Author: Scraps

Printing Terms for the Bride-to-Be, Part I

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Back when I first got married, you went to a card shop or similar and flipped through a massive book of wedding invitations. If you had a lot of money you might look at engraving, but most of the invitations were thermographed: printed in a raised ink so they looked engraved without the high cost.

Growing up around a print shop, I used to love looking through those ginormous books at all the different invitation styles and color and font choices.

And back then, unless you were using pre-printed cards where you filled in the details by hand, there wasn’t much happening on the DIY invitation front. Considering it was the mid-90s, even those who had computers at home probably had a dot matrix printer, maybe an inkjet, but only offices had the impressive laser printers (and even those weren’t as impressive as they are now).

I refuse to call those the “good ‘ol days” for obvious reasons.

So, 2 things have now been established:

  1. I’m old enough to remember when not everyone had a computer around, much less knew how to use it by age 3.
  2. Times have changed.

When I charged back into the wedding world in 2011, I was pleasantly surprised at how many brides and grooms now take a more active, diy approach to their paper goods. I was, of course, planning to do the same for us since I like to diy anything and everything I can (always have), but now it was more common which meant no longer needing to reinvent the wheel!

But what I was most surprised at was that brides were using PowerPoint to design their invitations!

PowerPoint was never meant to be a desktop publishing software. This is definitely a case of just because it’s there and kinda-sorta works doesn’t mean you should. And reading further I saw plenty of instances where knowing a little bit more about how printing is done away from you home computer set-up would prevent a lot of reprints and frustration when the order comes back from the printer–be it local or online.

So I’ve put together this basic guide to printing terminology and a few tips on designing for you non-graphic design majors. (Though, really, with the number of issues we have with recent grads not knowing these things, even graphic designers might pick up a thing or two from the below.)

As I was writing this all down it started to get very long. Instead of chopping it down to bare bones, I’ve decided to break it up into 3 parts. If you have no interest in diy-ing your paper goods, feel free to skip this and my next 2 posts. For the curious, read on!

Pages, and Parameters

First things first, a sheet of paper is a piece of paper. We’re starting out simple on purpose, here. A sheet of paper has two sides and, therefore, at least 2 pages.

jwalker_pageexamples

At least? Oh, yes, follow along carefully because this is where we lose some folks at the office.

Take a standard sheet of 8.5″x11″ copy paper. On it’s own it has a front and a back, so 2 pages*. Now, give that sheet of paper a quarter turn and fold the right side over to the left (like you would if you were folding your wedding programs), and suddenly that 1 sheet of paper has turned into 4 pages, each page 5.5″ wide and 8.5″. And, yes, you should always know your page size–that’s what the printer is going to be concerned with. Just because you fit 4 RSVP cards on 1 sheet of copy paper, that doesn’t mean that’s how he’s going to run it!

When you folded this sheet to make your booklet, you also created a spine where the pages meet and fold.

ProTip: the size of paper goods is always described as W x L, so measure across the top, first, for the width and then down one side for the length. For envelopes, the width is whatever side the flap is on.

Okay, take another sheet of paper and fold it the same way, slipping the first sheet inside (again, think like a program). Now those 2 sheets have become an 8-page booklet with a spine that needs to be secured somehow. Unless they specialize in weddings and charge an arm and a leg for hand-finishing, chances are your only option is going to be to saddle-stitch (i.e. stapled down the middle of the sheets along the spine). If you want to add ribbon or do some decorative stitching, you can request that they just fold and collate (marry together) the pieces and you can finish the binding (what holds the separate sheets together) on your own.

Incidentally, when you folded the one sheet into four pages, you created a signature. Now, if you started with, say, an 11″x17″ piece of paper and folded it in half and then half again, you’d have created an 8-page signature. After trimming the folded edges that aren’t the spine, you’d have your entire 8-page program done on a single sheet of paper if you could print that big. Multiple signatures can be nested inside of each other to make bigger booklets, but that’s probably outside the needs of your average wedding, so we’ll move on.

One more thing before we end for this post–if there is a folded spine on your booklet, then your page number must be divisible by 4. If you are stapling a stack of sheets together, then you can have a page count divisible by 2 (front and back of 1 sheet, remember), but if it has a spine it needs to be in sets of 4 pages to work. That’s just all there is to it.

*A page is a page no matter how blank–yes, you count the blank pages, too, because they definitely exist. Anyone else remember manuals or bills with “this page intentionally left blank” on them, just so the reader wouldn’t freak out about potentially missing information?

