Getting Creative : HP Sprout

As you know I’ve been using a HP Sprout for the last couple of months, together with my children and husband, vigorously putting it through it paces.

• Here is my first post, which looked at the what the HP Sprout is.
• My second post, looked at how we have been using the HP Sprout as a family.

I’ve not talked much about how I have used it though, so in this post I will be writing about my project, which has been to design and make some wrapping paper and gift tags using the Sprout, and both of my daughters favourite toys.  I’m going to use them as very special Christmas wrapping paper, I can’t wait for them to see them! Of course Nia, now 13 is a little too old for toys, so I used ones from when she was much younger, but have so many memories attached to them.  They are now actually played with by my youngest Miss A who’s 6.

To actually scan in and capture the images is incredibly easy, and its completed at the simple click of one button. What you do next is the hard part, as there is so many things you can do with an image, so I’ve been having a play and using different techniques to see what I could come up with.

I firstly wanted to give you an idea of the quality of the images:

This is wrapping paper below I made by capturing each of the three My Little Ponies, and then copying a few of them, grouping them, and thus easily making a large pattern of them to fill a sheet of wrapping paper. Depending on how I printed it out, I thought this could also be used for gift tags too.Or how about the detail on these Sylvanian Family bunnies?
I used the same technique I used on the ponies to make this wrapping paper, using a firm favourite with Miss A, who I know will be incredibly excited to see a present wrapped in this!

I also thought it would be a good idea to add another pattern to the wrapping paper that wasn’t a toy, so tried butchers string which I captured the same way as I did the toys. I also experimented with typing words using the keyboard, and using the pen on the Create App to add patterns.

The easiest way to show you all of this is to share with you my creations.  So here are the wrapping paper, gift tags, stickers and greetings card I came up with :

I’m really pleased with how the butchers twine turned out! The tags were simple, I just sent the image to my HP Envy printer, using card and then cut them out. I then punched a hole and threaded an assortment of ribbon and twine through them.

The little ponies repeated, really does look like wrapping paper I think, but because it’s the three Miss A plays with the most, its something money can’t buy!

This is a small doll,  we’ve had it for many years called Tessa.  Its been played with, even its hair cut *ahem* and now sits proudly on Miss A’s desk.

Finally, another favourite is this camera which isn’t an original, but again it has brought hours of joy! I tried a repeat message on that one of  ‘Don’t lose the tag, you won’t know who its from’ for a bit of fun.

I also as well as white paper and card to make the tags and wrapping paper, used printable sticker paper to make stickers to seal paper bags, which look really effective I think.

I even had a go at making a greetings card too.

So all that is left now, is for me to get wrapping…and to wave goodbye to the HP Sprout!

This post was written in collaboration with the HP Sprout