random memorabilia.

Ever since I got my letterpress kit, my husband has been asking me to make him a bookmark. He reads everyday and for months he has been using an old piece of scrap paper that I used to remind him to set out the pizza dough for dinner one night a long time ago. It is literally a torn piece of notebook paper that says "Pizza Dough" in large writing. It is definitiely time he got a proper bookmark. I thought this would be a fitting gift for his birthday, so I broke out my kit.

I cut a piece of heavy cardstock to 2" x 6" and letterpressed a background in bright green. Then I created a monogram in royal blue at the top. I found a tutorial online for making bookmark tassels and created one with yellow and white baker's twine.

While I had my kit out, I made him a birthday card as well. Using a background plate and yellow ink, I created a large sun at the bottom of the card. I added "Happy Birthday" and "30" in turqoise and affixed the white card to a folded turqoise piece of cardstock.


This picture shows all my little mess-ups, oops!



I got him a few other small gifts, but I tried to make as much as possible myself. I was able to use a bunch of different techniques and had fun doing it. I think it makes gift-giving even more special and I know my husband loves it.

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo

In Love with Letterpress

Now that you've been overloaded with decoupage crafts, we switch gears to another one of my new favorite techniques. Although the technique itself has been around for a looooong time, I have just recently been able to use it myself thanks to a fabulous Christmas gift.

What is this wonderful technique? Well, if the title of this post didn't completely give it away, it is the papercraft technique called letterpress. As you may already know, letterpress is a relief printing technique using text or images. The printing plates create an impression of the text or image into the paper. You can use inks in various colors or make the impression without ink. I have used the embossing technique in the past where text or images are raised, and this is the opposite, where the text or image is indented into the paper. My husband always gets these confused so I wanted to explain it as fully as possible.

I have been able to practice letterpress printing myself because I received an awesome new kit from Lifestyle Crafts for Christmas, along with a bunch of sets of printing plates and colored inks. It is not a difficult kit to use or master, but it does take some practice. I have found that gauging the right amount of ink so that it doesn't bleed or take too long to dry is the hardest part.

I recently made a few cards for various people/occasions and I thought I'd share them with you. The first one I made was a birthday card for my sister-in-law which unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of before gifting.

The second card I made was for my husband for Valentine's Day.

My sister recently landed a new job that she is very excited about, so I made her a "Congrats" card this past weekend.

I am so excited to use this kit, not only for card-making, but for a ton of other papercraft ideas. I highly recommend the L Letterpress Epic Combo Kit and Lifestyle Crafts has a lot of fun printing plates and ink colors.  If you are going to invest in this craft, you MUST purchase the cleaning cloths. It makes the process easier and more fun with less mess. The more I use the kit, the more elaborate I am getting with my designs and the more fun I'm having creating things.

Are you in love with letterpress too?

Photos by Kyle @ 918 Photo