Meet Tilly

Hello everyone!  Sorry I have been MIA for the past two months. I have been busy with work, my class and a new little project. Excuse me… I mean my BIG 1,200 lb project!  There is a new addition to the family, the late 1800s Challenge Gordon letterpress I just purchased!  I named her Tilly. (Sorry, Amanda P. – I had to copy the name.  It is just too perfect.  Tell your Garmin I named my letterpress after her.)

Let me explain…

(I will try and keep this relatively short)

I have been in love with letterpress for as long as I can remember.  It is simply beautiful the way the designs and type bite into the paper giving it a third dimension.  The impression is subtle, yet powerful and I absolutely love it.

I have had this idea for a while now to find an old letterpress and restore it back to working condition.  I had been looking on Craigslist for about six months and had never came across a thing.  One Sunday morning I was snooping around on Craigslist and I found one!  I must have looked at the ad literally two minutes after he had posted it. I was the first one to call about the press.  An old farmer from Waupun, Wisconsin had bought it a few years back at a farmers’ auction with the intent of fixing it up.  He told me he was just too old to fix it up and wanted to sell it.

Long story short, my dad and I drove out to Waupun the next weekend to see the letterpress.  My dad is very mechanically inclined and can make ANYTHING run.  After looking at it we decided it would be able to be restored and I bought it!  Two weeks later, we hitched up the trailer, headed back to Waupun and brought it all the way back to my parent’s house.  It now sits in the lower third garage all ready to be fixed up.  All I have to say is thank god for tractors!  It is huge.  The flywheel alone is about 200 lbs!

Now the research begins.  I have joined an online letterpress community called Briar Press that I have found to be unbelievably helpful!  I have found a manual for a press very similar to mine, where to buy new ink rollers, what kind of sandblast to use and the number one bit of advise I have received is to KEEP MY HANDS OUT!  I guess this kind of press, called a platen press, is known for taking off fingers! Ouch!  I have even had several people invite me to their letterpress shops to show me around and teach me. 

The next few moths will be a lot of degreasing, sandblasting, ordering new rollers, ink and paper, going to letterpress museums, visiting shops and a whole lot of learning.  It will be a process, but one I am very excited about.  I have big plans for Tilly once my dad and I get her up and running.  I am sure I will be updating you often on our progress.   

Here are a few pictures.  The letterpress came with eight trays of lead type and a paper cutter.  I also included a couple of inspirational pictures of letterpress.  You’ll see why I love it so much.













Images 1-3: Sycamore Street Press, Images 4-6: Letterpress Delicacies, Images 7-8: Golden Rectangle Press

A Quote, A Video and What to Do With That Naked Wall

Hi everyone!  Sadly, it has been an entire week since I have posted anything.  When I first started this whole blogging thing, I had high hopes of putting up a post every day, except for on the weekends.  Now that work is back to being as crazy as ever and I have started my small business course and all the homework and reading that comes with it, I have not found it to be possible.  So, instead of a post every day, I will aim for two, maybe three times a week.

I am not planning on taking any courses this summer (summer is way to much fun to have class), so I will have more time to decorate, work on DIY projects, cook, AND blog about all of it!  I love summer!  Refinishing furniture is much easier when you can move it outside to the deck!

So, finally here is my post for this week!  It is kind of a combo of different things – A quote, a video and some room inspiration.  Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

A friend of mine wrote this quote and shared it with me this week.  I love it and believe every word of it.  It is now one of my favorite quotes!

Be the cake decorator, not the frosting.  You don't go far being still, just sweet, and decorative.  The longer you stay still, the more stiff you get. - Corrina Crade

I just added some visual flair! See below:

Here is a video that another one of my friends shared with me this week.  I think all of the stairs in the world should be like these.  Take a look and you will see what I mean.  And what a great concept, huh?  The fun theory.

And now a little inspiration on what to do with that naked wall.  I prefer the uncommon solution to the problem: cups, empty picture frames, colorful plates, framed shopping bags, etc.  There are endless possibilities.

