Well, the cards are almost done, but I need to put some innards in them. The thought of hand-writing messages in almost 60 cards makes my hands protest (writing 'Season's Greetings' that many times, in two languages is just asking for a meltdown), so I decided to have a printed message in each card and from there we can personalize them.
That, however, was easier said than done. I have tons of cool fonts on the Dell laptop which I consider mine (hey, DH said I could use it for my Sil - and I use my Sil a lot and he has the HP and the Mac, so I am right!), but the main printer is not wireless, so I needed to use the Flagship (sounds important, right?) Unfortunately, the Flagship (I hear cannons shooting) doesn't have all the same cool fonts. It has endless versions of Arial and Times New Roman.
Seriously! I spent 20-30 minutes (or was it an eternity?) trying to find something I could use in each of the card styles. Word in XP, though, won't show you what the font looks like in the menu - you have to highlight your text. I nearly went insane ( I know: short trip!) trying to find something that would match each card. Most of the fonts had such subtle differences I kept checking to make sure I had picked a new one. Whose idea was it to have cool names like Verdana and Tahoma when there is visibly NO DIFFERENCE!!!??? My eyes started to glaze over...but I persevered and found three different fonts, whose names are now lost to me.
So, now I have two ideas running through my head: 1) I now understand why people have so many fonts for journaling, since most of them are variations of the same font and you need to really hunt for something different and 2) If your are a font designer and you are just changing Arial or TNR, don't give the result a name like Verdana because someone might just think you have done something really cool when all you did was make the letters a tad wider. If that indeed, is what you did!
Okay, off my soapbox now!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Sil Pens as a Swap Saver!
The Sil pens are not only fun, but they can save your scrap hide! Found that out on Monday. I signed up to do two different designs in TXAngel's post card swap. The poinsettia gave me a headache - but that was thanks to the glitter. It was fine for outline, but not all over, so that took me longer than planned. Like two weeks longer. I got so frustrated I tossed them all. I then redid them with marker edging and a pinch of Stickles. I needed to change my second idea and quickly because a highly decorated snowman was going to take more time than I had.
I went through my Sil designs and found the perfect idea : pen snowflakes background with a horse and sleigh silhouette on top. The background turned out lovely, even though I cannot rotate the flakes. The horse and sleigh, however, were an absolute nightmare. I tried cutting them out in two different sizes on two different types of textured paper. DD was not impressed with the lack of quality. The little ones were a series of dashes and the larger ones looked like a child cut them with a craft knife.
I then hit upon a solution: my pens! I tried it out on white paper - and it worked! I had to color them by hand and cut around them, but they melded into the mostly white background. Not perfect, but much better than using the other ones, which is a bummer, because I was really taken with the design I had created. Oh well, maybe next year for cards for DH's work.
The pens also made light work for those cards for this year. I took the Season's Greetings with a shadow and just switched out the pens for the different 'layers'(I drew lines around the edges) and in less than an evening, I had 28 card fronts (4 per sheet), ready to glue to cards tomorrow night.
As for photos, would you believe I sent out the cards without photographing them? I will post photos of the Season's Greetings soon, though!
I went through my Sil designs and found the perfect idea : pen snowflakes background with a horse and sleigh silhouette on top. The background turned out lovely, even though I cannot rotate the flakes. The horse and sleigh, however, were an absolute nightmare. I tried cutting them out in two different sizes on two different types of textured paper. DD was not impressed with the lack of quality. The little ones were a series of dashes and the larger ones looked like a child cut them with a craft knife.
I then hit upon a solution: my pens! I tried it out on white paper - and it worked! I had to color them by hand and cut around them, but they melded into the mostly white background. Not perfect, but much better than using the other ones, which is a bummer, because I was really taken with the design I had created. Oh well, maybe next year for cards for DH's work.
The pens also made light work for those cards for this year. I took the Season's Greetings with a shadow and just switched out the pens for the different 'layers'(I drew lines around the edges) and in less than an evening, I had 28 card fronts (4 per sheet), ready to glue to cards tomorrow night.
As for photos, would you believe I sent out the cards without photographing them? I will post photos of the Season's Greetings soon, though!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Pens on Silhouette Rock!!!
Ohmigosh!!!
I cannot believe how versatile the Silhouette is! I have used it for creating my own designs, but there was something I hadn't yet tried: the pens. I knew it could be done, but I lacked the bravery to try them.
Christmas' approach gave me an urgency which overwhelmed my fear. Throwing caution to the wind, I chose to start my pen attempt with the calendar from Sil. How bad could straight lines be? I started with black, worried what would happen....
Perfection!!! The calendar page was gorgeous, nary a flaw. So I made another, then another. Mightily impressed, I changed inks. The green and red were beautiful, as were the purple and navy. Pink, however, well let's just say I wouldn't be the Scrapklutz if I had perfect luck. My pink pen leaked. On the calendar page. On my cutting pad. On the left-hand roller of my Sil. Of course, I had no idea of the magnitude of the disaster until I went to load a second page and got ink on it. Two sheets later and I gave it up. I thoroughly cleaned the pen and put it away.
Then I tried to draw shapes for the background of the Feb page. I used Red, Purple and Pink - which thankfully didn't leak. Unfortunately, the page didn't turn out how I had hoped. It needs solids, not outlines. Oh well, back to the drawing board!
I cannot believe how versatile the Silhouette is! I have used it for creating my own designs, but there was something I hadn't yet tried: the pens. I knew it could be done, but I lacked the bravery to try them.
Christmas' approach gave me an urgency which overwhelmed my fear. Throwing caution to the wind, I chose to start my pen attempt with the calendar from Sil. How bad could straight lines be? I started with black, worried what would happen....
Perfection!!! The calendar page was gorgeous, nary a flaw. So I made another, then another. Mightily impressed, I changed inks. The green and red were beautiful, as were the purple and navy. Pink, however, well let's just say I wouldn't be the Scrapklutz if I had perfect luck. My pink pen leaked. On the calendar page. On my cutting pad. On the left-hand roller of my Sil. Of course, I had no idea of the magnitude of the disaster until I went to load a second page and got ink on it. Two sheets later and I gave it up. I thoroughly cleaned the pen and put it away.
Then I tried to draw shapes for the background of the Feb page. I used Red, Purple and Pink - which thankfully didn't leak. Unfortunately, the page didn't turn out how I had hoped. It needs solids, not outlines. Oh well, back to the drawing board!
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