Letterpress: Mood Greeting Cards

When I was a little kid, I used to make some greeting cards by drawing faces on thumbprints. I would stamp my thumb using all different colors, then go back over the circle and added smiles and sad faces to it. I think the original idea came from one of my Mom’s scrapbooking magazines in the 90s.

The idea came up when driving around with my Mom in the car. So the next time I ordered some polymer, I added a little circle to the order and paired it with the word mood. A lot of cards I made when I first started printing allowed people to custom it, “Word Search” cards and “Circle the Birthday” cards, so this was a nice new addition.

I had to print it over the course of two days for the two colors. The first one I ran was the grey while the ink was already on the press. Then, I came back in the next day and ran the yellow circle. I couldn’t resist testing it out while I was printing on some scrap cards. I used it already to send a birthday card to a girlfriend with a little party hat on a smiley face. Too cute.

I thought these would be a fun, anytime card that people could keep on hand and custom for an event. And now that we have emojis to inspire us, it’d be fun to just plug one into the yellow circle. Grab a card in my Etsy shop and custom your own mood today!