Saturday, May 22, 2010

Stationery Portfolio - Tutorial


In my never-ending quest to find excuses to spend time at the calligraphy table,  a few years ago I came up with the idea of making monogrammed stationery for my friends and colleagues for the holidays.  The monograms are sketched quite large in pencil, then scanned and cleaned up in Photoshop Elements.  Here are a couple of samples:


I bought paper (and matching envelopes) with a semi-gloss finish and after cutting it to size, ran it through my inkjet.  Because of the surface, the ink was still wet as each page came out, so there was time to sprinkle it with clear embossing powder made for use with rubber stamps.  After tapping each to remove the extra powder, I set them all aside and then zapped them one-by-one with the heat gun, creating a raised surface over the printed monogram.



Presto!  Home thermography.

I added a blind-embossed oval by hand and scored the notes at the fold.  





The folios are cut from old Cavallini calendar pages with a template I designed (you could take apart and trace an old stationery folio for this).  


The folds are scored, then glued and clipped in place to dry.




Then the notes and envelopes are loaded inside...


...and the folios are finished off with paper strips and embellished with sealing wax.




Add a tag and you don't even need to giftwrap. 





Personalized, thermographed sets of stationery for little more than the cost of the paper!

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