Perfect Pasta Without the Wheat

Nibbles

In honor of National Noodle Month, I though it’d be a good time to talk about the wheat-free pasta situation. Is it a situation at all? That’s for you to decide.

Pasta and sauce has always been the go-to meal for the time and cash strapped individuals and families out there. Spaghetti is cheap (about a dollar a pound for the basics) and a sauce can be anything from seasoned crushed tomatoes to olive oil with a little Parmesan cheese. It’s a satisfying meal, no question. And who hasn’t loved gooey mac & cheese at some point in their lives, right?

With many people looking to get whole grains in their diet, whole wheat pasta has secured a place on the shelves and–while not always as tasty as the refined durum semolina products out there, many of us accept it as one of those little steps we can take to be that much healthier.

When you go wheat free (like I did when I switched to a Low-FODMAP diet), pasta is one of those things you automatically kiss goodbye, usually with a heavy heart.

That doesn’t have to be the case, however, if you’re willing to give some alternate grains a try.

Rice, corn, and quinoa are the major players you’ll find when you hunt down the non-wheat pasta possibilities in your local grocery store. Some brands (like Heartland’s pretty blue and yellow packaging) can be found alongside the usual suspects in the pasta and sauce aisle. Their gluten-free pasta features a blend of corn and rice flours which taste very much like what we’re used to from their what counterparts. The only down-side I’ve experienced with this brand is that they tend to get dry and crumbly when refrigerated. They still eat fine, the texture just doesn’t hold up as well for leftovers. Still, when I made Macaroni and Cheese for our family of relatively picky eaters, I used their elbow macaroni noodles and no one had anything bad to say about my substitution.

Image via Heartland Pasta

Image via Heartland Pasta

Others, like Ancient Harvest’s quinoa pastas are more likely to be found in the specialty foods section of larger stores. We’ve been big quinoa fans for a while, and it’s such a great food on it’s own, but those unfamiliar with quinoa might need to get accustomed to this pasta’s flavor. It is a little heavier (akin to whole wheat pasta) than the corn and rice versions, but very tasty and probably comes in the most variety of sizes and shapes, though it’s usually the specialty stores that carry more of those options.

Image via Ancient Harvest

Image via Ancient Harvest

Or you can look for rice noodles in the ethnic foods section. These range from the usual cellophane noodles (though not much of a substitute for spaghetti) to almost clear rice pastas that offer substance if not a lot of flavor, to the Tinkyada brand of brown rice noodles. These noodles, to me, have the best flavor and texture of all the “substitute” pastas we’ve tried over the last several months and also reheat the best–important if you like to cook extra for leftovers. I’ve yet to find a local source that carries the variety that the product picture, below, shows, but we can usually find the elbows, fettucini, and spirals even in our local Wal-Marts tiny gluten-free section.

Image via Tinkyada

Image via Tinkyada

To get the best results from a wheat-free pasta, it’s very important not to over-cook them. Almost all of the noodles we’ve tried can get a little mushy, a little less than al dente, a little quicker than the sturdier wheat noodles. I’ve also found that it doesn’t always take the time the package says for them to reach perfect doneness, so don’t get distracted the first time you make a particular brand to avoid unpleasant results.

The other downside to these alternative noodles is that they cost about twice as much as the old standbys, sometimes a little more that double in fact. Still, if it’s a matter of being able to eat the foods I love without becoming ill afterwards, it’s a price I’m willing to pay (at least on occasion). After all, the other option is to make your own gluten-free pastas and while that’s something on the list to try one of these days, it’s nice to know that’s not my only option.

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This post is based solely on our own experience with the brands listed above. We have received no compensation (direct or product-in-kind) for mentioning these brands and as food is strictly a matter of taste, your mileage may well vary. I encourage anyone on the hunt for gluten-free pasta to use this only as a starting point and get out there and explore the possibilities. Going wheat-free doesn’t have to mean giving up the foods you love.

AlcoHOLidays | St Patrick’s Day | Sweet Irish Coffee

Sips

jwalker_sweetirishcoffeeOn St Patrick’s Day, everybody has a touch of the Irish in them!

Granted, the day has devolved (in many areas, including my own college-anchored town) into an excuse to drink watered-down, green-tinted beer for a ridiculously long time. It’ll be interesting to see if that is at all curbed by March 17 falling on a Sunday this year, but I have my doubts.

