My DIY invitations went out this week, after a long weekend of assembling them with the help of FI, FI''s awesome family and my sister. My mother was away on her mini-honeymoon so she wasn''t available, but we still had so much help it was unbelievable. FI''s grandmother and 81 year old grandfather even pitched in! We had a great time and it was totally worth it to DIY if only for the fun time we had putting them together.
I''m posting a ton of information about what I used to make them and where I got it all from because, as I was designing my own invites, the thing that helped me the most was to see invitations that other people made - but so many times I found something I loved and had no clue where the person got the paper/pocketfold/whatever from or what it was called, and it was very frustrating. I spent probably 12 hours searching for the leaf clasp/brad that I used to close the pocketfolds (I saw it on an invitation at Eiffel Printing, and thus my mission began...). So let''s just say that I know WAY more about scrapbooking/brads/eyelets/random craft stuff than I ever wanted to know!
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Paper:
Stardream Punch (cardstock) for matting and Stardream Silver (text weight) for the invite and inserts
Bought from: Anchor Paper http://www.anchorpaper.com/retail/stardreams.htm
Awesome company, the best prices around (nearly half of what everyone else charges when you buy at least 4 packs of 25 or 50). I ordered letter size paper and they cut it from the large sheets apparently, so they gave me all of the extra pieces for free (some of the pieces are quite large and very usable for other things). Super fast shipping.
Pockets:
Signature pocketfolders in Merlot from http://www.cardsandpockets.com. Very well made and beautiful. Also, they seem to be the only pocketfolders of this size/type that actually fit in a standard A7 envelope, which is a big plus because you aren''t stuck buying "special" envelopes from whoever you get the pockets from. Fast shipping (for the pocketfolds at least - my sample color swatches took a lot longer), nice company.
Envelopes:
Stardream Silver in A7 (invite) and A1 (rsvp)
Bought from http://envelopemall.com/ - by far the cheapest place online to get Stardream envelopes. Fast shipping.
Glue/tape:
Office Depot brand adhesive dispenser
Staples brand glue/tape runner
Glue dots
Embellishments:
Leaf brad: Nunn Designs (also called Decorative Details) "Flourish" brads in silver. Bought from Ace Reprographics (http://www.alvinco.com/~AceReprographics/shopping/family_sale_0_familyid_13425_cat_1033). The only place online that actually had them in stock. They were/are backordered everywhere else. Fast shipping, nice company.
Printing and cutting done at Office Depot. Total of $56 for getting all of the invites printed and cut (80 invites total, everything was printed 2 up (per page) except the rsvp, which was 4 up), and all of the cardstock cut. We had some issues with the cutting (which I was expecting...) but the people there were extremely nice and went out of their way to do everything they could for us. FI picked everything up and we ended up having to go back because the rsvps were cut slightly at a slant along the top, and the guy there first trimmed each of them by hand, and when we noticed some were cut too close on the sides, he reprinted another 40 of them for us and cut them again, and he spent a really long time making sure they were as straight as he could make them (like, over 15 minutes). A bunch of them were still cut slightly wrong, but FI convinced me that nobody would really notice/care so I finally let go of it.
Fonts: Optimus Princeps and Bonheur Royale, both free.
Graphics: "bought" from istock (I actually found a code online to get 5 free credits when you created a new account, and the graphics were 5 credits, so I got them for free). Graphics by -M-I-S-H-A-, recolored purple by me. http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=2246820
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And now, for the pictures! They aren''t the best because taking photos of metallic shimmery paper is really really difficult and frustrating, so this is the best I could do.
First, a teaser...
I''m posting a ton of information about what I used to make them and where I got it all from because, as I was designing my own invites, the thing that helped me the most was to see invitations that other people made - but so many times I found something I loved and had no clue where the person got the paper/pocketfold/whatever from or what it was called, and it was very frustrating. I spent probably 12 hours searching for the leaf clasp/brad that I used to close the pocketfolds (I saw it on an invitation at Eiffel Printing, and thus my mission began...). So let''s just say that I know WAY more about scrapbooking/brads/eyelets/random craft stuff than I ever wanted to know!
----
Paper:
Stardream Punch (cardstock) for matting and Stardream Silver (text weight) for the invite and inserts
Bought from: Anchor Paper http://www.anchorpaper.com/retail/stardreams.htm
Awesome company, the best prices around (nearly half of what everyone else charges when you buy at least 4 packs of 25 or 50). I ordered letter size paper and they cut it from the large sheets apparently, so they gave me all of the extra pieces for free (some of the pieces are quite large and very usable for other things). Super fast shipping.
Pockets:
Signature pocketfolders in Merlot from http://www.cardsandpockets.com. Very well made and beautiful. Also, they seem to be the only pocketfolders of this size/type that actually fit in a standard A7 envelope, which is a big plus because you aren''t stuck buying "special" envelopes from whoever you get the pockets from. Fast shipping (for the pocketfolds at least - my sample color swatches took a lot longer), nice company.
Envelopes:
Stardream Silver in A7 (invite) and A1 (rsvp)
Bought from http://envelopemall.com/ - by far the cheapest place online to get Stardream envelopes. Fast shipping.
Glue/tape:
Office Depot brand adhesive dispenser
Staples brand glue/tape runner
Glue dots
Embellishments:
Leaf brad: Nunn Designs (also called Decorative Details) "Flourish" brads in silver. Bought from Ace Reprographics (http://www.alvinco.com/~AceReprographics/shopping/family_sale_0_familyid_13425_cat_1033). The only place online that actually had them in stock. They were/are backordered everywhere else. Fast shipping, nice company.
Printing and cutting done at Office Depot. Total of $56 for getting all of the invites printed and cut (80 invites total, everything was printed 2 up (per page) except the rsvp, which was 4 up), and all of the cardstock cut. We had some issues with the cutting (which I was expecting...) but the people there were extremely nice and went out of their way to do everything they could for us. FI picked everything up and we ended up having to go back because the rsvps were cut slightly at a slant along the top, and the guy there first trimmed each of them by hand, and when we noticed some were cut too close on the sides, he reprinted another 40 of them for us and cut them again, and he spent a really long time making sure they were as straight as he could make them (like, over 15 minutes). A bunch of them were still cut slightly wrong, but FI convinced me that nobody would really notice/care so I finally let go of it.
Fonts: Optimus Princeps and Bonheur Royale, both free.
Graphics: "bought" from istock (I actually found a code online to get 5 free credits when you created a new account, and the graphics were 5 credits, so I got them for free). Graphics by -M-I-S-H-A-, recolored purple by me. http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=2246820
----
And now, for the pictures! They aren''t the best because taking photos of metallic shimmery paper is really really difficult and frustrating, so this is the best I could do.
First, a teaser...
What a dream... can''t wait to see pictures!
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