Tutorial - Print and Assembling Printables

I love when people that would describe themselves as anything BUT crafty, want to give my printables a try.  Most often, I get asked how to assemble the banner and the cupcake toppers.  I thought it might be helpful to write up a post to take you through the printable process from printing the files to assembling them.  This will be a two part post with the other post showing you some inexpensive tips and tricks to create your own budget friendly dessert table.
I decided to use my recently added Fire Truck printables as the example for this tutorial.

I really wanted to try this out from the customers perspective. Instead of printing the files on my own, I decided to have them printed at Kinkos.  A lot of customers tell me they don't have a printer or a 'good' printer.  All the photos you see in my shop are from my inkjet printer that I got at Staples about three years ago.  I think it cost less than $150.  So you don't need a professional printer to make really nice paper goods.  However, for the ones that don't have a printer at all, I suggest they get the files printed at a place like Kinkos or Staples.  I thought I would get the files for this tutorial printed at Kinkos so I could see what the process is like.  It's really EASY!  You can upload all the files online and select what type of paper you want each file printed on.  Once I submitted all the files and submitted payment, I received an email less than 12 hours later that my files were ready for pick up.  EASY!  I picked most to be printed on their 110 lb. index stock.  For the foldover treat tags, I had those printed on the 'Ultra Bright White' stock.  The higher the weight of a paper, the thicker it is.  I usually suggest printing on anything between 80 lb. and 100 lb.  I did not notice much difference between the 110 lb stock and the 'Ultra Bright White' in terms of thickness.  For the water bottle labels, I had those printed on their glossy stock just to try it out.  They printed out really well on those and it's nice and thick stock.  Those would look great for the candy bar wrappers as well.  For water bottle labels, I usually suggest full sheet label paper so that it sticks to the bottle.  The glossy paper from Kinkos is not waterproof and I did not see an option for full sheet label stock or labels that were waterproof.  So this is some of the compromise with printing at a print shop as opposed to printing at home where you can buy your own paper.  The cost per page was around $1.20.  Now, I have 80# white cardstock on hand that I order from paperandmore.com and that is 100 sheets for $15 plus shipping.  It is more cost effective to purchase your own paper and print at home if you are able. 

When printing your files from home, you may need to play with some of your printer settings.  For the items like the cupcake toppers, you may want to choose 'scale to fit media' or an option that does not enlarge them so they fit within the two inch punch for which they were designed.  Your printer naturally wants to add in a margin around the image being printed.  Which can cause the size of the actual image to shrink from it's actual size.
Now that we have them printed...let's assemble!  People will ask how long does it take to setup the printables?  It really depends on which items you choose and how much of each item.  A party for less than ten kids does not have as many printed items as a party for fifty people.  The toppers and the banner are by far the more involved items to assemble.

First up, is assembling the cupcake toppers.  Below is a step-by-step guide for doing the toppers.  You will need a pair of scissors, a two inch punch, lollipop sticks, and glue. 
 1.  Cut off the bottom of the page to be able to get the punch up around the first topper. 
 2.  You will need a 2" circle punch.  A scallop punch works well too.  I like using a plain circle punch for boy parties. 
3.  Flip the punch over so you see the backside of it and then you can line it up easier with the center of the topper.
4.  There is your topper!
5.  Put a line of glue on the top part of a white lollipop stick.  Then place your punched out topper on top of the glue, centering the image with the stick.
6.  All done!  Well...done with the first one.  Repeat for all toppers.

Next up!  The banner....

You will need a regular hole punch and ribbon.  You can do the banner a few different ways, but I think this is an easy and a secure way of putting it together. 
1. Cut out each piece
2. Finished pieces
3. You may want to use a ruler and put a pen mark as to where to punch each hole so you have them punched in the same spot for each letter.  Then punch out a hole on the upper left and upper right corner of each piece.
4. Slip ribbon through the top left corner of the first piece.
5. Run the ribbon behind the back of the piece.
6. And run the ribbon up through the hole on the right side.  Continue for each piece.

Most of the other printables you would simply cut, fold and display.  If you ever have questions about how to assemble the other files, please contact me! I hope you find this tutorial helpful and stay tuned for the next post with another tutorial on creating a budget friendly dessert table.