As most folks know, St Patrick is credited with bringing Christianity to the pagan Irish. Though we think of green as the natural color for St Patrick’s Day, originally the color most associated with him was blue. But (probably) because the story goes he used a shamrock to teach the idea of the trinity, so more and more people took to wearing shamrocks on his feast day, and it just sort of took off from there.

While beer, especially Guinness, is a more common drink for St Paddy’s Day (and, yes, it is spelled with d’s, not t’s, in deference to the Irish spelling of Pádraig), Irish whiskey is pretty popular, too.

One of the most excellent ways to drink Irish whiskey (if you don’t fancy it straight), is in the popular after dinner treat: Irish Coffee.

To see an really impressive way to make Irish Coffee en masse, check out this video courtesy of Concannon Irish Whiskey:

(Direct link for the feed readers: How to Make Irish Coffee)

Some  recipes for Irish Coffee I’ve seen call for only the whiskey and the coffee–no sugar, no cream. That just makes me shudder. In fact, after making one like that (but with the sugar cubes) it was still too bitter for my liking. I like my coffee flavored and sweet, with or without the alcohol, so here’s my take on this classic.

Sweet Irish Coffee

3 Sugar Cubes
4 oz Coffee, brewed strong
1 oz Irish Whiskey
1/2 oz Chocolate Liqueur
1 spoonful Vanilla Ice Cream

Prepare your Irish Coffee glass by filling it with hot water as the coffee brews. When the coffee is ready, pour out the water and add the sugar cubes and coffee to the mug, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Stir in the Irish whiskey and chocolate liqueur and top with a spoonful of ice cream.

Our local ice cream shop serves an affogato–a shot of espresso poured over a scoop of their sweet cream ice cream–which served as a partial inspiration for today’s twist on an old stand-by. Whipping heavy cream isn’t particularly difficult, but I had some lactose-free Breyers vanilla in the freezer, so I thought I’d give it a try as a substitute. For the whiskey I used Concannon Irish Whiskey (that I reviewed on Tuesday) and for the chocolate liqueur I, of course, used Godiva. The resulting drink is still a strong Irish Coffee but with a sweeter edge making it perfect for after a meal.

I had to search my local Cost Plus World Market to find where they’d hidden the Irish Coffee glasses, and the smallest I could find actually hold 8 oz, but we’ll just let that slide, right? The reason for pre-warming the glass is two-fold. First, just like chilling a glass for a cold drink, it helps the drink maintain its temperature. Second, coffee is very hot and while most coffee mugs can stand it, some of your more delicate glassware is not as tough and adding hot coffee to cold glass could lead to some bad breaks.

If you do choose to go out to your favorite watering hole this Sunday, make sure you have a designated driver or the number of a cab company handy. A DUI would sure put a damper on your day!

Sláinte!

Never Too Soon to Say Thank You

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Another stationery project I’ve been meaning to do for the longest time [*cough* almost a year now *cough*] is our thank-you cards. Once I finally got my butt in the seat long enough to design our Save the Dates, I figured I could knock out the thank-you design as well.

On the one hand there was no real hurry to do these since we weren’t having an engagement party or expecting to have any showers or anything. On the other hand, it’s something so simple that not doing it ahead of time was foolish. So I’ve been beating myself up over it for a while (lightly, of course–there have been other things to worry about) and it’ll be good to get this item off the to-do list!

I designed these cards with a few key elements in mind:

  1. Versatility. If I was going to print up a bunch of these, I’d like them to be useful for both wedding thank-yous as well as anything else we might need some pretty cards for, even after the wedding.
  2. Simplicity. This kind of goes with the point above, but I didn’t want anything overly fussy because I wanted them to work for any situation and look right if T was sending one out without me.
  3. Print-ability. I’ve been dying to use my Gocco again and these seem like a perfect excuse to drag it out and turn The Abyss into a press-room.

Because I have one of the smaller Goccos (table-top screen printing “machine” manufactured in Japan by Risu), the PG-5 to be exact, my printable area is limited to 5 7/8″ wide and 4″ long. Luckily, an A-2 (announcement-size) envelope fits a 5 1/2″ x 4 1/4″ card easily, and I happen to have a box of those envelopes in my stash, too. What’s even better is I have some half-sheets (5.5″x8.5″) of ivory linen stationery-grade paper, enough to get about 30 cards made. And I probably have some full sheets I can cut down, too, if I look hard enough. Score one for my paper-hoarding tendencies!

The screens and bulbs for the Gocco can be tough to find (mostly the bulbs, and when you do they are exPENsive!) but I’d bought a fairly good stock of them a while back and have plenty of ink, too, so I think I’m all set for supplies.

