Creating the Perfect Letters
for Your Project
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By Barbara Eastwick

I believe that lettering can embellish a scrapbook page or a card better than any
other accessory.  The letters can be used to spell out a name, and make the
project personal, or it can spell the title, theme, or event.  The manufacturers
know this, and have put a wide array of letters on your stores’ shelves for you to
look at.  But what if your name has 3 ‘z’s?  What if you are tired of having a large
collection of letters you’ll never use?  I have created a way to make the perfect
letters to match your page, card, theme, color, etc., by using only your computer’s
printer, and some paper punches you probably already have.

First, let’s take a look at punches.  We’re looking for a punch that leaves a space
large enough to place a letter.  This space does not have to be directly in the
center, but the printed letter must be able to completely fit on the punched out
surface.  (Figure 1) Although both punches produce about the same size cutout,
the punch on the left (snowflake) has too narrow an interior space to fit a letter.  
The punch on the right (flower) has a “meaty” interior, and will fit a letter
beautifully.  We’ll be working with all different sizes and styles of punches, and
fitting the lettering to match their theme and size (Figure 2).  So find yourself a
punch, and we’ll get started on the lettering.

I’ll be using “Microsoft Word” 2003 for the Text Art options are limitless.  However,
any program that allows you to print letters will work.  The first thing to keep in
mind when doing this technique, is to leave enough spacing all around each letter
to allow for the full size of the punched image.  You can measure the area for the
cutout (flipping the punch over and seeing the actual cutout space), and give a
good guess how far apart you should space your letters.  This measurement will
give you a good starting point for choosing your font size, also.  The technique is
simple – we’re going to type a page of letters, well spaced, print them, and then
punch them out.

There are several elements of design to consider here when choosing a font and
a color for your letters.  Your font can match the theme of your project (holiday,
formal, whimsical, etc).   The color can be chosen to coordinate with the other
colors in your project.  To begin, I opened Microsoft Word, and typed the words
Winter Fun.  I highlighted all of the letters and by using the dropdown menu on the
tool bar for fonts, began scrolling through my fonts looking for a good “winter”
type font.  I chose Flat Brush, and clicked on it.  My letters are in Flat Brush, but
not spaced or the right size, yet.  I saw that my snowflake punch is 2”, and I need a
little more than that around each letter to maneuver when I go to punch the letters
out.  I decide to put 3 letters on each row, and space them equally on the line.  I
put the cursor between the first two letters (W and i) and hit the space bar.  When
the second letter was in the right place, I moved the cursor over it to begin
moving the next letter (n), and so on.  When the line is complete (in this case with
three letters), hit the enter key to give yourself enough room vertically between
the rows.  My first guess was that they should be in font size 48, (I highlighted all
of the letters, and using the dropdown menu for the font size – clicked on 48).  But
after printing them out (use cheap printer paper for your first drafts!), I realized I
needed it set to 72. I left it on “black” for the color, so it would show up well on the
white paper.   I then printed them out.  I cut them in strips of letters, careful to
always leave enough room to fit the whole punched image.  Then, turning the
punch over, I began moving the letter inside the punch, until I had its correct
placement (in this case, I wanted the letter in the middle. (Figure 3).  

Using this simple version of the technique, I created this layout using these
letters.  I did use a slightly different color for the capital “W” and “F”, and I put a
shadow on them, by highlighting the letter, clicking on format – font – check the
“shadow” box.  After punching the letters, I ran them through the Xyron 900, and
peeled the top plastic off.  I ‘painted’ them with Sparkle Mod-Podge.  I set up my
page using aqua colored cardstock, and strips of patterned paper on the top and
the bottom.  When dry, I peeled the letters off the Xyron paper, and there was an
ethereal, webbed effect left from the sparkly glue.  These letters are falling
snowflakes, so their placement should not be squared or perfect on the page.  I
matted my pictures using a corner punch, and created my text boxes in Microsoft
Word.  After arranging and gluing the pieces, I stamped snowflakes on the text
boxes with metallic silver ink. (Figure 4).

I believe that if you are going to put yourself into making a card, then folding a
piece of paper in half won’t do.  I’m not thrilled with generic envelopes, either.  I
like using these Free-Style™ Card, Envelope, and Liner templates from Green
Sneakers, Inc (www.GreenSneakers.com).  This one is a parallelogram.  For the
card, I traced the template onto both a piece of red cardstock and patterned
Christmas paper.  Fold them in half, as per the instructions, and fit the red piece to
the middle (wrong sides together).  Fold them together, to crease as one, and put
a dab of adhesive between the layers.  The letters were fun to make (Christmas
Joy).  I used the Fir Tree Punch from EK Success, and the Christmas Tree font size
48.  The letters fit the punch perfectly!  I printed them out on green cardstock (a
shade of olive that was in the patterned paper) (Figure 5).  The envelope was
made from a coordinating patterned paper, and made with the directions on the
envelope template.  The envelope liner is made with same paper as the card.  The
card seal is an elegant ‘B’, punched with a deckle square punch.  I used a tag,
highlighted the edges with green ink, and glued it to the envelope front, for the
address (Figure 6).

“Greetings” was made with Candy Bits font, and a star punch.  I alternated green
and red for the colors, and ran them through the Xyron 150 – they are all ready to
use!(Figure 7)

“Christmas” used Christbaum Kegeln font, in a variety of ornament colors, and I
used a balloon punch (upside down), and glued them to piece of iridescent ribbon.
(Figure 8)

“PEACE” was made by printing the letters out in dark blue Carrick font.  I rubbed
metallic gold ink on the letters, and punched them with McGill Stacking Square,
Scallop, 1¼”.  Then using the next size up of the stacking square (1 9/16”), I
punched cutouts from decorative paper.  Centering the letters on top, I glued the
layers together. (Figure 9)

Now, for all of those punches where the middle is too small to hold a letter….  We
can use another shaped letter, and layer with them.  For the word “HOLIDAY”, I
used green holly paper, and punched out the background piece using the EK
Success swirl punch.  I printed out the letters using a red Emerald Isle font.  Using
a small sun-shape punch, I cut out the letters, and adhered them to the green
swirls.  (Figure 10)

The opportunity to combine and mix and match papers, colors, and fonts, makes
this technique limitless.  For “Winterland”, I used McGill Stacking Snowflakes
Punches, 15/16” & 1 3/16”.  I cut the larger size from solid blue and the smaller one
from the patterned paper.  I used a blue Freefrm721 Blk BT Font, and cut it out
using a small circle punch.  (Figure 11)

Using this technique, you’ll always have just the right letters for your project.  No
more cutting the bottom off of ‘j’s to make an ‘i’!  You can always punch a few extra
pieces from your decorative paper to embellish your card or layout with, too!  It’s
easy and fun, and you’ll never look at a punch the same way again!  In fact, go
ahead now and check out your punches – what kind of letters will you make
today?  All you need are punches, paper, fonts, and your computer and printer.  
You probably already know where to get your paper and punches from: your local
scrapbook store, the big box stores, and the arts and crafts stores.  Fonts can be
an addiction.  I have a sizeable collection, and am always looking for more!  Just do
a MSN search for  “free fonts”, and go have a field day!  You’ll find the fonts used
for these projects there.  But once you see what’s available, you’ll be thinking of
punches that’ll match up!
Figure 11
I personally
purchased my
collection of
Punches from: