Thanks for the suggestions about inks, Cynthia and Carol. I will take a look. I do spend a bundle on that stuff. I have had bad luck in the past with third party inks that made a mess of the printer, and have heard about some other brands that contained far less ink as a way of keeping the costs down. I'm ready to take another look at a source for less expensive supplies!

Paper
 

My printer arrived, I got the R300 from epson.com. It was $125 with free shipping. It's still in the box downstairs, now I need to get it set up. :o

Next I need to head over to OfficeMax or Office Depot and find some suitable paper to send out a few notecards. I don't belong to Costco.

Thanks Cynthia for your input. I'll just go take a look at our office supply places and see what they have in the way of glossy paper.

Anybody else have any paper suggestions for notecards?

thanks,

Joan

Joan--
Avery makes nice note card stock. I've had bad luck with cheaper versions (sometimes they don't fold straight/evenly and just look sloppy).

If you're looking for something a little fancier in terms of card stock, the office supply store near us has a section with printer stationary for weddings. . . Some of the blank wedding invitation stock is very classy looking and reasonably priced.

The HP glossy brochure stock is a little pricey, but worth it! It's heavier than just glossy paper and scored for folds, takes color beautifully.

I'm using my HP 5150 with good results. I insert a "photo" cartridge in instead of the black, (keeping the tricolor in place), use glossy paper of good quality, set the print to "maximum DPI" and make sure that my original has a higher number dpi. That's what I'm doing for photo samples.

For business cards, I do the same, but use the black cartridge.
My business cards are printed out with a bleed edge, and I cut them down myself. A bit time-consuming, but it works for me.

Another printing option
 

One of the things I often do is use an online printer that allows uploading of your own artwork. I have had good results with Vistaprint . For a one time fee of $4.99 you can upload your own image (I make a composite with photoshop that includes any text I want), which can then be used with any of the print items they offer for sale. You can order card in quantities as small as 10. They also print business cards. My business card has three small head studies on it. In my experience, this has been lower cost than printing cards myself.
To ensure proper color, etc, you can order a PDF proof for $1.99. Once, I had some cards delivered with improper color, and when I called, the quality department folks took the information over the phone and I had corrected cards within two days.
Vistaprint offers frequent (monthly) sales on many of their products. You can have custom business cards printed for as little as $3.99 for 250.

Thank you Terri, Julie, and Molly,

Thanks for all the good information. I have my new printer set up and it prints beautifully on the Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. I think being able to print out 8x10 reference photos to paint from will pay for the printer itself.

But, finding a good stock to print my notecards on has been a different story! I found some matte paper with envelopes (a set of 25 each) at the office supply store. Actually, this printer prints beautifully on the matte paper. It's not very thick at all, only 48 lb, but it's okay.

I have not gotten my new printer to print on any kind of glossy stock successfully. Except the photo paper, which has 'EPSON' printed across the back on a diagonal about 100 times, so that won't work for notecards! I went to my local printer this morning and he sent me to a huge paper warehouse here in Houston. What fun! I came home with about 10 different samples of matte and glossy card stock, some specifically for ink jet, some just plain glossy card stock. Nothing worked as well as the little set of matte card stock I got at the office supply store yesterday. (Though using those and cutting them down and not using the envelopes makes this option expensive! I like my own envelope sizes.)

When I print on the glossy card stock the image is very faded and splotchy. I'm sure it must be the card stock because I can get the printer to print photo quality prints on the 'premium photo paper' from Epson. I called Epson this morning and got a guy that didn't know much. He was no help at all with the quality of printing. Apparently they don't have a glossy card stock available.

I did see the tri-fold brochure glossy paper by HP in the store, but I'm trying to print 5x5" or 4 1/2 x 5 1/2" notecards. It would be better to just find the paper and then I can cut it myself, I have tons of envelopes from old projects. Oh, the paper store this morning didn't carry Avery paper. I could search that out though.

Molly, what you're doing with the online printing sounds good, I'm going to check that out. And I can believe it's less expensive, I've already used up 25% of each of my 6 ink cartridges. I just watch those little levels go down and down. Oh well, I'm experimenting and once I get the paper figured out I think it'll be easier. The basic problem is not finding glossy paper in CARD stock, it's all too flimsy for decent looking/high quality notecards. I will look into the wedding invitation stock Terri.

I don't mind cutting down the cards myself, I have a nice big paper cutter. And I like the square format and have found some great square envelopes, found them this morning at the paper store.

thank you again everyone, I'll keep at it ;)

Joan

inks
 

I have a epson stylus photo 2200 printer which has "archival" individual ink cartridges for each of 7 colors. I've found it makes much richer prints than my old epson photo ex, and an advantage is that you only replace the color that is used up. I don't get good results however, with anything but epson products.

I have made cards for my clients in the past, but got lazy when nothing seemed to come of it. I should start doing this again. I have been asked, however, to make high quality digital prints for grandparents etc... which I can do up to 11x17 on my printer. (you need a high quality image to blow it up this big.) I also have recently tried, as an experiment, to get a larger (18x24) image professionally blown up on canvas, and I am working into it a bit with oils for added richness and subtlty of color. This is for the parents, because they are giving the original to the grandparents.

Paper
 

Hi Andrea,

Thanks for the info on your printer. I think you may have something there with your reference to Epson products. When I called Epson they stressed using their products, which naturally they would!

My problem is that I am looking for glossy paper, fairly heavy like card stock, so I can make notecards. Well, I quizzed the Epson guy and they even connected me with their paper department and I was told Epson doesn't make a glossy card stock! The only way I can make glossy cards (with Epson products) is to buy the ready-packaged sets of 25 with glossy card stock. They're 6" x 9", which is a little big, so I end up cutting down the stock and using different envelopes. An expensive way to do this, but it's the best option until I find something better to print on.

I just haven't had time these past few days to get to the Office Supply store to see what they have.

Joan

I didn't read every post in this thread, but you should be aware of cafepress.com

They allow you to upload images and have them printed on various items. Some might not be appropriate for a portrait artist. You wouldn't want a clock with a portrait on the face, but many of the items, like the tile box, would make nice gifts.

Costco paper
 

Hi Michele,

I'm assuming since this is photo paper, it's glossy.

I've exhausted every way I know to find some glossy paper to print my notecards on, all the 'photo paper' I come across has a name printed diagonally across the back (like Epson, or Kodak). And most of it is very flimsy anyway, only as thick as a photo would be. So, I'm going to go to Costco here. Can you please tell me exactly the paper that works for you so I can get some? I think it should work on my printer since I got the same on you have. ;) In fact, I'll call Costco before I go to make sure they have the same thing here.

thank you,

Joan