Multi Colour Letterpress with Lea Lawson

Pinkfresh Studio recently held a virtual hot foil and letter press event. We received in our kit box 5  different sets plus a Blanket Stitched Bracket die, ephemera sentiment pack and gold pearls. This Virtual event was a lower price point than their normal bigger events and it was supposed to be a "smaller event" all over in one day. Even so we still got four 90-minute classes online plus we were also provided with instructions for 2 extra make 'n takes.

I actually only bought a second-hand Spellbinders Better Press system as Pinkfresh were going this route. I still don't get what the fuss is all about with this system, it doesn't make me happy, I guess it's not really for me. Also no offence to Lea as this was the only class I could attend live, if I'm honest I don't like this set it's really old fashioned IMO.

But we'll look at the positives first; you can use the big ink pads to do multi-colours on the press plate but it would be so much easier and probably more effective with small ink cubes. As always use a small blending brush to soften/blend where the colours meet. It was also my first time using press plates that had a stencil which you attached to the magnetic platform as many parts to the set. The other thing PFS have discovered is that the press plates hot foil beautifully (probably nicer than original-style plates) so I see it as a win that if you choose to buy the added extra plate for foiling you can also use it for letter press.

Below is the Splendid Florals press plates, wee matching cutting die, stencils if you wanted to colour up a foiled image, plus the stencil which you attach with removable tape to magnetic platform and then the plates go on top. I was happy doing it this way, for some the sandwich was too tight having the extra so you could remove one shim from under the magnetic platform or use the stencil printed on photocopy paper, they provided us with the PDF file so we could print if we needed too.

These are the 2 cards we made with Lea in class, the one on the left is the letter press and the one on the right has been foiled and coloured in with ink and a stencil. All the sentiments came from an ephemera pack which was provided.

I have managed to get some graduation of colours but it is hard with the bigger inkpads and if this was your jam I would buy a set of small ink cubes for the technique. It's pretty enough  but I just don't like this image.

Trying to show the impression, I made the mistake of using an A2 die to cut out my panel and it flattened the "press" into the paper. To do this technique you have to use a thick cotton paper or watercolour paper and it's rather expensive. I now own a huge pack as we needed 5x7" panels to do the class so have plenty to play with. I wasn't the only person that commented on this happening and it seems like one solution is to repress the dry plates again.

I prefer the card below I like the colour combo better for starter and its quite a sweet shaker card, we also received in our stash a border die  with the blanket stitching which is quite nice. I have just ink blended Cherry Blossom ink to colour the panel. I was a bit heavier than Lea's card but I like it as is.

You can see the foiling here best IMO but it is very pretty in real life.

Our sneak peek for class showing Lea's card which probably shows the foiling of best.

I have 3 more classes to go for this Virtual event but if I'm honest I really only like one press plate we received, I think the other 3 sets are old-fashioned. This is the first time I have done a virtual class where I have disliked so much of what I received. We got a ton of stuff so great value for money so I will just write of the sets I dislike as part of learning to use these 2 systems better.

Thanks for popping in.

✿Karen✿