What does decorating sugar cookies and formatting Word docs have in common? A little goes a long way.<\/p>\n
I loved decorating Christmas cookies when I was a child. Sprinkles, chocolate chips, silver balls, dried fruit — the more the merrier. I didn’t like to eat them, but I had a fine time making them. Apparently no one else in the family liked eating them either. I recently asked my older sister to send me her recipe for sugar cookies. Older siblings have a penchant for comment and this occasion was no exception:<\/p>\n
“Please do not allow yourself to do any decorating. This is NOT an opportunity to express yourself. I still gag at the thought of all the crap you layered on — dried fruits, sprinkles, candy pearls, cinnamon toppers, more frosting… Remember: Less is more in the world of sugar cookies.”<\/em><\/p>\n But like many of the words of wisdom imparted by my siblings, I ignored the advice when I set out to format a company newsletter. I didn’t stop with bold and italics. I mixed typefaces and fonts. Of course, color — of text, of “fill”, or lines. Wow! I discovered I could make text curve up and down, make letters shadowed. And bullets — who knew I didn’t have to settle for the round dot? Yes indeed I found other bullet types and used a different one in each section of my newsletter. I turned text sideways and tilted images. When I was done, reading my newsletter was akin to a ride on rough seas. My spouse suggested my efforts might be more suited to a ransom note.<\/p>\n So I toned it down. Damn near killed me. Then I went to bad and DeAnn (one of my inner voices which will be the subject of another post) reminded me until I fell asleep that I was no graphic designer. Once she got tired of that, she told me I was no writer and had no business doing anything I’ve done of late.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What does decorating sugar cookies and formatting Word docs have in common? A little goes a long way. I loved decorating Christmas cookies when I was a child. Sprinkles, chocolate chips, silver balls, dried fruit — the more the merrier. … Continue reading