Letterpress printing

A few weeks ago we went to a Craft and Cake event at a local pub.  To be honest, it was a bit disappointing.  There was no cake!  There were a few artisans demonstrating their work - painting, knitting on a machine and soap making, and upstairs we found a couple doing letter press printing.  It was free to have a go if you didn't mind waiting your turn, which we didn't.

There were boxes with all different letters and some pictures on wooden blocks.  We were given a tray and a frame and had to fill the frame with whatever we wanted to print.  I am absolutely fascinated by communism so was chuffed to find the hammer and sickle block!  I put it in the middle of some type.  The wooden blocks were for shoring up the text to make sure it was wedged in tight when you pick the frame up.

Then over to the machine.  You put the ink on with a brayer, as demonstrated below by wonderful mum.

You put a piece of paper on top, push it into the machine, tighten the screw, then undo the screw and pull it out and ... ta da!  One letter press poster.

Spot the "a" which isn't actually an "a"?

Clearly the recognising (or not) of backwards letter "a"s is a family trait!

We've booked on a workshop, in March I think, so I just need to come up with another idea.