Hi friends! It’s Cristin here and I have a fun post for you today. Recently, I ordered a pack of inkjet-printable overhead projector transparencies. They are clear, thin sheets of acetate that have a printable surface. This creates so many new possibilities for printing the digital products in the Illustrated Faith Print & Pray Shop!
As soon as the package arrived, I tore it open and got to printing! So many of the Print and Pray Shop products include beautiful patterned paper sheets. I love the idea of see-through paper. On Instagram, I posted a picture of a couple of freshly printed papers and asked for feedback. A few people told me they liked to make divider sheets for journaling. I love doing that, too!
Here I’m just playing with the sheets, laying them on top of the pages. The left page was already done, but I couldn’t decide if I should use the hearts or flowers for the next page.
The printable transparencies are super easy to print on. If you’ve never tried them, one side of the plastic has a subtle, sandpapery finish to it, and the other side is shiny smooth. At the top of the sheets, there’s a thin white strip that will feed into your printer first. In order for the sheets to print well, you must make sure the ink prints on the rough side of the sheets.
The pages printed nicely, and came out of the printer with dry ink. I selected a “glossy” paper on my printer, but printed in a “normal” setting. There’s a link at the bottom of this post with the exact product I purchased. I have an inkjet printer, so I purchased “inkjet” transparencies. When in doubt, read the product reviews. Be careful not to buy transparent vinyl, which is another product entirely.
If you don’t have a printer, your local copy store may be able to print these for you. I used to go to my local big box office store and they would print transparencies for me. It cost me a little more than a dollar a sheet for store-printed sheets (your price may vary). The inkjet sheets from Amazon cost me about $.80/page not including ink.
Use #1: Scripture Highlight
For both pages today, I’m using Mandy Ford’s digital set, I am Growing. The first striped page I printed I used to highlight a block of text from John 1. Once again, I’m working through notes from my daily reading plan, and I wanted to highlight the entire block. The striped pattern is so fun, and it reminded me of big, chunky highlighter marks. I washi-taped the striped piece to the page, and used a fine tipped permanent marker to draw around the verses I wanted to highlight, right on top of the plastic.
Use #2: Divider Pages (Extra Space for Journaling!)
On the opposite page, I trimmed down a heart-patterned sheet to the same size as the bible page and ran a bead of glue down the edge of the sheet. This can be inserted straight into the binding, being careful to not get glue on the crease of both pages (like I usually do). As long as you’re not roughly pulling on the divider after it dries, it should be fine.
On top of the divider sheet, I popped a few embellishments and one of Elaine Davis’ library cards, and that was the easiest journaled page, ever! And underneath the transparency, the entire page can be used to journal more reading plan notes for Chapter 2. Yay!
Use #3: Print Your Photos
How fun is it to print a big photo on a transparency page?! A big, cloudy sky also would be pretty printed out, maybe a sunrise, so many things! You probably take lots of fun pictures that can be used in your journaling. I used this photo from my local peach orchard here in Psalm 1. This entry isn’t completed, but all it needs is some alpha stickers on top, and then the ENTIRE margin underneath is available for journaling! I love how transparencies can create so much more space.
Use #4: You Tell Me!
What else do you use transparencies for? Shakers? patterned pockets? Alcohol ink art? Tag me on Instagram so I can see what you’re making and be inspired by you. (@plyswthscissors) Thanks for joining me here today, friends! I had tons of fun printing these patterned transparency sheets.
Additional Supplies: Amazon Inkjet Transparencies
