A month ago I wrote about finding some swaps for our Beaver Postcard Swap to mark 30 years of Beavers being recognised in Scouting. You can find it here. As part of this I mentioned that Stress Free Printing were doing us a huge favour and printing our postcards free of charge, as a charity (not many people know that) this meant a lot to us as stamps alone will be setting us back a few quid (around £20 by my estimate as some are going overseas).
Not only did they print them by Kev couldn't have been more helpful. We knew from the outset that we wanted to design our own postcard showing all the fun things our colony do, I'm used to doing all this online but with Stress Free Print you send them your design. I decided to use Publisher to create our design in but when I sent them the image they let me know that it wouldn't have made a good postcard as it wasn't a high enough resolution. Fortunately Kev was on hand to let me know which programme they use (yes, if you send them your images they will put them together for you!) and kept checking that I was ok and whether I needed any more support to create the design. It was like having my own consultant, and a virtual kick up the bum :)
So Adobe Creative Cloud downloaded, a screen open with the dummies guide on and armed with phtoto's I set about designing our card. Many days and a few choice words later and I was able to save it as a high resolution PDF, as recommended, and sent it off.
Stress Free Print's postcards are printed onto sturdy 380 micron board and have a semi-glossy finish to the front and a matt finish to the reverse. We went for A5 postcards but you can also have A4, A6, A7, DL or your own custom choice. You also decide whether you want full colour or black and white and which type of paper to use.
Once you've placed your order Stress Free Print will post a free printed proof out via First Class Royal Mail post (you can also opt for an on-screen (PDF) proof which will be emailed). Once you've made any changes or given your approval to proceed the postcards will be printed and delivered within 3 working days (Monday to Friday, 8.30am -5.30pm, requiring a signature). Therefore less then a week later my goodies arrived, and they really did look better then I could have imagined.
We were given the option of making the back look like a postcard but as we're sticking a template on once the Beavers have completed it we'll be posting them off in envelopes, instead they printed us a 'tagline'.
I can't wait to show the other leaders and our Beavers when we go back in the New Year and will definitely be popping back to Stress Free Print when I get round to designing my next set of Business Cards.
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