Printing on Cut Shape Using Office Printer

This tutorial will explain and demonstrate with images

one way to use a home office printer to personalize

shapes to add to paper designs.

My sample is the oval that is part of the 

'Celebrate' swag card, which also fits across

the front of the Renaissance Castle model, shown here.

PROCESS:

1. Cut the shape that will be be printed on,

following the regular procedures.

As you choose the paper to cut the shape,

understand that the shape will be fed through

the office printer on a regular type sheet 'carrier'.

You will still want to know what weight of card stock

or paper your printer will be able to load that way.

Typically, up to medium weight card stock will

work just fine. 

Smooth surface paper may work better

than textured card stock.

2. Now, working with your word processing

or other equivalent program, prepare the print job

layout that you have planned.

This sample uses a single 'B' initial,

sized for the card oval at 100 pt.

Center the design on the page,

and leave a margin of at least 2-3 inches

below top of page.

 3. Send the print job to be printed,

on a regular weight piece of paper.
NOTE that in many cases, this means TOP first,
and FACE DOWN.
(Get familiar with how your printer works.)

HINT: straighten the paper supply stack in the

printer, so the 'carrier' sheet can be fed into

the printer a second time in more or less

the exact same positioning.

4. Working with the carrier original, position and 'affix'

the cut shape over the printed character

in the positioning and arrangement you want to achieve.

You can do this using a window as a light box,

or other similar set up where light can show through

the carrier sheet to help with the arrangement.

With my example, I used the 'waste' window

to help me center the initial within the oval opening,

then while holding the window in place,

I positioned the oval into the window opening . . .

 . . . held oval in place as I moved the waste away,

then used pieces of Scotch brand (or equiv)

temporary removable tape to hold the oval on the carrier.

5. Insert the carrier sheet with attached cutout

into the paper supply tray of the office printer,

then send the job to the printer a second time.
The printer should pull the carrier sheet in

to be printed on in the same position as the first time,

only this time, the printing will happen on the cut shape.

 6. Remove the tape holding the shape in place . . .

 . . . and add it to your project.