It’s not every day that I have to wear earplugs and safety goggles to work, dodge forklifts and adult-sized tricycles loaded with magazines, or walk 1.8 million square feet to get around the entire building. Last Thursday, however, was one of those days because I had the opportunity to tour the Quad/Graphics plant responsible for printing Bead&Button and BeadStyle, among other Kalmbach magazines.

In fact, I was lucky enough to be walking through the pressroom at the exact time that the June issue of Bead&Button was being printed. The pages were printed in spreads (two pages that face each other), then whisked away on conveyor belts that soared high above my head. Machines stacked the spreads, placed the stacks on skids, shrink-wrapped the skids, and stowed them in a library-like holding area so tall I couldn’t see the top of it. Later, more machines will retrieve the skids when it’s time to collate the spreads into your magazines.

But what I found most amusing was seeing the insertion of “blow-ins.” Blow-ins are those subscription or promotional cards that come in most magazines. Though you might find these cards an annoyance, have you ever thought about how they get into your magazines? They’re actually blown in between the pages by a machine (hence the name “blow-in”) where they are held in place, at least temporarily, by a static charge. Pretty ingenious!