Feeling jolly? Check out our PrintingPress Platinum 6.0 design. A whimsical winter hat sits atop the letter “S” in the phrase “Go ahead… Let it Snow!” at the top of a Natural Cotton A7 card. We added the hat in two pieces so that the back ear flap can be seen behind the letter “S.” We used a floating text box to nestle the words “Go ahead… Let it” in between the “S” and the “!” in “Snow!” All of the text was typed using the Palatino Linotype font in a combination of red, blue and grey. We lined the Deep Red envelopes in Powder Blue and added a black version of the winter hat alongside the return address on the bottom of the back of the envelope. The hat makes its final appearance on coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps.

Our PrintingPress Extreme 6.0 design has a modern, urban feel. We started by filling the background of a Natural Cotton A7 card with a new striped circles (white on black) pattern. Next, we used the Colorize tool to change the pattern to saffron. We centered the pattern on the card using the Margin settings on the Background palette. For details on this technique, see this month’s Extreme Tip. Next, we used a floating text box to add the holiday message to the card. We set the text box’s background color to dark grey and added the text in white using the Trebuchet font that is included with Windows. We made a few of the words saffron for a fun twist and placed the text box along the right edge of the card. Since the pattern runs all the way to the edge of the card, we used our printer’s borderless printing feature. We lined the Pewter envelopes in Metallic Saffron for a splash of elegance and added coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps.

Picture this
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and we agree. Photo holiday cards let you share a beautiful moment with all of your family and friends. Whether you planned ahead and snapped pics of your family in Santa hats at the beach, or you just grabbed a fabulous candid from vacation, it’s a great way to show off your gorgeous family. All of the designs in this section were printed onto our Photo Cards for fabulous photo quality. And since our Photo Cards are printable on both sides of the card, we’ve included a folded design that doesn’t include a company’s logo printed along the back of the card.

Our PrintingPress Platinum 6.0 design with its beachy theme will bring the warm breeze of summer to your holiday season. We started by adding a background image of light blue and white stripes to an A7 Photo Card. Next, we added a photograph as a floating image, floated it behind the main text area of the card and converted the photo to grayscale. We used the Palatino Linotype font to add the words “HAPPY HOLIDAYS” in blue and white in the bottom left corner of the photograph. We typed the rest of the greeting in grey using all uppercase letters and added the family name in a larger point size using all lowercase letters. Since the photo and background go all the way to the edge of the card, we used our printer’s borderless printing feature. We created coordinating Custom Envelope Liners in grey and white stripes for the Powder Blue envelopes and added a 0.02 inch custom border around the return address. We placed the return address at the bottom of the back of the envelope and added coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps featuring the photo from the card.

In the mood for something bold? Try our PrintingPress Extreme 6.0 design. We started by filling the background of an A7 Photo Card with a black & white zig zag pattern. We added a 1.25 inch green custom border to the card with the Border Shape  set to Line (Bottom) and the Margin Top set to 0.75 inches to allow some of the background pattern to show through below the border. Next, we added a photograph as a floating image and added a green custom border with the outline set to 11 pts and the Line Type set to Double Line. We used a floating text box to add a holiday greeting above the photograph. We added a 5 pt green custom border to the text box and set the Border Shape to Notched Rectangle (Landscape). We typed the words “happy holidays 2011” in black and green using the Palatino Linotype font. We used the Indent Text Left control in the Paragraph palette to nudge the word “happy” just enough to the left so that the letters do not overlap. We typed “the harrison family” into the main text area and set the vertical alignment to Align Text Bottom. We typed the names of the family members in all caps on the next line and set the horizontal alignment to Justify Text. Then we used the Indent Text Right control in the Paragraph palette to nudge the names to the right to avoid overlapping the “y” in “family.” For tips on nudging text, see the Extreme Tip from the May 2009 issue. Since the pattern and photo run to the edge of the card, we used our printer’s borderless printing feature. To complete the look, we created coordinating Custom Envelope Liners and Custom Image StationeryStamps for the Clover envelopes.

The center of attention
PrintingPress Extreme 6.0 makes it easy to fill the background of your stationery with a pattern. Once you create your custom background and fill it with your pattern, you can adjust the placement of the pattern using the Margin Top and Margin Left controls in the background palette in the Design palette group.

The trick is to enter negative values for the margins to shift the pattern. In the example below, you can see the placement of the pattern when we first added it to the holiday card. You can see that the pattern is placed such that there is a white line along the left edge of the card, but the right edge has pieces of the circles.

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We clicked in the Margin Top field and used the wheel on our mouse to decrease the margin until the pattern looked centered vertically.

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Next, we clicked in the Margin Left field and used the wheel on our mouse to decrease the margin until the pattern looked centered horizontally.

(click to enlarge)

Check out tips on downloading projects, borderless printing and more in our Newsletter Notes section.

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