about penelope’s press

hello there!  i am debbie lee, the proprietress of penelope’s press and you have stumbled upon my little place on the web, where you will find letterpress musings of a mompreneur.

penelope’s press is a teeny, tiny outfit nestled in a small illinois suburb just southwest of chicago.  i am a wife, mother to 3, and press owner of 5: “penelope” – my first press, a craftsmen superior, “blanche” – a 1903 old style chandler and price, “sophia” – a 1912 new style chandler and price, “rose” – a 1910 potter proof press, and “quinn” – a model 1 improved.

my love affair with paper started when i was a pee wee, “borrowing” stationery from my sister’s stash and buying and collecting yet never using sanrio stationery.  during middle school, i became enamored with photos and memorabilia and started to document my family vacations and fond school years – little did i know that i was scrapbooking.  as i grew older, the obsession grew to include fine tip pens and rubber stamps.  post college, my collection of paper goodness had grown and i vowed to never again purchase a card from a big box retailer and instead hand craft my own.  then one day, when i least expected it, i was re-introduced to letterpress and my lofty dreams of owning my own creative business slowly, but surely came into fruition.

so there you have it – penelope’s press – pretty, playful, paper products lovingly hand fed through vintage printing presses in my humble garage shop and assembled on my all purpose kitchen table from midwest suburbia.

thanks for visiting!

{side note: do you wonder why i named my first press and my business name “penelope”? my husband and i decided that if we were to have a third child and the baby was to be a little girl that we would name her penelope. after two kids, we had our hands FULL and put baby making on the back burner. i purchased my first press and naturally i named her “penelope” thinking we weren’t planning anymore children. soon after the birth of my business, we decided to expand our family and a few months later a baby girl was born. it felt strange to name the baby penelope, so instead… we named her kendall.}