Spring Project -- make Nest Placecards {Letterpress Tutorial}

I am having such a great time experimenting with my Epic Six Letterpress system that LifeStyle Crafts sent me.

There are so many ideas that I have swimming around in my head!

I had never tried making anything with a Letterpress before, so I asked LifeStyle Crafts if I could come up to their offices for a demo since they are pretty to close to me.

Check out their warehouse, my heart had palpitations thinking of all of the awesome die cuts sitting down there - ha!

It was super informative to get all of the inside tips on letterpressing.

After the demo, I was all fired up to make something. So I came up with this Spring Placecard idea. I used this die cut with picks of all sorts of sizes. I think they are so cute!!

Another thing I love about the Epic System is that you can do all sorts of projects with it. AND, you can combine different things for your projects.

For the Spring Placecards I used the Epic System in three different ways:

I used the letterpress for the design

I used the plain plate to EMBOSS the paper

and I used the die cut system to cut out the picks.

And, you can also cut out fabric with your Epic die cuts.

{more on that coming up soon...}

So fun!!!

These placecards are super easy to make.

So if you have about 1/2 hour, you can whip these out and impress your guests. Or, they would be really cute in cupcakes too!!

The first thing I did was letterpress the design onto the paper.

Letterpress paper is a lot thicker than normal paper. And the letterpress inks and embosses at the same time. So you get that awesome indentation of the design on the paper.

I love that!

Now, there are a few steps to this letterpressing process:

1. The first is that there are some adhesive sheets that come inside of each letterpress plate. They are the exact size of the plate, but you can cut them down if you have a smaller plate you want to use.

2. Once you peel that off and apply it to the plate, you can peel the other side off and attach the plate to the underside of the letterpress grid plates. I love the grids, because they help you line up the plates exactly with the paper underneath.

3. There are also some foam strips you can attach to the bottom of the grid plates to position your paper exactly where you want it to be in relation to the upper decorative plate. So clever!!

4. Then you take a SMALL amount of ink and roll it out on the clear square with a special brayer. And, I also found out that you can leave the ink out for a few days. It won't dry out. So if you have another project to do, you can do it without worrying that the ink will dry out.

5. The letterpress also comes with some special wipes that make cleaning the plates and rolling suqare a breeze.

6. Once you have the plate attached and the foam guides in place for your paper, you roll ink on the decorative plate. Roll the brayer over the plate a few times to make sure the ink is evenly applied.

7. Then you put your paper in and shut the lid on the grid plates. And then you run it through the Epic machine. I rolled it through once, and then reversed so that the plate went back through a second time.

And now you have a beautiful, letterpressed paper. For the placecards, I then used my pick die cut and cut out the shapes. To do this, there is another plate that is made for the die cutting. And a mat that does on top of the die cut plate. Then you just roll that plate through the machine.

The next step in making the placecards was cutting out some little ovals to write people's name on. I used a small oval die cut to cut these out. But first, I ran the plain letterpress paper through the Epic machine WITHOUT any ink. This was to emboss the paper. And I love it!!

So if you needed a card really quickly, it would be so easy to emboss a piece of paper and then add a decorative ribbon and you would have a gorgeous card!!

Then I wrote {I really had my husband do this because he has beautiful handwriting} each person's name on the ovals and then attached them to the picks with a dimensional sticker. The last thing I did was I attached a little velvet flower with a rhinestone brad to each of the placecards.

Then I put the picks through a little nest, added some ribbon and some chocolate eggs. And I had a festive placesetting for a Spring Party!!!

I also have this fun Pennant die cut.

I can't wait to make some pennants of all different sizes!!!

And I was so impressed with all of the different dies that you can make some things with.

Here are some other dies and plates that I love --

So fun!!

Don't forget to enter to win an Epic Six Combo System {$169}. And, you can get an extra 20% off ANYTHING at the Lifestyle Craft website, including the Epic Six machines by entering TATERTOTS at checkout {good through the end of April}.

xoxo