Kickstarter

Stamped Books is a small press that makes handmade chapbooks and "tiny" books. Every book is created with two hands. Hand stamped, binded by hand, folded by hand. This adds a personal touch to the process. So far, we have made/ are in process of making three chapbooks. But we want to make our fourth chapbook EVEN MORE HANDS ON! SAY WHAT?

We would like to purchase a table top press and create letterpress covers. We are asking you to help us do that. We have taken classes on how to operate letterpress machines, we've found a Letterpress fair where we can purchase all of our equipment, and we believe that Lacy Cunningham's chapbook, The Hospital Papers, is the perfect book to start making letterpress covers.

Because everything at Stamped Books is about hands-on creation, we want to eliminate as much as we can from our production that ISN'T hands on. Right now we print our covers on standard printers. Being able to letterpress our covers means a more creative, beautiful, distinct item for those that purchase or aquire our books.

The LA Printers Fair is being held at the International Printing Museum on Oct 1st, 2011 in Carson, CA. Gina Caciolo and Aaron Guldin, of Stamped Books, attended a letterpress class at the International Printing Museum, and had a chance to talk with the people who work there about purchasing equipment. They were able to direct us to a few websites so we could figure out about how much we needed to raise to purchase the equipment, and because we want to support the museum, we will be purchasing all the equipment we can through them.

There are many intricate pieces of equipment we will need to purchase to be able to run our table top press. This list includes, but is not limited to: a 6x8 table top press, a "lollipop," photo polymer plates, a magnetic base for the plates, quoins, furniture, tempen, rubber based ink, gauge pins, painters tape, paint thinner, and acetone.  

As people donate to our cause, we will announce updates for our backers that will include information, such as: a poem from The Hospital Papers, the design of the cover, the design of the prints that our larger donors receive, and pictures of our currents books.

If we are able to exceed our goals, the extra money will go towards purchasing paper for the book, ink, and new rollers for the table top press. The paper is the most important part. We will be able to purchase quality paper and we will be able to make additional copies. We would like to make an edition of 250. If we exceed our goals, it is possible we could make 300, or even more.

We would like to thank everyone in advance who helps us by backing our project, and let's get letterpressing!