Images: Image 1: Contented Me, Image 2: Elegance Redefined, Image 3: ?, Image 4: Furnishing My Home, Image 5: maedchenmitherz., Image 6: Martha Stewart, Image 7:Shelter Pop, Image 8: the style files, Images 9 & 10: You Are My Fave Jr.

EVERYONE needs a hobby!

My husband, Logan, and I are pretty much complete polar opposites. Some might think that is a bad thing, not me! Yes, it can have its challenges, but in the end we make a great team. We make up for what the other one lacks. That is how I look at it.

I will not list all of our differences because neither you nor I have the time it might take; I will name a few though. I have creativity coming out of my ears. I love out of the box (or shall I say blue) ideas and creating something beautiful and unique out of something worn out, boring, and ugly. I simply love to create. My husband, on the other hand, might not have a creative bone in his body. Although, when it comes to CRAZY organizational skills, some of the best people skills I have ever seen, and being an all around good person, he takes the cake. My life would pretty much be chaos without him. I also tend to get overly excited about things, where he is as laid back as they come. He needs a little energy (me) in his life and I need a little bit of organization (him) in mine. All in all, we seem to fit just right.

Our very different hobbies
Logan comes home from work the other night and says to me, “You know how you have all these projects you are working on, well I have one of own!” He then whipped out this:

It is his father’s model aircraft from the early 80s. I guess it has only been flown twice successfully and during the last attempt there was a bit of a mishap. It needs some work, but my husband is determined to fix it and learn how to fly it. From what we hear, it is pretty hard to fly.

I come home from work the next night and say to Logan, with my over-the-top excited voice, “I think I bought all of craigslist today!” The look on his face didn’t exactly reflect the same excitement I was feeling, to say the least.

So, the next night we headed out to Columbus, Wisconsin in the middle of a snow storm. His father lent us his giant SUV to pick up what was posted on Craigslist as, “white cupboards on wheels,” aka a PERFECT storage unit for my creative workspace in the basement! Yippee! Our next stop was on the east side of Madison where a man was clearing out his grandfather’s old workshop. To sweeten the deal and convince Logan it was a perfectly sane idea to drive an hour in the middle of a snowstorm, I did not forget to mention that the man had a whole bunch of metal shelving units that would be perfect for ORGANIZING the basement. (That word wins every time.)

I was like a kid in a candy store in that workshop. It was full of junk, junk, and more junk. The quote “One person’s junk is another person’s treasure” might sum it up. It was full of old vintage orange crates, metal baskets, old wooden doors, bookcases, storage units, antique metal filing cabinets, and the list goes on and on. So, we DID come home with a metal storage unit, but we also came home with this:



1.) An old makeup display case from an American Eagle store
2.) One side of an old wooded shipping crate
3.) An old pink metal bookcase
4.) A long wooden bookcase
5.) The side to an old wooden crib (strange, I know)
6.) Old wooden filing shelves that used to be in a post office years ago
7.) And, as a bonus, the guy threw in an old window washer squeegee thing….. HAHA!
(Logan thought that was pretty cool!)

As we packed everything in the back of the SUV and tied the shelving unit to the roof rack, Logan asks, “what are you seriously going to do with all this junk!?!” I replied, “No worries, Hun. I will make it all beautiful!” That comment was closely followed by a semi-sincere promise not to look at craigslist for another 3 months. (Shhhhh!)

What I am trying to say is that I might not care about airplanes and he might not care about refinishing old furniture, but we both realize that making something work again or making something your own, can make a person really happy. So I encourage all of you to find the DIY project that works for you. I believe everyone needs a hobby, an escape from the every day grind of life.

I will keep you updated as to when my husband’s DIY project takes flight and my many transformations of trash to treasures!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I plan on making my favorite white bean chicken chili and corn bread this weekend, so look for the recipes on Monday!