HOME · NEWSLETTER · MOUNTAINCOW MONTHLY NEWSLETTER (APRIL 2004)

An honorable brunch
Sundays are meant for brunches, especially if it’s a certain one in May when it’s time to honor Mom. Turn bagels into a special occasion by sending printed invitations to the whole fam.

Turn to Mountaincow’s new line of colors stationery to bring color to the party. Each pack pairs a flat note card with a bold, coordinating colored envelope. Make the text and graphics on the flat card the same color as the envelope and no one will believe you made the invitations yourself!

To make your mom’s name– or all the moms in your life – stand out on the invitation, use a special font. Mixing a script-y font with block-like letters can create a nice contrast, and add more meaning to the guests of honor at the same time.

Platinum users can create an invitation with justified text over an image. We lightened an image of a calla lily by making it slightly transparent and placed it on the soft pink card of the flamingo stationery. This makes a perfect background for an invitation because the image doesn’t compete with the text.

Both colors of stationery are available in menus and place cards. To add them to your party, import the image you used on the invitation to the top of the menu and type below. Platinum users can add the calla lily image to the place card. This is a terrific way to make a restaurant meal feel more home-y.

Say Congratulations
New baby, new home, new business – whatever the celebration, sharing your wishes helps extend the happy times just that much longer. Baby books are stuffed with congrats cards, offices are decorated with good luck tributes, and engagement cards are a wonderful keepsake. You don’t have to wait for the next trip to the card store to commemorate the occasion. Have these templates on hand and you’ll always be prepared for any occasion.

Using a 8.5 x 5.5 folded note, import an appropriate graphic for the occasion on the front of the card. Below, type a greeting, but save your personal message to be handwritten on the inside. For the engagement card, we used a blue hydrangea with matching blue text in Sky Pie. The new baby uses a gender-neutral moss green rattle with Beckles text. We used the red door graphic for the new home card with Jackson Wide font. A standard congratulations card, great to have on hand for your friend who quit smoking, finally potty trained her 2 year old, or anything else you can’t find the right store-bought card for, features a happy orange gerber daisy with Beckles Wide text. All the A2 envelopes use the same font and color text as the coordinating card.

Cupcakes for sale
Fundraisers are a lot of work. Whether it’s coordinating, organizing, publicizing, or… melting marshmallows for krispy treats, there are a lot of details to keep in mind. Creating appealing signs for a bake sale – or even a garage sale or car wash – could make all the difference. Use these adorable tent signs as inspiration for whatever fundraiser is on your agenda.

Using a 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 folded piece of card stock, we imported a graphic of the baked good with the price. Besides being adorable, the signs are clear and easy to read so customers will do less asking and more spending.

PrintingPress Platinum sample
(click photo to enlarge)

PrintingPress sample
(click photo to enlarge)

Downloading a new font from the Internet
There are many websites on the Internet where you can purchase and download fonts. Many websites also offer free fonts. Each font site will have instructions on how to download and install their fonts. In general, you want to choose the TrueType version of the font.

Click on the font file to begin the download and click Save to save it to a location on your computer like My Computer, Local Disk C:\. Then go to the font file you just saved. It may be in a compressed format using WinZip -- you can tell because the font file’s extension will be .zip. You will need to uncompress the font file in order to continue. Try double-clicking the zip file and see if it lets you choose to extract the original. If it says the file is unknown, you may need to add WinZip to your computer. You can download an evaluation copy of WinZip from www.winzip.com. Download and install WinZip and then try extracting the font file again. Extract it to the same location, My Computer, Local Disk C:\.

Once you extract the font file, or if it is uncompressed to begin with, it will have a .ttf extension for a TrueType font. Click on the font file you want Next click the Windows Start menu and choose Settings, Control Panel, Fonts to open the Fonts folder. Click on the File menu and choose Install New Font. Click on the folder C:\ in the bottom-left of the install new font window and you will see your new font appear as a selection choice in the top-left of the window. Click on your new font and click OK and it will install. Repeat this procedure for as many new fonts as you wish to add.

To see the new font in PrintingPress, click in a card and select some text and click on the Font selector in the toolbar and scroll to the new font’s name and click on it. The fonts are arranged alphabetically in the list and they preview what they actually will look like. On some versions of Windows you may need to Exit PrintingPress and run it again to see the new fonts you added.

FLAX Art & Design
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, please visit us at FLAX Art & Design to learn how to make eye-catching shower invitations, original save the date cards, personalized stationery and other invitations on your PC using PrintingPress software and fabulous stationery from Flax.

April 24 & 25
1 - 4 pm
Flax Art & Design
1699 Market St
San Francisco
415.552.2355