Letterpress Labels with blue border (40 pcs.)

Elegantly framed labels created using classic letterpress printing: Classiky, from the Japanese town of Kurashiki, designs these cards with a delicate blue frame that is deeply impressed into the paper through the relief printing process using zinc plates. The result is a surface you can feel – a subtle embossing that your fingertips will notice when you run them across it. The labels come loose in a pad with no adhesive layer, and can be written on with a stamp, fountain pen or fine-liner.

Features

• Letterpress printing with zinc plates: The frame is not printed on but pressed into the paper. The characteristic embossing creates a tactile texture and ensures that each label bears minimal individual printing marks – no two pieces are identical.
• No self-adhesive layer: The labels are unlaminated and have no sticky coating. This makes them versatile: they can be attached with a glue stick, washi tape or paper glue, or simply used as loose note cards or reminder tags.
• Delicate blue frame: The frame colour is a calm, desaturated blue – subtle enough to harmonise with almost any ink, distinctive enough to give the label structure.
• Writable with fountain pen, fine-liner and stamp: The paper accepts ink cleanly and works equally well for neat handwriting and stamp impressions. Fountain pen ink dries quickly on the slightly absorbent surface and doesn't feather.
• Compact format: 47 × 98 mm – narrow and long enough for labelling notebooks, jars, envelopes or index tabs, but also usable as a note slip or miniature card.
• Made in Japan: Classiky, based in Kurashiki since 1982, produces in collaboration with small Japanese craft businesses.

Use & Tips

• Label notebooks and folders: The elongated format fits perfectly on book spines, index tabs and archive folders. When written on with a fountain pen and fixed with a glue stick, the result is a calm, elegant label.
• Journalling and scrapbooking: The labels work well as page elements in bullet journals or planner layouts – as text boxes, date fields or decorative frame elements with your own text.
• Gift wrapping and snail mail: As an address field, greeting slip or sender's mark on letters and parcels, they give your mail a handcrafted quality.
• Stamp combinations: The open space inside the blue frame invites decoration with small motif stamps – floral designs, monograms or simple text stamps work beautifully.
• Dampen and attach (as with related Classiky series): Alternatively, you can dampen the labels on the reverse with a water brush and attach them to paper without additional glue – depending on the paper type of the base, a quick test is recommended.

For Letterpress Enthusiasts

The Classiky letterpress process uses a zinc plate that is pressed into the paper under pressure. This technique differs from offset printing in that the ink doesn't just sit on the surface but, together with the embossing, creates a physical relief. Because the pressure varies slightly from sheet to sheet, each label has a slightly unique printing character – this isn't a flaw but a feature of the process. The paper is uncoated and slightly absorbent, which makes the feel soft and pleasant; with very wet ink, however, there may be minimal feathering. Those who write with the finest nib fountain pens will find this surface provides a relaxed, grippy writing base.

Technical Specifications