For a retro holiday greeting, check out our PrintingPress 6.0 design. We added a quartet of holiday message images from the Illustrations by Mountaincow, Holiday Collection. We added the images as floating images and placed them in a grid on the center of a White A7 folded card. We added a holiday greeting and used different colors to separate the words using the Trebuchet font that is included with Windows and is already installed on your computer. We used the same fonts and colors for the greeting on the inside of the card. Pair with Chocolate envelopes lined in Teal and add coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps.

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Our PrintingPress Platinum 6.0 design is bright, modern and striking. We added the winter tree (white) image from Illustrations by Mountaincow, Holiday Collection to the front of our new White A8 folded card. We added a custom background and filled it with teal so that the white tree really pops. Next we used a floating text box to add the words "HAPPY holidays" in white using the Arial font. We added a return so that the greeting spans two lines and set the text box's alignment to Justify Text so that the words would be evenly spaced within the text box. We added curly brackets in red using the Palatino Linotype font directly into the main text area so that they frame the floating text box perfectly. We added the greeting inside the card using the Arial and Palatino Linotype fonts in teal. Since the teal background runs all the way to the edge of the card, we used our printer's borderless printing feature with the printer's paper size set to 8 x 10. We lined the Deep Red envelopes in Scarlet and added coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps.

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so that it could be replaced with the ornament. We aligned the word "Happy" to the right and then set the horizontal alignment for "HOLIDAYS" to Stretch Justify Text. We used the Isabelle and Trebuchet fonts to add the greeting to the inside of the card in red and blue. Since the light blue background bleeds to the edge of the card, we used our printer's borderless printing feature with the printer's paper size set to 8 x 10. We lined the Deep Red envelopes in Powder Blue to coordinate with the holiday card's color scheme. We added an ornament with patterned stripe (blue & red) image and several ornament with snowflake (blue & red) images to the Custom Image StationeryStamps, and used the Selective Color feature to recolor one of the ornaments. For tips on using the new Selective Color feature, see this month's Extreme Tip.

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To have and to hold
If your holiday season will be filled with eggnog, cocktail parties... and planning a wedding for next summer, then please consider our new wedding invitation designs an early holiday present from Mountaincow! Our invitations are elegant, budget-friendly, and easy to personalize and print at home. Of course, we created coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps designs for all of the invitations for a completely polished invitation.

Our PrintingPress 6.0 design features a gorgeous color palette using a Complete Pocket Invitation Set in the Square (no flap) size. We started by adding a pair of tropical fish in sky blue and orange as floating images in the bottom left corner of the White invitation card. Next, we added the bride and groom's names in orange using the Palatino Linotype font at 20 points. We joined the names with a grey ampersand and then added the rest

of the invitation text in grey at 8 points. We aligned all of the text to the right margin and set the vertical alignment to Vertically Justify Text to evenly space each line. We used a double-stick tape gun to adhere the invitation to the Sky backing card, and then mounted the set onto the Metallic Mandarin Orange Pocket Folder. We added the blue fish to the top of the White directions Enclosure Card and tucked it into the pocket. We added a cluster of sky coral and the orange fish to the White Response Card and used our printer's borderless printing feature to print the card. We printed 5 x 2 seals using the 4-up feature onto White 4 x 10 inch custom cut cards. We used a double-stick tape gun to mount the seal onto a Sky 2.25 x 5.25 inch custom cut card and then attached the set to the outside of the Pocket Folder. We lined the Metallic Slate envelopes in Sky and added coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps with the bride & groom's names, the wedding date, and the blue fish.

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For a bold, contemporary look, check out our PrintingPress Extreme 6.0 design featuring a Complete Pocket Invitation Set in the A8 Landscape (pointed flap) size. We turned the Pocket Folder on its side so that it opens like a book rather than like a calendar. First, we used floating text boxes to add the bride and groom's names in dark brown using the Palatino Linotype font. We set the Text Case for the text boxes to UPPERCASE and used the alignment tools in the Align palette to align the text boxes relative to their left edges. We joined the names with a large ampersand in another floating text box and curly braces using the Tahoma font. We added each of the curly braces in a separate floating text box and filled them using a custom pattern of green stripes. We used four floating text boxes to add a cluster of asterisks in the Times New Roman font and filled them in the same green striped pattern, flipping every other asterisk vertically for added flair. We added the invitation

text in dark brown using the Palatino Linotype font with the Text Case set to UPPERCASE and bolded the lines with the bride and groom's names and the venue. We used a double-stick tape gun to adhere the invitation to the Avocado backing card and then mounted the set onto the Dark Chocolate Pocket Folder. We added asterisks to the White directions Enclosure Card and curly braces to the White Response Card and tucked both into the pocket. We created 2 x 3 inch seals using PrintingPress Extreme 6.0's Label stationery type and printed 10 per page and then trimmed them using a rotary trimmer. We adhered the seals to Avocado 2.25 x 3.25 inch custom cut cards and then mounted the completed seal to the Pocket Folder's flap. We lined the Avocado envelopes in Celery for a subtle extra touch of sophistication and added coordinating Custom Image StationeryStamps.

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Color me happy
PrintingPress Extreme 6.0's powerful new Selective Color feature lets you recolor just part of an image, erase part of an image, replace all of a single color in an image, and more. In this month's Extreme Holiday Cards, we used the Selective Color feature to swap colors in an image. Once we added the images to our Custom Image StationeryStamps, we had two ornament with snowflake (blue & red) images. To make it easier to demonstrate this feature, all of the screen shots are shown zoomed at 300%. The initial group of ornaments we started with is shown below.

We clicked on the ornament on the right and then clicked on the Selective Color button on the Adjust palette in the Design palette group.

Next, we clicked on the Choose Selective Color button and set the color to black. This gives us a temporary color to use while we swap the red and the blue (otherwise, if we filled the area that is now blue in red, the entire ornament would be red and the snowflake would effectively disappear). We clicked on the Apply Selective Color button and then clicked on the blue area in the selected ornament image with the paint bucket cursor to replace all of the blue with black. Since we have the Contiguous setting disabled, all of the blue is replaced with black, as shown below.

Next, we clicked on the Choose Selective Color button and used the Sample Color tool set the color to the light blue from the other ornament. To learn more about using the Sample Color tool, please review the Extreme Tip from the February 2006 issue. Then we clicked on the Apply Selective Color button and then clicked on the red area in the selected ornament image to change the ornament to light blue.

Finally, we clicked on the Choose Selective Color button and used the Sample Color tool set the color to the red in the other ornament. We clicked on the Apply Selective Color button and then clicked on the black area in the selected ornament image to change the ornament to red.

EXPERTS ONLY
When the Contiguous setting is enabled, only the area immediately touching where we click will be replaced. In the example below, we started with the unmodified ornament with snowflake (blue & red) image, enabled the Contiguous setting first and then clicked just to the right of the snowflake as before. You can see that this time the blue areas inside the snowflake and in the “string” were not replaced with black.

Check out tips on downloading projects, borderless printing and more in our Newsletter Notes section.

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