HOME · NEWSLETTER · MOUNTAINCOW MONTHLY NEWSLETTER (JUNE 2004)

Let freedom ring in the fun
Celebrate Independence Day this year with a blow-out barbecue. Plan the party around local fireworks so when the grilling is done you can take the troops – and blankets – to watch. There’s no better finale!

For a precise count on who’s coming and what your guests prefer to eat from the grill, design an invitation with a tear-off response card your guests can send back as a postcard.

The size of the card is 5 x 10.5 with a horizontal fold 7 inches from the top. When folded, the 5x7 invitation fits perfectly into an A7 envelope.
Instead of just folding the reply card, however, we used a rotary cutter with a perforating blade purchased from an office supply store to create the 3.5 x 5 tear-off post card. Use the outside back for your address and don’t forget

to add a postcard stamp so your guests can easily reply.

All the graphics on this invitation are from the new Fonts & Graphics 2 collection. The invitation uses the fireworks and firecracker. A hamburger and an eggplant are used on the response card as a way for guests to indicate if they are a carnivore or herbivore.

PrintingPress Platinum sample
(click photo to enlarge)

PrintingPress sample
(click photo to enlarge)

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda
You’ve sewn their names in their underwear and marked each sock. Bug spray, check. Flashlight, check. Stationery and stamps, check. But just because you’ve packed it doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to receive detailed letters from your kids. PrintingPress has a way to ensure you receive at least a few great letters from camp.

Start with stationery you already have or use our camp project to create custom stationery, then pre-print and stamp the envelopes with your name and address. (Maybe stick Grandma’s address on a couple, too.) Create a reply envelope with your name in the reply field and your child’s name and camp address in the return field.

We used our Platinum sample to add incentive to those letter writers: include a care package coupon as part of the stationery. For each letter your child writes, return a package with treats from home.

Pack them between the Kool-Aid and the canteen money and you kids will be sure to find it.

Dad's Day Afternoon
Show the fathers in your family lots of love by giving them a well-deserved day off. Invite friends over for outdoor fun and food with a one-of-a-kind invitation. Commission your budding Picassos for a drawing and scan the artwork to your computer. Ask your kids to make self-portraits, or have them draw Daddy doing what he does best. And, of course, if your artist insists on just drawing hearts, that's ok, too. Import the art to the invitation and add the details. Hang the original masterpiece on the front door the day of the party.

Platinum users can add a picture frame to the artwork by adding an image border to the drawing.

(click photo to enlarge)

For an important event like a wedding, choosing thick card stock and heavy envelopes adds an extra elegance to the invitation. We recommend at least 80# cover stock, or, if your printer can handle it, try 110# cover stock for the cards. Get a few to test before buying everything for the wedding. Feel the envelopes before you buy them to make sure they are as lush as the paper you choose.

All of the pieces of the wedding invitation use the Beckles font and the fern image. This creates a continuity within the invitation that can then be carried out at the wedding itself through place cards and menus, even centerpieces.

The main invitation card is trimmed to a quarter-inch smaller than the inner envelope. The fern image was imported and scaled down from its original size. The invitation is uses traditional wording, with the bride’s parents hosting. For more options and help with wording your wedding invitation, see our Wedding Invitation Wording Guide.

How do I use my new Fonts & Graphics 2 and Decorative Letters & Numbers CDs?
Windows users:
Insert the CD and install. Decorative Letters and Numbers takes up a lot of disk space, so you may choose to only install the fonts only, and insert the letters and number directly from the CD as needed. Once installation is complete, the fonts should appear automatically in the font selection menu in the PrintingPress toolbar.

To use the new graphics and borders, first check what version of PrintingPress ot Platinum you have. Choose About PrintingPress in the Help menu and look at the version number in the top-left corner of the window. If it says 2.0, follow the instructions below. If it says 2.1, your new graphics and borders are automatically integrated into the Insert Image and Add Stationery Border windows.

PrintingPress or Platinum 2.0 users should click in a card and choose Insert Image from the Image menu. Then click Browse and it should open to the My Documents folder. In that folder should be a shortcut to the Mountaincow Images folder installed by FG2 and DLN. Double-click this shortcut and you will see all the new image and border folders. You can choose to view by thumbnails if you are using Windows XP. If you would like to update your software to version 2.1, please use our support form to request a link and instructions.

You can also use the images with other programs on your computer by opening the folder shortcut to Mountaincow Images installed on your Desktop and in your Windows Start menu. If you chose to leave DLN on the CD, browse to My Computer and open CD Drive D:\ and browse the Images folder on the CD. You can drag-and-drop or copy-and-paste the images into any software that accepts standard graphic file types.

Macintosh users:
Insert the CD. Double-click the CD to view the contents. Expand the Mac8Font.sit file using Stuffit® Expander and save the expanded font suitcases to a folder on your computer hard disk. Copy the font suitcases into your System Fonts folder. You can browse the graphics directly from the CD and use them with any software.

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