Mountaincow Monthly (December 2006)

HOME · MOUNTAINCOW MONTHLY NEWSLETTER (DECEMBER 2006) The holiday season is in full swing and we’ve been busy little elves here at Mountaincow creating festive designs to get you through until the New Year. Did the stork drop an extra present into Santa’s sleigh for you? We’ve got adorable birth announcement designs for holiday bundles of joy. Our Extreme New Year’s Eve party design will make you want to host a bash of your own to ring in 2007. Throwing a last-minute holiday party? Our stylish invitation designs will have everyone knocking at your door. And for all the couples cozying up by the fire and deciding to tie the knot, we’ve designed beautiful save the date cards to help you and your hundred busiest friends and relatives block out a weekend for your special day. To help your holiday dollars go a bit farther, Mountaincow is offering FREE SHIPPING on orders over $100. Just enter the coupon code HOLIDAY2006 during checkout.*

Jingle Babies With all the chaos of the holiday season, designing birth announcements may seem like the straw that broke the camel’s back. All you new holiday parents out there are busy enough without having to face shopping malls packed to the rafters with hectic shoppers. So we created several new birth announcement designs to make sure your holiday baby is announced beautifully, all from the comfort of your own home thanks to mountaincow.com. Our PrintingPress design embraces the holiday theme with a whimsical image of a baby wearing a Santa hat printed on a flat Scalloped White A2 card. We added the text “Santa left us a bundle of joy under the tree” and the baby’s name and details in the Charlotte font from Fonts & Graphics 3. We printed the baby’s name in red and paired it with a Deep Red envelope. We created matching thank you notes with the baby’s full name on Scalloped White A2 folded notes. If you seek a bolder look, you’ll go loopy for our Platinum design. We used our printer’s borderless printing feature to print the border all the way to the edge of the flat White 4-Bar card. We used all lowercase letters to add the baby’s name and information in the Charlotte font from Fonts & Graphics 3. Tuck the announcement into a coordinating Twilight 4-bar envelope and it’s ready to send. The matching White 4-bar folded thank you notes also use Twilight 4-bar envelopes. Our PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 design creates a strikingly elegant look with a patterned background. We added a Solid fill background using our new chrysanthemum (brown & pink) pattern. We set the background’s margins to zero so that we could use our printer’s borderless printing feature to print all the way to the edge of the flat White 4-bar card. You could also use an A7 card if you prefer a larger announcement. For more information on borderless printing, review the Tech Tip from the November 2004 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly. We added the baby’s name in pink using the Noodles font from Fonts & Graphics 3 and the details in brown in Times New Roman in a floating text box with a custom dotted line border in the same pinks used in the flowers in the background pattern. We used a shape to make the text box appear to be semi-transparent and allow the background to partially show through the text box. For more information on transparency and text boxes, refer to this month’s Extreme Tip. Pair with a Chocolate 4-bar envelope lined in Deep Pink and you’re set. We created coordinating thank you notes using the same background and semi-transparent text using White 4-bar folded note cards.		PrintingPress sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Platinum sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 sample (click to enlarge)
PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 sample (click to enlarge)	For auld lang syne It’s hard to believe that 2006 is nearly over, but the holiday decorations everywhere are a big clue that it’s time to get a new calendar. If you’re planning to have some friends over to help you ring in the New Year, we have an Extreme invitation to make sure everyone has their noisemaker ready. Using PrintingPress Extreme 4.0’s new text stretching tools, we filled the background of a flat White A7 card with the text “2007.” A floating text box with its horizontal alignment set to Stretch Justify and its vertical alignment set to Vertical Stretch Justify stretched the numbers to fill the entire background of the card. We added a green Solid fill background to the card with the margins set to zero so that we could print all the way to the edge of the card using our printer’s borderless printing feature. For more information on borderless printing, review the Tech Tip from the November 2004 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly. We set the vertical spacing of the card’s main text area to Align Middle and added the party information in brown using both the Alyssa Afternoon font from Fonts and Graphics for Weddings and the Benjamin font from Fonts and Graphics 2. We used the Increase Horizontal Spacing button in the Line Spacing toolbar to spread out the characters written in the Benjamin font. Pair the card with a Chocolate A7 envelope lined in Avocado and you’re ready to party.
