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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

How to make your own stationary

One of the things I love to do is to make my own stationary. You can purchase the paper at any stationary store (we have Office Depot and Office Max here in Rapid City), I personally like to use the paper that has a linen like finish to it, but what ever kind you buy will be fine, just make sure that it's a heavier weight paper that can handle heat embossing (24 lb writing paper), lighter weight papers will scorch or worse yet catch on fire (trust me I know, LOL). For this project I've purchased Wausau Paper -Royal Linen (it has an embossed linen finish) in the 100 sheet box. Since I couldn't make up my mind, I bought both white and ivory. I make stationary as gifts and when paired with a nice ink pen and some envelopes, it makes both a terrific and thoughful gift. I like to tie the stationary and envelopes together with a wide piece of ribbon or raffia and have the pen clipped onto the ribbon/raffia.

Start with an 8½x11 piece of paper and cut it to 5½x4¼ when folded in half this stationary paper will fit into an A2 envelope (you can even find these envelopes at your Wal-Mart).

I like to use a larger sized stamp,but any stamp will do as long as it's not too detailed. I like to go with nature type stamps but use the kind that suits your own personal tastes. One way is to use Versamark water mark ink and another is heat embossed. See my examples of a flower and the other of cattails. Now that you've seen my examples, go off and make some of your own personalized stationary! Click on the images to see them closer.



2 comments:

Scrapsnbaskets said...

Sandie these are beautiful! You are such an inspiration :-) Now I just have to MAKE the time to get some crafting done. Did you emboss the flower? Colored ink or embossing power?

Sandie said...

Lora,
Thank you for the compliment- you just made my day :-)
...this colored flower is done with pigment ink then embossed with super fine clear embossing powder. I used the little squares of ink by Stampin Up to create that one. The stationary sheets done with Versamark ink go very quickly because you don't have to worry about color placement on the stamp nor the heat emboss thing (unless you want to use it right away, then heat emboss to dry it quicker). You just have to be patient and give it time to dry naturally.