Archive for January, 2008

While we actually got our Christmas/Holiday cards sent out on time, I have just gotten around to posting something about them. This year was the first year we sent out Holiday cards together. Instead of spending lots of money on ugly, generic cards, we decided to create our own. We laid it all out and printed it in 2 colors, red and green, on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. This way we could then fold it up and have a nice little card with a back, front, and interior.

Here is what it looked like before we folded it in quarters:


I did not get a chance to carve a block specifically for the card, so we settled on using a preexisting metal block. It was a ship with a large sail saying “Seasons Greetings.”

Doug and I set the type in a mixture of fonts. For the front, we used a 48 point Italic font that we got for free with all the other stuff. For the inside, we used 18 point Caslon. The “and” on the inside is a single block. We printed the card in 2 colors, green and red.

Here are some pictures of what the card looked like when all folded and finished:

When Doug and I acquired our galley trays and metal furniture for setting type, they came with a bunch of rust on them. First we spent a long time scrubbing the trays and furniture with phosphoric acid (because the acid supposedly ate away at rust quickly), but it took a lot of elbow grease to get everything off.

Doug was looking around for alternatives and discovered a process called Electrolytic Rust Removal. In the process, one uses electricity to transfer rust from one piece of metal to another. One piece of ferrous metal is placed in a tub of water and baking soda with the positive lead attached. The piece of metal you want rust removed from goes into the tub as well (being careful not to let the 2 pieces touch) and attach the negative lead. Turn on the power source and let it sit.

Here is a video of Doug explaining the process with visuals.

Video:

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This can be done much more smoothly and expertly, but we used what we had. Here is a before and after picture of one of the galley trays after a couple of hours in the bath: