All finished and ready to go! They are for sale in my etsy shop!
Here’s the letterpress valentine card:
this is the hand-carved linoleum block that I made and used to print the cards!
I started out with a plain old sheet of rubbery “linoleum” (it’s not truly linoleum, it’s a modern version that’s a little less brittle and easier to cut) and transferred my design onto it with pencil, then carved it up with special knives (which takes a long time and lots of care and focus!), then mounted the lino on a special wood block. My dad helped me make up a batch of these wood blocks a few months ago – they are made from nice hard, dry, maple which is an especially stable wood that shouldn’t warp or swell too much. Planed and sanded to a very exact height so it will fit in the letterpress. After the glue set, I took it over to Dunstan Press, where Mark printed up a big batch of these lovely valentine cards for me!
Here’s a cut-paper version of the same design:
