letterpress

A few weeks back, we chatted with Bruce Aune from KCRG about our little shop here in Mount Vernon during their week-long “Our Town” feature. We set up a little type and had the press running. Check out the feature below or on KCRG’s website!

Old Threshers Reunion is held annually on Labor Day weekend in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The Threshers grounds house lots of steam engines, machinery, and printing equipment from years ago. Printers Hall is one of the buildings on the grounds and it houses all of the old printing equipment, with many examples of printing presses similar to the ones we use at Iron Leaf Press.

Last year I did a steamroll print during Printers Fair in Mt. Pleasant and the group asked if I’d be interested in participating again. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to print on such a large scale, so I set out to work on my 2′ x 3′ piece. I carved my design into a piece of linoleum and brought it on down to Mount Pleasant the Friday before Labor Day. Continue Reading

We’ve been slinging our letterpress cards for going on 6 years now (can you believe it?!?). In those 6 years we’ve made a lot of cards and have sent them all over the world. And now we’ve got one that’s up for a major award. And it’s fitting to use A Christmas Story reference since it’s one of our holiday cards that is a finalist for the Louie Awards!

The Louie Awards are hosted by the Greeting Card Association (yes, that’s a thing) and has been showcasing the best in the stationery industry for nearly 30 years. Our “cat parent” card is one of three finalists for the “Christmas/Seasonal Humorous Above $4.00” category. And it was one of our best selling holiday cards this last year, which proves that cats are definitely better than dogs (I kid, I kid….mostly).

The winners will be announced this May and we’re hoping to make it out to New York for the celebration. And if you want to get a head start on your holiday shopping now, we’ve got the card in our online shop. And for all you dog parent’s out there, don’t worry. We’ve got a dog version too.

When mid-September rolls around, I head south for the Midwest and Great Northern Printers’ Fair. It’s held every September in Mount Pleasant, Iowa on the Old Thresher’s Grounds, which houses Printers’ Hall. This event was the first one I went to nine years ago when I was just getting into letterpress printing.

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