About the art
This great piece of art was created by the Brothers Fraim. They operate a powerhouse of an artist studio over at Fraimworks. Brian and Brendon are twin brothers who have done artwork for all sorts of things. They have some interesting sample pieces on their site and they are always available for commissioned artwork. I have used them many times in the past.
Creating the cards
I don't use Word, I use Open Office. This can cause me problems when trying to use Avery products because the templates are not always there.
In this case I am using the Avery 5877 White Clean Edge Business Cards to make the ID cards. After I print them I laminate them and use a whole punch on the top so the kids can wear them. I'm also using a very interesting font called "1942 Report".
Because the template was not available I had to download a Word-based one from the Avery website. That worked well enough but, when printing, some things were off just enough to cause me a problem. No, I did not waste card stock, I used regular paper to make my test runs.
A secondary problem, that I almost missed, is that the card stock is 1/8 inch taller than my paper. I was lining up the bottoms of my sheets to test for alignment. If I had not noticed this my print runs would have all been off by 1/8 inch!
To make everything easier I made two files for printing.
File number one is just the image. File number two is just the text, aligned with tables.
Why make two files? Simple. Sometimes we get late arrivals or people lose their badge. By having a stack of blanks ready I can quickly write-in the child's name and unit information and then laminate. If I did them all with one file then I would be stuck if I had to add someone last minute.
Laminating
Now comes the interesting part. I only have a small number of ID card sized lamination blanks and I have a large number of 8 1/2 x 11 blanks. In order to make everything work I need to make the badges and align them on the larger sheets. This takes a steady hand because one wrong move and the cards can slide around and come out all wrong.
My plan is to put eight per large sheet and then cut them out. I could fit 10 per sheet but I would be cutting it very close. If I wanted to hang the badges sideways (punch a hole in the left side) it would be fine but the campers want the hole on top. Allowing for the quarter inch, hole and 10" of cards, would not leave enough room unless I punch the hole through the card and not just the laminate.
Either way I'm happy with the results.
PS: I will be gone most of next week working the day camp, I'm still looking for guest bloggers!