major scrabble points

Last week I took a class for me. I say that because it was nothing I would have thought to search for, but it came into my inbox through living social and I bought it! It was a letterpress printing class.  Many of you know, my friend Sarit and I had a small stationery business when we used to live in Chicago called Star Paper Ink (loved that name!). One of my favorite types of printing is letterpress which is a very old type of printing where you press the ink into paper and it makes an impression. Luckily my mom shares my paper passion as I really wanted letterpress wedding invitations and she was in full support of it!

Anyways, so often as mothers, our time is filled with running our kids schedules, planning for meals, cleaning, more cleaning, and then trying to still look young. 🙂 So, to take a short departure from that world is always fun.  I went to Denise Newberry’s house in Old Town and went around back to her studio which was a really neat spot. She was so welcoming to me and another guest who I met that day, Robin.  We made personal stationery as well as coasters and I learned that letterpress can be expensive because it takes A LOT OF TIME. I truly have a whole new appreciation for letterpress printing as a result!  Here is Denise’s blog about our morning at her studio.

I wanted to share this with you because I am sure you have classes and interests you would like to develop and wanted to encourage you to sign up!  This past year I have taken a private photography class (Harper Point) , many cooking classes (Come Back to the Table), and now a letterpress class (Cabin Press Studios).  I have loved all of them.

Finally, as a bonus takeaway from this class, Denise taught us the word Quoin Key which is a key you use to tighten/lock in the plate of your design before printing. The magic of this word is that it is worth MAJOR POINTS in Scrabble. If you are lucky enough to use the word “quoin” on the board and are challenged about it, you can sound extremely impressive by letting your competitor know that it is used in the process of letterpress printing. Enough said.