The Canon PIXMA TS6550i: the all-round printer for the creative home

Juliet Amma is a busy single parent, full-time science teacher and enthusiastic crafter, and also runs a small business from home. She has a Masters degree in Pharmacy and worked in that profession for ten years, but then went into teaching in 2019. It was when Covid struck and she was working from home that she discovered crafting. She enjoys mainly vinyl and papercrafts, and loves to craft as a shared family activity with the younger of her two daughters, who is aged 9.

With all this going on, Juliet's life is filled with creative activity, and printing plays a key role in every aspect – teaching, business, crafting, and family activities alike. She recently upgraded from her previous Canon printer to a Canon PIXMA TS6550i, and here she shares how she uses the printer and why it is an essential around her home.

Her Canon printer also makes it easy for Juliet to create entertaining, stimulating activities for her family. Fun, printable colouring sheets are widely available online at sources such as Canon's Creative Park. Simply choose one and print it directly using the Canon PRINT app on your phone or tablet. For painting, Juliet recommends using matte photo paper – it's heavy enough to paint on without breaking up, and its textured surface takes water-based paint beautifully.

Taking the idea of printed activity sheets further, Juliet and her daughter made a custom colouring book. They chose colouring pages with a suitable theme, and printed these on Canon Black Label paper, which Juliet says is great for colouring because it is sturdier than ordinary copy paper. Thanks to Canon's advanced ink formulation, the printed page resists smudging if you write on it, use highlighters or colour it in. She printed a cover on glossy cover stock, then bound the book together using ribbon.

"I feel that a lot of kids nowadays are glued to their electronic devices, and this is a way of getting them away from their screens," Juliet comments. "It's also a way we can make crafting fun. As well as choosing the pictures and making the book, we can do some colouring together and make it something we can keep and remember."

A custom colouring book also makes a great gift for birthdays, Christmas, back to school – any type of occasion, Juliet says. "For friends' birthdays, I'll ask my daughter what her friend likes and I'll find colouring pages based on that, so it's really personalised. I'll make them a little goody bag and put their personalised colouring book in there.

"My love language is gifting, so I'm always making gifts and greeting cards to give friends and loved ones," she explains.

As another example, Juliet creates board games such as snakes-and-ladders, both for the family and as gifts for school friends. She says the PIXMA TS6550i is ideal for this because it can print up to A4 borderless. She will either design the game board herself or find one she likes and then print it on thicker photo paper. "Sometimes we use coins as tokens to play with, or I'll print and cut out little shapes and laminate them for durability."

"As a side hustle," Juliet reveals, "I make a lot of personalised gifts," and the personalisation usually involves a printed element. She might make a money gift card, for example, with a photo of someone's face on it. She also makes personalised T-shirts and other clothing, printing designs onto transfers and using an iron or heat-press to apply the designs to T-shirts, baby-grows or jumpers.

Naturally, she uses her PIXMA printer for all the admin that any small business requires, such as address labels, invoices and compliments slips. She'll include a thank-you card in every order she sends out, designed and printed by herself on card stock or photo paper. Her PIXMA TS6550i is ideal for printing these items, Juliet says.

"On social media people often complain that black text comes out grey or bluish on their printers, but this printer prints very clear, really black text." Its pigment black ink ensures sharp text output, and Juliet finds that its ink use is very efficient. "I usually buy XL ink cartridges," she says, "which have more ink in the cartridge, and you get more value for your money." What's more, she says the PIXMA TS6550i prints documents very quickly, and its auto double-sided printing capability saves her both time and money.

To make printing even more affordable and hassle-free, you can also sign up for the PIXMA Print Plan (available in selected regions for selected printer models, including the PIXMA TS6550i) – you pay a fixed monthly subscription based on the number of pages you print per month, and the printer monitors its ink levels and automatically orders the correct inks when they're getting low. These are delivered to your door, and you pay nothing more for the inks or for delivery – it's all included in your monthly subscription, and you save up to 50% on the cost of ink.¹

Juliet teaches A-level Chemistry, and regularly prints practice exam questions for her students and for herself, to help keep her subject knowledge at its peak. Around the home, she likes to print labels, often on stickers, to organise things, and to-do lists to organise herself – she finds it more satisfying to cross things off a physical list, she says, than simply on her phone screen.

She prints equations, English texts and other work for her daughters to complete, as well as flash cards for schoolwork and revision. She'll often use a heavier paper such as matte photo paper for these, and sometimes laminate them to make them even more durable. Her younger daughter finds these a big help with spellings, she explains: "She'll look at the card, turn it over, write her answer, then check the card to see whether she's got it right."

The PIXMA TS6550i is such a versatile printer in such a compact package, it satisfies all of Juliet's print needs but doesn't take up a lot of space. "My crafting space is small," she says. "My dream is to have a craft room. But once you have that passion to create, no matter what space you're in, you make the most of it. This printer is very compact and very light – my previous printer was almost double the size. This one doesn't require a big space. I can put it anywhere. And because it has wireless connectivity, I don't even have to be in the same room to just print something off from my phone or my laptop."

The common element in many of Juliet's creative activities is the value of the physical object. "Having a photo print you can hold in your hand is much more satisfying than looking at pictures on someone's phone," she declares. When it comes to gifting, nothing can beat a personalised gift such as a custom-made money card or colouring book. "And be honest, how many family photos are stuck on your phone, never to be seen again? A family photo album brings back those memories and turns them into something you can hold and treasure."

As a mother, Juliet finds shared print projects a great family activity. You can print board games you can play together, or paper toys and home decorations you can make together. "As a family you have those evenings when you're chilling, but you don't want to watch TV or just be on your phone. Time I can spend with my family is really precious."

For Juliet, the Canon PIXMA TS6550i is a key part of day-to-day life and all kinds of creative activities, from work and crafting to helping reduce kids' screen time, supporting school work, and bringing the family together over shared activities. "The creativity is endless," she says, and her Canon PIXMA printer makes it all happen.


Written by Alex Summersby