Archives for: February 2009

LCI's Creative Invitation Guide is a glossy brochure that is currently included in every order that we ship. The front cover showcases invitation ensembles that our in house designers created to inspire our customers to choose from the blank invitations, pochettes, pocket folds, response cards, envelopes, and accessories on our web site and create their own unique invitations. Although we do not sell the finished ensembles featured on the front page of the Creative Invitation Guide, we do sell all the components used to make each. In this article, you'll read about the invitation that I created specifically for that page of the Creative Invitation Guide.

I created my '80s & '90s Dance Party Invitation with the following LCI products:

6 1/4 Black Square Invitation Card
6 x 6 Clematis Square Chiyogami
8 1/2 x 11 Translucent Vellum Violet sheet
6 1/2 Black Square Envelope

I used the 6 1/4 black square invitation card as the backing for my invitation. To it, I affixed the 6 x 6 chiyogami with our double sided tape dots. I cut the violet vellum sheet down to 5 x 5 and then printed my invitation wording on it. Again, I used double sided tape dots to affix the cut vellum to the chiyogami. The finished invitation fit perfectly into the 6 1/2 black square envelope.

This purple and black invitation was inspired by my memories of my junior and senior high school years and my college years when I went out to dance clubs and was a DJ at house parties. I chose to call my fantasy event an '80s & '90s Dance Party with music including some of my favorite English bands that crossed the boundaries of rock, pop, and dance music: New Order, Erasure, Depeche Mode, the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, and the KLF. Maybe someday I'll actually host an event like this! Would you attend?

Recommended Links:
Creative Invitation Guide
Double Sided Tape Dots

Joshua Birch
josh@lcipaper.com

LCI Paper is pleased to announce the arrival of the Stardream line of papers, cards, and pochettes. Our Stardream card stock is made by the European fine paper manufacturer Gruppo Cordenons (Italian for the Cordenons Group). Gruppo Cordenons has a rich history in paper making dating back 1630 when the earliest records indicate their Cartera de Cordenon mill in Italy began operation. That Italian mill and another in Italy continue to produce high quality specialty and technical papers. Our relationship with Gruppo Cordenons is another example of LCI Paper seeking out the world's finest specialty paper and making it available among our other lines of products for the professional and the do-it-yourself customer alike.

Michael P. Santillo, Gruppo Cordenons' Eastern Regional Sale Manager says, "The pride of our paper can be seen and felt in every sheet that we produce; this also maintains our focus and commitment to our customers. It is our heritage to communicate with the world the dedication that has long been a gratifying tradition...making beautiful paper."

Also from Gruppo Cordenons regarding their Stardream lines: "Stardream is a distinctive range of metallic, iridescent and pearlescent colors created expressly for the designer and printer to give an "astral" effect to your work, meeting the more sophisticated trends of color and fashion. Stardream is...acid free which makes it the premier choice for Annual Reports, Presentation Folders, Brochures, Greeting Cards, Invitations, Identity programs, Posters, Shopping Bags and Luxury Packaging or any application you may want."

"Printing and Converting Process
Offset, Letterpress, Thermography, Engraving, Silk Screen Foil Stamping, Embossing, UV Varnish Die cutting, Folding, Laminating"

Initially, our Stardream products include A9 sized invitation cards that measure 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches, A7 invitation cards that measure 5 1/8 x 7 inches, full sized 8 1/2 x 11 stock, and pochette envelopes measuring 5 x 7 inches when closed. All of our Stardream products are a 105 pound (285 gram), 14 point card stock with a stunning metallic finish on both the front and back sides.

LCI will be expanding our Stardream line in the coming months.

Gruppo Cordenons is a proud member of "Trust the Forest" dedicated to
protecting Virgin Forest and promotes social and economic development of
local communities.

Recommended Links:
LCI Paper's offering of Stardream cards, papers, and pochettes
Gruppo Cordenons official site

Joshua Birch
josh@lcipaper.com

Our Office Manager, Linda Geisin, is one of the people you're likely to speak to when you call our customer service line. She created the design in this article specifically for a customer who was putting together her baby announcement. Linda listened to the customer's needs and thoughts and suggested a custom solution that the customer was happy with.

The customer told Linda that she loves sunshine and her baby was born on a bright, sunny day. Within the invitation ensemble, she wanted to include a photo CD so that her guests could print her baby photos on their own. She also wanted to include actual photos for those less technically savvy. Linda suggested printing the photos on our 6 1/4 square radiant white invitation cards. The inclusion of photos printed on cards and a photo CD made the ensemble quite bulky, so Linda suggested wrapping it all in our crocum yellow pochette, which has a sunny and translucent finish. She embellished and secured it with our black chiffon ribbon. Her customer loved the look of the black ribbon with the yellow pochette. It reminded her of a Black-Eyed Susan.

Extremely pleased with the invitation ensemble and appreciative of Linda's help, the customer actually included a sticker on the CD jewel box to indicate printable blank cards (like those that her photos were printed on) are available at LCIPaper.com.

