What ever happened to Print Shop?

When I was in the fifth grade, I made a pretty penny printing out desk covers. I don't know if anyone else did this, but I'd get my pack of 10,000 Print Shop clip art items, pick a tiled format, and put someone's name in the middle of an 8 1/2x11 sheet of paper. They got to pick which clipart they wanted--tanks, ponies, you name it. I think I told them for five or ten bucks. Friends would place them on the top of their desk at school, and cover the desk in clear contact plastic. Instant customization. Ink paid for by my dad.

The Print Shop'ing didn't stop there. The videos of my grandparents' 50th Anniversary in 1989 have visual evidence of the six foot long Congratulations banner than I made them--that took nearly two hours to print and half a printer ribbon full of ink.

In fact, I even bought one of the first color dot matrix printers with my own money--mostly because of my Print Shop creations.

So where is that behavior now? Home banner making seemed to go away with the advent of ink jets and lasers--which print one sheet at a time, but making foldable cards, door signs, etc. doesn't seem to be a big home computing use case anymore. You can actually still buy versions of Print Shop, but I don't think the product is supported, and I'm sure it's probably pretty behind the times.

Is Zazzle the new Print Shop? I really don't think so. One, I don't really think the creation ability is much better on Zazzle than the old Print Shop and two, not being able to print stuff out yourself at home or get something at least the next day feels like a loss.

Maybe it's a generational thing? Is there some Mac Print Shop replacement that the kids are using these days to make "Do Not Enter" signs for their room?

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