Of course, even with a simple design (maybe especially with a simple design) it still takes some time to get things just right.

That looks so different in my head.

That looked so different in my head.

Originally I’d planned to have our names down in one corner with a border around the edge of the card, breaking where it intersected our names. Sounded good in my head, but looked a helluva lot like the JC Penny logo and that was not the feeling I wanted.

This isn't all that bad, really, it just wasn't us!

This isn’t all that bad, really, it just wasn’t us!

So the frame was out, but then I started rethinking my font choice.

I was sure, going into this, that I wanted a sans serif font, something nice and clean and streamlined. And while they were okay, as I scrolled through my incredibly long list of fonts I kept pulling out the serif fonts after all. Finally I picked 2 of each (really not liking the sans serif when they were next to their serif cousins) and asked Mr. Road Trip to be the tie breaker.

Right away the 2 sans serifs were out, so we were on the same page there. Then it came down to our 2 serif font contenders and he went with Fontleroy Brown, mostly because the ampersand was cooler.

Once I got rid of the riff-raff it was time to decide if the card even needed anything else. I moved the names around on the digital sheet, seeing if Todd preferred the names somewhere other than the lower right corner. Then it was frame, no frame, or maybe just a line.

We have a winner!

We have a winner!

Like I said, a simple design isn’t always so easy to decide on. The single underline turned out to be just enough to anchor our names and I totally agree about the coolness of that ampersand.

Next is getting them printed!

Have you ever found it hard to decide on otherwise simple wedding choices?

Inspiration Found | Save the Date Cards

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

So, after searching and pondering and a few sheets of idle doodling, it finally clicked. The map cards weren’t quite right for us, but I had the idea to do a timeline, instead. Something like this:

Timeline Save the Date by Etsy seller Peaches Bonnema

Timeline Save the Date by Etsy seller Peaches Bonnema

And then it hit me:

Vintage!

No, not that kind of vintage. Not the vintage that everyone and her bridesmaid are absolutely head-over-heels for, I’m talking wine vintages. After all, the wedding is wine-themed, it makes perfect sense!

Front and back (side by side) of what would be considered a "rack card" or insert, about 1/3 of a standard letter-sized sheet, landscape oriented.

Front and back (side by side) of what would be considered a “rack card” or insert, about 1/3 of a standard letter-sized sheet, landscape oriented.

After a bit of playing around with ideas, I decided on this mock-up. The timeline down the right side starts with our birth years and goes to the present. Why so far back? Well, one of the things that prompted me to message Mr. Road Trip back on SoulGeek was that I noticed he lived in the town I was born in. Considering it’s not that big a town, I figured I had to say something about it. And then while he’d unknowingly “followed” me from his home town to mine, he very knowingly followed me to my (now our) adopted town not too long after.

Which is where those vertical lines along the left side come into play–in this mock-up they’re a placeholder for the grape vines I’ll draw in over them. The diagonal bridges, meanwhile, represent location shifts. (The left-most line is T’s Nebraska line, the middle our shared Louisiana line, and the right the Florida line… make sense now?) Since we’ll be doing a wine blending ritual during our ceremony, this visual “blending” of our vines over the course of our lives appeals to me. The frame around the dates is also a place-holder; I blended together some standard Photoshop frames to get something like what I was after, but the finished version will be hand-drawn by moi and then scanned and cleaned up enough for printing.

In addition to the drawing bits, I still have to decide if I’m going to print them myself or upload them for printing elsewhere. I originally designed them to be printed at home, 3-up on pretty card stock, but my home printer is starting to show signs of age when it prints (some draggy bits here and there), not to mention I’d really love this on some nice, thick stock, thicker than it could easily handle. I even considered printing each side separately and gluing the two pieces together to create the heft I was after. Printing elsewhere would cost me around $15 plus shipping, so that’s not too bad, plus it would mean I could easily add more color to the finished product, rather than just printing in dark brown ink on cream stock.

And why not have them printed at my office? It is a commercial print shop, after all. Simple: I’m not inviting the vast majority of my coworkers, so I’d like to keep the details private as far as they’re concerned.

You know the really sad thing? I’ve had this idea in mind for months, but kept putting it off because I couldn’t get my sketches to look just right. After all that, it only took a couple of hours to bang out this mock-up tonight and now most of the job is done. That’s what I get for over-thinking things, isn’t it?

How long did it take you to decide on/design your Save the Date cards?