prints for the bride to be

Katie Baker, bride to be, standing with the framed prints made at her bridal shower.

Have you ever been to a bridal shower? I have. Many of them. Long ago, I was even the"bride" and the recipient of the shower. Showers usually have these same elements: cake, flowers, gifts, laughter, chatting, and games.

Today I hosted a bridal shower for a dear friend and lovely young woman, Katie Baker. I was excited to give the shower. Excited for the bride to get the gifts and connect with friends. I just could not face doing games, but I wanted the guests to participate in something fun together.

We made prints!

Sixteen women in my studio and we had a blast! The studio was ready with four printing stations, four aprons, plenty of rubber gloves, paints, brayers, stencils, textures, and paper. After my demo, the everyone participated in making a print. After they dried, people signed their prints.

Those who weren't printing watched the others, or gave advice, or handed them paper towels or other items. From the comments after the printmaking, people had a lot of fun. And no one had ever done such a thing at a shower.

As we left the studio, to get back to cake and presents, Katie and her sister, Courtney, commented to me, "This is like an illustrated guest list of who came to the shower!"

We framed the prints in small shadow box frames I found locally. With four of us working, it took only 30 minutes to frame all of them. Katie is already talking about hanging some on walls, but standing others on shelves and counters.

It was a unique kind of shower. One I would love to do again!

"Isn't She Lovely" Victor Wooten.