Waiting for Santa Letterpress Tray - Part 1, Digital Alphabet

I am LOVING the 7 Gypsies display items! When Maddi was born I made a rather lame attempt at creating a scrapbook. I never seemed to have enough time to finish anything and so over the years I gave up on the traditional scrapbook creating. Rather I have become much more into making little books that commemorate a vacation, or special event. Now that I have these display items I am having a blast using them to create special pieces for my home and office. I would also like to rave a little about the Webster's Pages Waiting for Santa and Sweet Treats collections - I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-Y F-U-N to work with and oh so classicly elegant. OK, on with it now - I've got pictures to take of a costumed girl :-D

Today I want to introduce you to a new product we are carrying in our store :-D These have arisen out of my love for the Optical Lenses, rub ons and rosette die - LOL! Julia has been helping in so many ways here at work and she is the heart behind the alphabets we now have in our store. I asked her if she could create an alphabet in this fall's Pantone color selections. We then pulled out our paper selections to see what they would work with :-D We want to make these super easy to use and hope to share today exactly how fabulous they are!

I will be posting this Letterpress Tray project over a series of days to keep each post as simple as possible. Today we are starting with how to download the file and create the "joy" banner.

To find the alphabet's we created visit our Digital Download section here.

Add the alphabet of choice to your cart and check out.
After you have paid for your order you will see the page with the confirmation number pop up. On that same page will be text that says "Download Product Files."
A screen will pop-up with the files you have purchased.
Click on the file you would like to save.
You will then be prompted with the question - "Do you want to open or save this file?" I would like to recomment that you save the file.
This is the part that can be tricky for some. It is important to keep the files on your computer organized! :-D
I have created a special file in my "Pictures" folder that I have named Digital Files. This allows me to save my files where I can find them again in the future.
Click Save.

Once this action is completed it will ask you if you would like to "Open, Open Folder, or Close" the file.
Simple select open. In the top left-hand corner of the screen then select "Extract All."
Your letters are now ready to copy and paste, insert etc.
If you happen to close the file highlight it as shown in the figure above and in the drop down menu select "Extract All."

To use your alphabet is as easy as copying and pasting.
Open up a new Word document
Highlight the letter you would like to use in the file and using your shortcut keys - Ctrl C, copy that letter.
Move to your Word document window and using your shortcut keys - Ctrl V, paste that letter in your document.
Repeat for the remaining letters.
Print on Neenah cardstock

I used a nesting circle to quickly punch out my letter. We are waiting for the nesting circle punches to arrive in our store as I find this is the quickest and easiest method of preparing my circles.

Tim's rosette dies is one of my all-time faves! I love the neat little pleats that are created during the die-cut process - simple and oh so easy!

TIP: Be certain to use a strong adhesive to hold the rosette together. After a quick exchange with Tim I would like to recommend using a hot glue gun to hold these beauties together :)

Also be certain to follow the directions and have "discs" prepared for both sides of the rosette at your ready before creating your flower, otherwise it will pop right out of your hands. Quess how I know that - LOL!

To raise the rosette off the tray base I stacked a couple of thickness of plain old cardboard. Cardboard is not acid-free, but I highly doubt that this little "work of art" will be saved for posterity :-D

Oh the fun combinations that can be created! The little alphabet circles could have been rolled in glue and glitter to add even more pop. If I were putting them on a banner I would have probably done so, but in this case I really want the Santa picture to be the focal point and am trying to draw your eye to it rather than all the other fantastic little details in this tray :-D

More details will be shared over the next few days, so be certain to stay tuned and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping in today as it is such a busy time of year. Wishing you a healthy and safe Halloween evening!