Invitation Central

I haven’t made a post on here since September! I guess it just goes to show how tunnel vision I get when I work on projects. SO much has happened since September! The bridesmaid’s dresses came in, decorations have been made, invitations were all handmade and sent out, aisle runner was painted, we bought Thad’s ring, and started working out the details of the actual ceremony!

I don't know how to even catch up on all of that so I will just start at the Invitations! 

We chose to hand make our invitations which was A LOT of work. But in the end I was REALLY happy with how they turned out. I had spent some time looking for winter invitations and had come up short with something that really fit the bill. I felt bad but really I only wanted a few simple things!

1. I wanted it to say winter without saying Christmas. 

                                             Strike 90% of the winter invitations. 

2. I wanted them to be in silver with some pop of blue or purple

                                             Strike 9.9% of the remaining 10 percent of winter invitations.

3. I wanted them to not cost a fortune.

                                             You guessed it. -10% remaining.

So instead of moping about it I started to investigate how to make my own. I knew it might be expensive to get all the materials but I really wanted my invitations to be unique and special. I found a company that sold metallic paper. I really liked that because I didn't want my invitations to feel cheesy and homemade and I thought that starting with some pretty paper would help. So I ordered some samples and when they got here I searched for a cheap distributor and bought all the paper I would need.

I did some research and found invitations that were similar to something that I liked. Then I went and showed them to Thad to see what he liked. He didn’t like the snowflake designs like I thought and instead wanted something with trees. He did like the idea of doing a pocket fold after I explained it to him. Something that usually costs about 1.50 for the pocket fold without the invitation that I figured if I was going to make them anyways might as well make them everything I wanted. So I went hunting and tried doing a bit of Photoshop to figure out what would work well. That was when I stumbled upon an image that wasn’t exactly what we had talked about but that I was really drawn to. So I made a mock-up of an invitation using it and sent it to Thad who was away at the time to take a look at it. He liked it! So with both of us happy I went to talk to my Uncle Bill who is a graphic artist.

I showed my mock up to him and he insisted that I send it to him so that he could fix it for me. I also asked him to help make an RSVP card. I sent him some wording for it that I thought was fun and then sent it his way. A few days later he sent me the mock ups and we decided to get it printed in Salem. I went down the next day with some of my paper to be cut at the printers and it came back about a week later!

While it was nice to be able to have some of my paper cut by the printer I wasn’t able to do that for all of it, i.e. the envelopes. So instead I took my 12 by 12 pieces of paper. Cut them all multiple ways and scored them to make the envelope. On Shari’s blog she made a list of all the prep work for the invitations I had done before I showed up with them to her place. (With time and a few more steps added.)

1. Cut the 12×12 sheets into the correct dimensions (probably 6-7 hours easy)
2. Scored them in three places for easy folding (Add another 2-3)
3. Folded them along the lines (1 hour)
4. Glued the invitations to the silver backing (2-3 hours with help from Mom)
5. Glued down the edges of the pocket for the RSVP card and envelope (1 hour)
6. Cut the purple paper into two different length strips (30 minutes with help from Robyn)
7. Punched the shorter strips with the snowflake/swirl design (30 minutes)
8. Glued the short purple strip onto the top of the pocket and then knifed them to be able to slip the RSVP cards in (1 1/2 hours)
9. Designed the return address for the invitations and RSVP’s (45 minutes)
10. Printed the addresses on the invitation envelopes and on the RSVP envelopes (2 hour fight with printer)

So that was about 17 hours of work give or take? Well then I had the bright idea to emboss the invitations because I had seen them look really cool online. So I ordered an embossing folder online in this cool shape.

When it came though I discovered it was too short for the invitations. So I took the design and sent it to rubber stamp making website and had them make me it in stamp form but to the dimensions that I needed! When it arrived it looked great! I mentioned to Shari that I was nervous to try and emboss and she offered to help because she had done it before. So I borrowed my friend Rosalyn’s heat gun and bought all the stuff, packed up m box of paper supplies and headed over to Shari’s (y mother in laws not the restaurant!).

Then we began embossing! It was a fun process to see happen. We used clear ink on the stamp, then stamped it and poured silver embossing powder over it. Then we used the heat gun and ran it over the powder and after a few seconds the powder would like melt together and become a solid beautiful shape. It worked great! But it took forever. Shari posted that it took 4 hour but I am pretty sure she must have blocked out 3 more, because we started at 2 pm and didn’t get done until far after dinner. 

Then we used some snowflake stamps that I had been debating about buying in Michaels when dad saw me and said “hey whatcha got there?” I showed them to him and he said “YEP” and threw them in the cart. They were just going to be done with silver ink but after I started gluing on the purple border for the envelope pocket I noticed they were smearing the ink. Apparently this gorgeous paper that I bought won’t absorb and let ink dry. GREAT! So the solution? More embossing. Which I think did look better in the long run but it took another 4 hours to do.

We also printed and cut clear address labels to put behind the rsvp cards with our wedding website on them. So that took another hour. But I thought it was important for people to be reminded that we have that because it does have our registries and directions on it.  Then Thad rolling pinned the little embossing folder I had bought onto the rsvp envelopes and we stuffed them and stamped the back of each one with a silver snowflake.

They turned out perfectly. I could not have been happier with them and I have gotten so many compliments on them! Some people didn’t even know that I made them which is amazing. Some even called them the “nicest, classiest piece of mail” they ever received! I was glad for the help. With added penguins for postage they didn’t end up being a ton cheaper than if I had bought invitations. But they turned out much nicer than any I could have bought and being able to have complete control over the design was well worth it to me. While Shari posted this meme:

I would have to add, “Without a lot of help!” Because I would make them again if needed because I love how nice they turned out!But it is fun too get the RSVP cards in the mail everyday!