Here are the products that Linda suggested and the customer ended up using in her baby announcement ensemble:

Crocum yellow vellum envelope pochette
Radiant white 6 1/4 inch square invitation card
Black chiffon ribbon

Joshua Birch
josh@lcipaper.com

LCI Paper is now offering an expanding line of inner envelopes that can be purchased separately in 50 packs. In certain situations, a customer might want want to buy our lined or unlined inner envelopes on their own, instead of part of the standard double envelope set.

Let's step back and look at the concept of double envelopes. In the article, Wedding Invitation Traditions Part 2 - Double Envelopes, Will Collins writes, "...the tradition of the double wedding envelope is in place for both practical and aesthetic reasons."

An outer envelope protects the inner envelope and its contents throughout the postal handling and mailing processes. The formal names and addresses of your invited guests are printed on the outer envelope. The envelope also includes a stamp and eventually, a cancel mark from the post office. When your guests open their outer envelope, a beautiful and pristine inner envelope will be revealed that can include first names, additional family members, and anything else that is personalized. The inner envelope can be unlined or lined in a complimenting color and contains the invitation, response card, response envelope, etc. In essence, any damages or markings to the outer envelope that might have occurred in transit can now be forgotten, as your guest can throw away the outer and enjoy the pristine invitation housed safely within the personalized inner envelope.

For the customer who needs to order just the inner envelopes, LCI has begun to offer our Embassy inner envelopes separately from their matching outer envelopes. Available in 50 packs, these Embassy inner envelopes measures 5 1/8 x 6 7/8 inches. Keep in mind that inner envelope flaps have no gum seal. If you choose to use these as mailing envelopes, secure the flaps with adhesive or envelope seal. Soon, we'll expand our inner envelope offerings to include all that we currently offer in double envelope sets.

Recommended Link:
Embassy Ungummed Inner Envelopes

Joshua Birch
josh@lcipaper.com

Watch our video to learn how to use Microsoft Word's Mail Merge feature to print your own envelopes. We'll walk you through creating a template, entering or importing your addresses, setting up your printer driver, and finally, printing on an envelope.

Here are the steps to follow:

Open Word with a blank document.

Click Tools/Letters and Mailings/Mail Merge.

The Mail Merge task pane opens, guiding you through the rest of the process in 6 steps.

For step 1, select “Envelopes” as the document type, then continue by clicking “Next: Starting document.”

For step 2, How do you want to set up your envelopes? Choose “Change document layout.” Under that, click on Envelope options. Under envelope size, choose the size of your envelope. If your envelope size is not listed, enter a custom size in inches. Choose your desired fonts for the delivery address and the return address. Click "Next: Select Recipients.”

In Step 3, choose your recipients either from a file or from your Outlook contacts, or you can type in your recipients one at a time within Word. To type in your recipients, click "Type a new list." Under "Type the names and addresses of recipients," click "Create." You can then create a new entry for each of your recipients. When you are finished typing in your recipients, you will be prompted to save it to a file.

If you already have a list of your recipients in a database, for example, an Excel file, you can select that by first clicking "Use an existing list" then "Browse." Then navigate to the location of your database file.

Once your recipients are in order, you can move on, click "Next: Arrange your envelope." This is Step 4 and here, you will actually set up a template for your envelope. You can replace the sample return address in the upper left corner with your return address. Then click on "Address block." A dialog box will appear where you can customize the way your addresses will be printed on your envelopes. When you have settled on a style, click "OK." You will see that the "Address Block" code is now in your template. Using the enter key, bring the Address Block to the middle of your envelope, and then center it by clicking the center alignment button in Word's toolbar.

When you are happy with your template, click "Next: Previous your envelopes" to move on to step 5.

You can now preview how the text on your envelopes will be printed. You can click the left and right buttons to move through your recipients and make sure all of their addresses will be correctly printed. You can also edit your recipient list and exclude specific recipients for this printing session. Once you are satisfied, click "Next: Complete the merge."

You've reached step 6, the final step, and you're ready to print your envelopes. This is the time to print on one envelope as a test. Insert one of your envelopes into your printer, or if you'd rather not waste a fine envelope for a test run, insert a piece of paper or card stock that you've cut to size to match the dimensions of your envelope. When you click "Print," a print dialog box will appear. Select your printer from the drop down list, then click properties. This will bring up your printer's driver where you will need to communicate to the printer that you are printing on an envelope. Do this by going to "Page Setup" and entering the dimensions of your envelope in inches like you did in Step 2 of Word's Mail Merge steps. Your printer's print driver layout will vary, so just poke around and try to find the place for customizing the dimensions of your document, in this case, your envelope.

Once you have set the printer to recognize the size of your envelope you are ready to print. Go ahead and send that test through. If your return address and recipient's address is positioned correctly on your envelope, you can go ahead and print the entire list. LCI Paper suggests that you load 20 envelopes into your printer at a time. When one batch of 20 envelopes print, your printer will pause so you can load more.

Recommended Links:
LCI Paper's How To video archive
Printing Your Own Invitations

Joshua Birch