I spent this past week in Asheville, North Carolina, with my wife on vacation. It was a relaxing time filled with eating, exploring, hiking and shopping. Asheville has an eclectic collection of stores and shops, and one of the places we visited was a letterpress shop in the west end of Asheville.
I assume many of my readers find a letterpress store just as interesting as I do, so I thought I’d share a few pictures of the merchandise I obtained. And I really do mean a few because I only bought four things!
The name of the shop is Blue Barnhouse, which they whimsically recount on their business card (shown below). It’s a small place in a nondescript row of early mid-century brick buildings on the west side of Asheville (right off Exit 2 on I-240 if you’re ever in the area). The store had several different presses visible in the front when you entered. Unfortunately I’m not knowledgeable enough to identify them, but one was operated by a foot pedal.
I picked up two small stacks of blank paper—one stack the size of standard business cards and the other resembled the size of Moo MiniCards. A picture of the two is below.
The last two things I purchased were a coffee-themed coaster and a small poster that was supposed to be a card. I got one that was “hot off the press” as they say and hadn’t yet been folded and paired with an envelope. Both of these are shown below.
It was a really neat store and I felt very privileged to find something like it. Now all I need to do is go visit the letterpress shop we have here in Louisville that isn’t 350 miles away!
Commentary
Beautifully corporeal. That would be a fun visit.
Yeah, I got a little too carried away actually and touched some things that weren’t finished drying. Luckily nothing was damaged.
I liked the Blue Barnhouse business card.
Btw, I like your site. 5/5
Found your site @ cssvault.com
Must say it look quite simple and elegant. Cheers mate.
Thank you both!
Cool stuff. I need to check out the local letterpress also!
So will you actually print on blank paper or just use them for notes?
I’d like to do something along the lines of printing on them. Maybe a stamp or sketches. The larger ones are pretty thick so I feel the need to do something really important with them.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hey ya’ll,
Thanks for all the kind comments, and Dave, glad you enjoyed yourself while perusing our shop.
We have actually updated our storefront with a shyte-ton of merch. from a range of other letterpress studios that we met while at the National Stationery Show in NYC this past May.
We are cranking out new designs every day, so be sure to check our our whole catalog online as well, http://www.bluebarnhousestore.org
And like all you net-addicts out there, we also have a myspace page complete with a new blog, so be sure to check that out if you get REALLY bored.
Come’n see us soon!
Mike and the kids @ BBH.
Blue Barnhouse: Thanks for visiting! Moxie Letterpress spoke highly of your work as well.