HOME · MOUNTAINCOW MONTHLY NEWSLETTER (JUNE 2007)

Independence Day is upon us, so break out the sparklers and throw a barbeque to celebrate! We have patriotic invitations for any style fiesta. If you’re a busy bride finalizing wedding details, our bridesmaid’s fitting reminder card is sure to come in handy. Feeling the need for a night out without the guys or the kids? Send your girlfriends our girls’ night out invitations for a fun evening out on the town. And if your summer plans include planning a wedding, our new batch of save the date card designs will ensure that your guests all mark their calendars for your special day.

Happy Birthday Uncle Sam
The Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday this year, which makes it hard to make a weekend out of the celebration, but it makes a great excuse for a mid-week party! So get your grill ready, pass out the sparklers and get ready for some fun. We’ve got a variety of invitations to suit your mood.

Feeling fun and festive? Then try our PrintingPress invitation. We topped a White A2 flat card with a chalk drawing of a waving American flag. We added the party details in blue and red using the Meegles font from Fonts & Graphics 3. Paired with a Deep Red A2 envelope, it’s as American as you can get.

If you’re planning a more formal event, then try our Platinum design. We used our Ivory / Midnight stationery for a classic look. A simple spray of fireworks dots the “i” in “join” at the top of the Ivory A2 card. We used the Benjamin Caps font from Fonts & Graphics for Weddings for the invitation details, and added a simple midnight border around the edge of the card. We lined the Midnight Envelope A2 in Ivory to complete the look.

For a look that’s a mix of fun and traditional, check out our PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 design. We created a custom pattern to add a red and white striped background to the White A7 flat card. For more information on creating stripes using a custom pattern, review this month’s Extreme Tip. We set the backgrounds margins to zero so that it would print all the way to the edge of the card. For more information on borderless printing, review the Tech Tip from the November 2004 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly. We used a floating text box to add the invitation text to the stationery. We turned off the Make White Transparent setting on the text box so that the text box’s background would be opaque. We used a combination of the Noodles font from Fonts & Graphics 3 and the Benjamin font from Fonts & Graphics 2 for the invitation details. We added a custom border to the text box to create a blue oval filled with stars around the text box. For more information on filling a border with shapes, review the Extreme Tip from the October 2006 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly. Slip the invitation into the Midnight A7 envelope lined in Deep Red and it’s ready to go.

PrintingPress sample
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PrintingPress Platinum sample
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PrintingPress Extreme 4.0 sample
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Seeing stripes
PrintingPress Extreme’s custom pattern creator will allow you to create unlimited varieties of patterns using any color, shape or image. One of the easiest patterns to create is stripes.

To practice creating a custom pattern, try adding it as a background fill to your card. Choose Stationery Background, Add Background in the Design menu. Choose Solid fill in the Background type section and click on the Fill button in the Fill details section. To create a custom pattern, choose Create / Edit custom pattern in the Color menu. The default custom pattern uses white circles on a field of pink. The first step to creating a striped custom pattern is to change the Shape in the Shape details section from Oval to Rectangle. To create horizontal stripes, set the value in the Across field in the Spacing between objects (in pixels) section to zero. To create vertical stripes, set the value in the Vertical field to zero. Our example uses vertical stripes.

The white stripe is formed by the rectangular shape. To change the color of the white stripe, click on the Fill color button in the Shape details section. The pink stripe is the background color. To change the color of the pink stripe, click on the Background fill color or pattern button in the Background section. For our example, we’ve increased both stripes to a width of 100 pixels.

To change the thickness of the white stripe, adjust the values in the Width and Height fields in the Shape details section. Make sure you turn off the Lock Aspect Ratio setting so you can change the width of the stripe without affecting anything else in the pattern. To change the thickness of the pink stripe, adjust the value in the Across or Vertical field in the Spacing between objects (in pixels) section.

You can add a third stripe color by checking the Use Alternate Shape checkbox and setting the alternate shape to Rectangle. For our example, we also set the height and width of the rectangle to 100. Each stripe can have its own color and width for innumerable options.

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Once you’ve completed your custom pattern, enter a name for it in the Name field in the Pattern name section. You will be able to use this name to locate your custom pattern in the future. Just choose Choose / Adjust pattern in the Color menu, click on the My Patterns folder and you will see all your custom patterns listed. Recently created patterns appear in the Recent Patterns menu. After you create a custom pattern, you can adjust the scale when you use it in the Choose / Adjust pattern window.

For experts only
You can add an outline to your white stripe by adding an outline to the shape. First enter 30 in the Outline field in the Shape details section. Next click on the Line button and choose Green in the Color menu to add a green outline to your rectangle. You will see that the rectangle’s outline creates lines across your white stripe. To restore the white stripe, decrease the value in the Vertical field in the Spacing between objects (in pixels) section. For our example, we set it to -85.

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