What’s going to be hot in the letterpress wedding invitation world for 2009? Well, we looked into our crystal letterpresses and our first prediction is…

Edge painting. What is it? Originally reserved for the finest hand-bound books, edge painting has a rich history in the letterpress world. For centuries, master book binders would gild the edges of books with gold–or paint an actual illustration on the edge of the book’s pages–to show just how precious a particular book was. We’ve put a modern spin on this practice by hand painting the edge of our invitations with our Bella inks. You’ll see the color on the outside edge of the piece, but not on the front or back of the paper. Because the cotton paper we print on is so thick, edge painting can be a great way to highlight a color in your invitation set,or add an entirely new ink. (read more about edge painting wedding invitations here)

designs pictured below, starting in the upper right, going clockwise // Avant with cardinal edging // Festoon with pool edging // Urbanity with silver edging // Irving with fuchsia edging // New Calligraphy with cardinal edging // Birds with navy edging