Ho...Ho...Holiday Party If you find yourself caught up in the Yuletide cheer and you want to throw a holiday cocktail soirée, we’ll help you bring the festivities to your door with these great new invitation designs. Our PrintingPress design will set the holiday mood with a pair of Christmas cocktails atop a flat White A6 card. A green cocktail adorned with a candy cane stands beside a red martini with a Christmas tree swizzle stick. We typed the party details in both red and black using the Meegles font from Fonts and Graphics 3. We added crossed candy canes above the R.s.v.p. for a festive touch. Slip the invitation into a Clover A6 envelope and pop it into the mail. For a groovy, retro look, try our Platinum design. We added a background image in red, pink and teal with holiday ornaments dangling across the card. We used our printer’s borderless printing feature to print on a flat White A7 card. For more information on borderless printing, review the Tech Tip from the November 2004 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly. The party details are added in floating text boxes so that each ornament contains a snippet of information. We used the Beckles font and set the text color to off-white using RGB(254, 254, 254) so that the text won’t disappear when the text box’s Make White Transparent setting is enabled. Pair with Deep Red A7 envelopes. Our PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 design uses elegant Envelopments® Metallic card stock. We printed the traditional design on an Envelopments custom cut 4 5/8 x 6 5/8 inch Metallic Diamond card stock and mounted it onto an Envelopments 5x7 Metallic Bronze card stock. We used the Alyssa and Benjamin Caps fonts from Fonts and Graphics for Weddings to add the party details to the Diamond card. We set the size of the first letter “P” to 96 so that it is much larger than the rest of the text. We used PrintingPress Extreme 4.0’s Move Line tools to nudge the second line of script text up and to the right. We used the Increase Horizontal Spacing button in the Line Spacing toolbar to spread out the characters written in the Benjamin font. We then added a decorative flourish to the bottom of the card to complete the elegant look. Paired with an Envelopments 5x7 Metallic Champagnium envelope, your completed invitation will set the stage for a sophisticated evening.		PrintingPress sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Platinum sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 sample (click to enlarge)
PrintingPress sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Platinum sample (click to enlarge) PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 sample (click to enlarge)		An engaging time of year The holidays are full of eggnog, presents, and cozy nights beside the fire. With all that time snuggling under the mistletoe, many of you will have happy news to share with the New Year. Our save the date designs make it easy for you to spread the good news. In the mood for modern elegance? Our PrintingPress design uses Envelopments® stationery to create a sophisticated, layered look. We used our printer’s borderless printing feature to print all the way to the edge of an Envelopments custom cut 4 x 4 inch Classic White card stock by selecting 4x6 as the printer’s photo size. We added the words “Save the Date” at the top of the card in 79 point pink text using the Alyssa font from Fonts and Graphics for Weddings. We adjusted the paragraph spacing to decrease the vertical spacing between the lines. We then added the couple’s names and wedding info in black using the Benjamin font from Fonts and Graphics 3. We separated the couple’s names with a pink ampersand using the Alyssa font. We adhered the Classic White card stock to an Envelopments custom cut 4¾x4¾ Black Linen card stock. We mounted the pair onto an Envelopments 5x5 Metallic Tourmaline card stock, which we then mounted to a 5x5 Envelopments Black Linen Envelopment. We used a double-stick tape gun for quick and easy layering, with our new acid free double-sided tape to create a long-lasting keepsake. Fold the Envelopment closed and slip it into an Envelopments 5x5 Metallic Tourmaline envelope. Many of the pieces used in this project are available in our new Envelopments® Shapes and Sizes Sample Pack. For a traditional, romantic look, try our Platinum design. We added a background image with white cherry blossoms atop a green backdrop to a flat White A2 card. We added the text in white using the Benjamin font from Fonts and Graphics 2 to “block” the background from printing where the letters are, and let the White card show through. We adjusted the paragraph spacing to increase the vertical spacing between the lines. Mail in a Chocolate A2 envelope lined in Avocado. Our Extreme design is perfect for couples betrothed beneath the mistletoe. We added an image of mistletoe to the top of a flat White A2 card and used two floating text boxes to wind the text “David gave Monica something special under the mistletoe this year...” from the end of the mistletoe around a diamond engagement ring. We added the text “Save the Date” in green using the Alyssa font from Fonts and Graphics for Weddings at the top of the card, and the wedding date in the Benjamin font from Fonts and Graphics 2 beneath it. Pair with a Clover A2 envelope and spread the word.
Transparent tricks PrintingPress Extreme allows you to adjust the opacity of a floating text box. The setting applies to all aspects of the text box: the text, the background and the border. For the effect created in this month’s Extreme birth announcement, we wanted the background of the text box to be transparent, but we wanted the border and text to remain opaque. So setting the text box’s Opacity just wouldn’t do the trick. The solution? PrintingPress Extreme 4.0’s new shape tool. We created a floating text box with a transparent white background to add the text and the border to the card. Then we created a shape object and made it the same size as the floating text box. We set the shape’s Fill color to white and turned off the Make White Transparent setting. Then we changed the Opacity setting on the Adjust tab to 85%. We layered the shape behind the text box to create a semi-transparent background for the text box and then aligned both to the center of the card. *Offer valid on orders placed on www.mountaincow.com by December 31, 2006, at 11:59 p.m., ET. No price adjustments on previous purchases. Offer is not transferable. Cannot be combined with any other offers. Offer not valid on purchases of gift certificates. Offer valid in the continental U.S. and Canada only.