Sand 2x4 Handmade Paper with Custom Letterpress

Sand 2x4 Handmade Paper with Custom Letterpress

$1.85 Sale • Save

Natural fibers

Handmade in California

Custom letterpress just for you!

A lovely neutral, antique white-beige with warm brown undertones, plant-dyed and made by hand in our California studio - ready to be printed with your custom designs on our antique presses!

A few important things to note about our papers:

1 - We use plant dyes with the occasional mineral to color our papers, so there may be slight variations from batch to batch. We do our best to photograph the papers as they are, but different screens show color differently. You're always welcome to request a sample if you'd like to see it in person!

2 - Because we use plant powders to dye our papers, the back sides of your sheets may have a slight grid-like pattern of more concentrated color where the powders have concentrated as they pass through our papermaking equipment.

3 - The approximate size of these sheets is 2x4inches, but that will vary sheet to sheet, and may be larger with the deckle edges.

4 - The weight and texture of the paper is great for letterpress - we'd say it's around 250gsm. It feels substantial in the hand without being overly bulky. A common descriptor from customers: it feels like “quality”! And also like they want to eat it! ;)

This print and paper service is designed for those familiar enough with Adobe Illustrator to correctly format their design files for print. You can find my video here with tips and instructions for doing so! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPWeBjtusQY

A few letterpress design essentials:

1 - Your design must be one color. There are *very* few exceptions that would allow us to add a second color - please email custom@farmette.co if you would like to know more ;)

2 - All artwork must be vectorized and text converted to outlines

3 - The document must be in CMYK mode with all artwork set to 0C0M0Y100K

4 - All dots must be at least 1pt diameter, and all lines must be at least .35pt thick

4 - Because it works like a rubber stamp, the best designs for letterpress feature mostly text and line work and limit solid blocks of printed area.

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Hand Crafted with love

Farmette paper starts with natural cotton fibers, which are upcycled from the garment industry, and abaca fibers, from a plant in the banana family. 

These materials are weighed and soaked, and then processed for four to five hours into pulp with a simple machine called a Hollander beater, which macerates the fibers so that they will knit together when shaken in water.

Once the beater is emptied, we use plant powders and occasionally minerals in careful ratios to dye our pulp in our natural palette. Most dyes are left for a 12-hour period to set.

Sustainably created

Next, the pulp is added to a vat of water. The papermaker skillfully pulls a screen stretched over a frame, with another frame on top - called a mould and deckle - through the pulpy water and shakes the slurry as the water drains out through the screen, leaving the shapes of the paper behind. 

Excess water is sponged out, and the wet sheets of paper are transferred onto fabrics sandwiched between acrylic sheets. Stacks of these sandwiches are then moved onto a hydraulic press, where remaining water is slowly squeezed out and the fibers are further knit together to create a strong paper surface.

We Use Antique Letterpresses

These fabric-paper sandwiches are then removed from the press and hung to dry. Once they are dry, paper sheets are peeled off the fabrics by hand, and folded by hand into cards if necessary.

At this point, the paper is moved to our print room, where our press people print our designs on antique lettepresses and hot foil presses. 

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