April showers will be ancient history and your May flowers will be in bloom just in time for a Father’s Day barbecue. For birthday parties – or just end of the school year celebrations – we’ve got clever invitations for all ages. Adults can mingle in style while the little ones can don their best p.j.s for some sleepover fun. Need return address labels for bills and such? PrintingPress Extreme can help you whip up a style for everyone in the house.

Dressed to grill
There are many ways to honor dad, but let’s face it, his favorite way is through his stomach. Put him in his element and organize a barbecue feast so he can shine. If grilling is dad’s passion, then our invitations will help you set just the right mood for his big day.

For a straight-to-the-point invitation, we topped the card with a simple chef’s hat with a warning about who’s wearing it! We used A6 Rock Candy stationery and added a blue liner to the Clover envelope. All the party details are written in Benjamin and Benjamin Strong from Fonts & Graphics 2.

Our Platinum design uses a background image of a shirt and tie to poke a little fun at the default dad’s day gift. Use your printer’s borderless printer function on an A7 white card so the image will take up the entire card. For more information on borderless printing, refer to the Tech Tip from the November 2004 issue of the Mountaincow Monthly newsletter. Print the party details on the back of the card using the Meegles font from Fonts & Graphics 3. Pair with an A7 Clover envelope lined with argyle (pink and green) to “tie” it together with the front of the card!

For a more formal BBQ bash, we used PrintingPress Extreme’s custom border and full justification tools. We added a silhouette of a cow to the top of an A6 Ivory card and created a simple deep red border to match the text and the envelope. The text is written in Benjamin Caps from Fonts & Graphics for Weddings. The A6 Deep Red envelope is lined with an ivory envelope liner.

For the jolly good fellow
A proper birthday celebration starts with a great invitation, no matter what age the guest of honor is turning. Whether it’s a milestone birthday or just a reason to celebrate, we have some stylish and sophisticated options for everyone.

For your best gal pal, go with a classic flower silhouette on an A6 Pink Scalloped card. We used the Noodles font from Fonts & Graphics 3 for a delicate, but not too cutesy, script. Both the flower and text are in brown to coordinate with the Chocolate envelope, which we lined with a petals (pink & brown) liner.

For a masculine call to party, we chose the A7 Blueberry Truffle Two Tone stationery and a fully justified text design. We added all the party information in Ryan Caps from Fonts & Graphics 3, and fully justified the text so it would appear evenly on both the right and left margins. We made a second text box to fit in the first with the honoree’s name in a larger point size, and made that fully justified as well. For the final touch, we lined the Chocolate envelope with a stripes (light blue and brown) liner.

For a simple, modern look we used the "decrease horizontal spacing" feature of PrintingPress Extreme to squeeze the letters of Samantha's name and the big 3-0 together so the characters overlap. We also changed the opacity in Extreme's text box editor to make this significant text partially transparent. We printed on A6 Cotton Candy stationery and lined the A6 Clover envelope with a mod squad (pink and green) liner to complete the look.

PrintingPress sample
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PrintingPress Platinum sample
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PrintingPress Extreme sample
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Pillow fight!
They've been begging for a sleepover party and you can only say no, or come up with an excuse, so many times. We'll help you get excited for the party too with these adorable invitations.

PrintingPress users can use our design with adorable polka-dot PJs on an A6 White Scalloped card, and add the party details in Brina, a real child’s handwriting font from Fonts & Graphics 3. Line the A6 Blush envelope with a pink liner to make it even prettier in pink.

Pillow fights are not just for girls! Our Platinum design uses a background image of a fluffy pillow with blue and white striped ticking for a sleepover party invitation perfect for the little boys in your life. Add party details in blue text in Brina from Fonts & Graphics 3 and line the A6 Dusty Blue envelope with mod squad (blue & green) liner.

If the party calls for non-stop movie watching and a gab-and-giggle fest, make sure you’ve got lots of popcorn on hand. In fact, put it on the invitation. Using PrintingPress Extreme, we have party details popping all over the card using the text on a curve feature. We used the Meegles handwriting font from Fonts & Graphics 3 and shaped some of the text into arcs and semicircles to give the invitation energy. And here’s a secret: we used floating text boxes and text on a curve to create all the dotted lines! For more information, see this month’s Extreme Tip. Line the A6 Clover envelope with a pink liner and get the popcorn popping!

Follow the dotted line
PrintingPress Extreme makes it easy to add a point of interest or flourish to any invitation quickly and easily using floating text boxes with a curve. Just choose Text Box, Insert Text Box in the Design menu to create a new text box. Type several “.” characters in the text box and click the OK button. Use the Increase Horizontal Spacing button in the Line Spacing toolbar to increase the distance between the dots. Keep clicking the button until the dots are as separated as you like. Now use the Text Shape button in the Text toolbar to experiment with different shapes for your line. Leave it set to Line for a separating line of dots, or play with waves, circles and more.

Because the dots are text, you can match them to the other text in your invitation or use the Sample Color tool to match a color in an image or border. You can also use the Emboss or Engrave button in the Text toolbar for 3-D dots.

Use this trick the next time you add a soaring airplane, a buzzing bee or popping popcorn to your invitations.