When it comes to decorating your home, giving gifts or even just entertaining yourself, your home printer isn’t the first solution that first jumps to mind. But as it turns out, a modern printing device that can realise any digital image in stunning clarity, is actually a pretty handy little tool for a lot of entertainment and décor activities
Here are some of the weirdest things we could find that you can print at your home, provided you have all 3 of these things:
* A colour printer
* The right types of paper
* An imagination
Labels & Stickers
Interested in preserves or food pickling? Print labels for jars and containers of homemade foods. This is a nice and easy one, as the trend for labels is to keep it simple and more rustic looking.
Stickers are fun a way to express yourself, and printing your own gives you complete control over the design, so you can really individualise it or use your favourite Pinterest picture.
Birthday Cards and other Greeting Cards
While this seems like an obvious one, most people still rely on that last minute visit to a random pharmacy, picking the least inappropriate card and clumsily scrawling a message on it in the car, on the way to the party, for their card needs.
You don’t need to be a graphic designer either to print your own birthday cards. Many websites make it easy by offering set templates where you just need to choose and crop the picture you want on the front, the message in and the font you want it in.
Poster Prints
Get more colour around your house without shelling out a fortune at an art store. You will need a pretty decent printer to be completely satisfied with this it one. A laser printer that’s at least 240dpi or higher. An obvious rule of thumb is if it print photos fine, then it can print posters. Image resolution is also a factor, try to find as large a version of the image as possible (no less than 1024 width or 768 height), before printing.
Frames will be your most expensive outlay here, but first try to find some old frames at your house or a second hand store that will often sell old paintings and prints for less than the frame is worth. Buy triptych frames to print something bigger than A4.
Sudoku and Puzzles
Yet another one not many people think of. But if you’re one of those people who can’t wait for the next day’s newspaper, just so you run through the Sudoku and crossword puzzles, this one’s perfect for you.
There are websites with thousands of puzzles and brainteasers, all for free. It also uses a lot less toner or cartridge ink than any of these other ideas. You can also turn on ink-saver mode and print on both sides, to keep your consumption down to a minimum.
Stencil Prints
Okay, this technically needs quite a lot more than a printer to achieve but a lot about a home printer and laptop. will help you be more precise about it. You’ll need:
* A silhouetted print
* A box cutter
* A narrow paint brush or spray-paint.
For really custom prints, there are a lot of online editors that will remove the background and turn any image into an easy cut out. Once you’ve carefully cut the main image out of the paper, remove the outside of the picture (stencil), place flat on the desired surface and just apply paint, making sure to do the edges first. Read a useful article on doing stencil painting here.