Alone with the Press

After taking last week off for feasting, I was back at WNYBAC today and therefore am back online.
It started out with the usual, getting some online orders ready to ship. I did not have to do the post office run today because one of the outgoing packages was 40+ pounds of leads and slugs. Needless to say that would be difficult to walk with (in addition to other packages), so Rick brought them down in the car.
While he was away, I got to play... but not for very long. For those of you who don't know, Buffalo has it's own ball drop for New Year's at the electric tower. The electric tower is only a block away from WNYBAC, so the upstairs Literary Center has an excellent and exclusive view. Capitalizing on this, WNYBAC hosts a New Year's Party as a fundraiser. Providing those who buy tickets with food, drinks, music and a nice, WARM view of the ball drop. Rich letterpress prints the invitations to the event. He purchased special stamps of the electric tower and some fireworks to use for the cover and to make posters with. There is a lot of work to be done on these, and while he was out I was manning the letterpress machine alone (!!!) to put down the first plate (blue fireworks). I will say that the stamp was already in place and the machine inked when I took over. But still... I printed at least 50 sheets.
Then I worked on a list of consignment sales. WNYBAC does some consignment in the shop (my books are there!), and pays out on sales quarterly. Being a not-for-profit, WNYBAC needs to keep a record over all money they bring in. Jessica does this using an Excel spreadsheet, which records the date, item sold, price and consignment number when applicable. I used this spreadsheet to compile a list of sales for each consignment number, which Jessica will then use to calculate the money owed and send out checks. In doing this I noticed that we sell Amos Kennedy's prints on consignment. That is pretty cool.
The rest of the day was spent helping to clean up in the studio for a school tour tomorrow, filing invoices, and teaching Jessica how to long stitch. A good day I think.