My DIY Invites!

[HOUMedGal]

Here are pics of the invite I made using samples from www.paperandmore.com . I''m pretty sure that this is what we''re gonna do for invitations, as we have PLENTY of time to make them ourselves (a whole year and 3 months!). I used "warm white" linen cardstock as the back piece, with 17# cream vellum as the printed layer. I also made my RSVP card out of the matching warm white cardstock, and the RSVP envelope as well as the big inner and outer envelopes are made of matching warm white linen paper. I then punched holes in the vellum and the cardstock and tied them together with an ivory grosgrain ribbon.

My ribbon is a little not in the middle...please excuse it! haha. I got too excited about making the invite and decided to just eyeball where the holes should go...I''ll be measuring on the real invites. hehe.

Anyway, my invites, including the invite itself, inner and outer envelopes, RSVP cards and envelopes, and address labels, are going to cost just about $1.00 per invite...so I''m pretty happy with that! Plus I think they turned out really nice and professional looking!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Here''s another...sorry that the first pic was so big!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Another...

 

[HOUMedGal]

Another...

 

[HOUMedGal]

And the RSVP and its envelope:

 

[HOUMedGal]

You can''t really see it in the pics, but the cardstock has this nice linen texture to it...it looks and feels really rich!

I''m just thrilled that I''ll be able to do classy invites for so cheap!

 

[anchor31]

That looks great! I definitely want to have DIY invites too when I''ll get married, and yours look so professional!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Thanks, Anchor! www.paperandmore.com is a great place to get materials...really reasonable, and really nice stuff!

 

[SoonIHope]

Wow, they look beautiful, and I never would have guessed they weren''t professionally done! And the ribbon looks centered enough to me!

 

[icekid]

they look great, HMG!! looks like you have tons of free time on your ob/gyn rotation if you have time to work on invites...

 

[HOUMedGal]

Au contraire, Icekid! hehehehe. Gyn was a really busy month (all of January) but I started OB this week, and I just happened to have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off this weekend!!! WOOHOO!!!!

 

[Mara]

they look great annie, fabulous job!!

 

[Kaleigh]

They look awesome, good job. Very pretty!!!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Thanks, Mara and Lisa!

 

[flopkins]

very nice! I like the grosgrain ribbon

 

[selflove]

THose look great! We''re doing DIY also, and in fact, were going to Michaels/Kinkos/wherever else today to start the process.

A couple questions:

Was the cardstock already cut to size?
Was the vellum also cut to the right size?
If you did the cutting yourself, how did it go?? (That''s the part that makes me nervous when I go to the paper stores)
This also includes the outer envelope, for mailing? (I''ve found that none of the DIY kits contain the extra envelope for mailing.)

Thanks!

In fact, we just came back from Michaels--I didn''t get a chance to send this before we left. UGH--If we could only get the paper thing figured out, then we could figure out how to format the text for two weddings...

 

[rms]

HMG...WOW, that is so impressive, they look great (and the price is perfect). I always wished I would have had enough patience to DIY...well, patience and talent

 

[MiniMouse]

Wow, they''re very elegant and smart. A great choice. Well done!

 

[ChargerGrrl]

They look very professional!

you're giving me inspiration that I CAN do the DIY thing...

 

[flopkins]

selflove - I can help answer some of these questions and HMG can weigh in too ...

Was the cardstock already cut to size? paperandmore can cut to your size (custom) but there is an extra charge. check their website.

Was the vellum also cut to the right size? ditto above

If you did the cutting yourself, how did it go?? (That''s the part that makes me nervous when I go to the paper stores)

I did the cutting myself on my inserts. It wasn''t perfect but it was okay. If your invites don''t have a border, or some distictive thing on the edges, it is much more forgiving when you cut a little bit off, and no one will notice if it''s a little off... (unless it''s totally crooked, maybe!)

This also includes the outer envelope, for mailing? (I''ve found that none of the DIY kits contain the extra envelope for mailing.)

envelopemall.com has a huge selection of envelopes in various sizes. I think the standard is an A7 inner (fits a 5x7 invite) and a A8 outer envelope. (But traditionally wedding invites are A9, or something like that.) I ended up not doing the inner/outer thing... although I originally wanted to. I decided to save a few trees instead... it used to be standard to do the inner/outer thing but nowadays it''s not so passe to not have them both.

 

[MelissaSue]

They look beautiful! You did a great job..

I have a really dumb question. I''m NOT a DIY-er.. but I want to do place cards.. and maybe table cards.. myself (printed).. how do you know the paper will work in your printer.. and where do you get the templates to make the printing straight on the cards?

 

[Caribou]

Those look great HMG. I''m going to do my invites exactly like yours but I''m thinking of putting a picture of the proposal site and/or the ceremony site in the background on the cardstock. Hopefully it won''t be too expensive. I have a full 8x10 sheet of cardstock that I need to cutdown...which also makes me nerves, I''m not very patient nor very crafty.

 

[gingerBcookie]

I''ve ordered stuff from paperandmore! Love them. I wa originally going to DIY my invites (before my awesome bro decided to give me professional ones for a wedding gift) and I had ordered their vellum to add to cardstock that I had bought on clearance at Target($14.99 for 50 invites, 50 outer envelopes, 50 RSVP cards, 50 RSVP envelopes). I was planning to print on the cardstock (ivory with a double satiny ivory border, very simple) and use the vellum to wrap the invite like a kimono with a thin thin thin chocolate ribbon to tie the kimono with a bow. Total cost per invite was going to be ~$0.50 per invite. Super cheap for a very simple but elegant look. Very similar to the pic below

 

[selflove]

Flopkins--thanks for that info! Very helpful!! I''m so glad that it''s okay to not use the outer envelope, that will make it much easier for us if we DIY.

Ginger--I LOVE that idea and design! I wonder if I could pull that off...

We are working on the bilingual invitation and trying to fit it all on one side of standard invite size of cardstock. The 50 invite/50 envelope/50 RSVP/50 RSVP envelopes kits are on sale at Michaels'' for $19.99 right now with a silver border, and I could take a piece of pink vellum and silver ribbon and try something like ginger''s idea. Actually, if we can get this bilingual design all on one side of an invite, then maybe we could do these professionally...my mind is cluttered with all these ideas, UGH!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Flopkins, thanks for helping out!

Yeah, paperandmore will cut the cardstock and vellum for you. The only stipulation is that the smallest they can cut to is 4.25x4.25. So the only cutting I will have to do is for my RSVP''s cuz I want them to be 3.5x5. I''m going to order them at 4.5x5 and then just chop off the extra inch. They have straightline paper cutters at Michael''s in the scrapbooking section...I bought one and it works beautifully!

As far as templates and making the words fit and be centered and such, I just formatted the paper to my liking on MS Word. When you open a new document, go to file>page setup>paper and there you can change your paper size. Then, in the same place, click on the margins tab and you can change the margins on all 4 sides of the paper to get the words as close to or as far from the edge as you want. I just played around with it until I liked it...and I cut practice paper into the same size as my real paper so that I could practice print and see if I liked it!

Also, on paperandmore, they have a template that you can download for their address labels, since there''s like 100 to a sheet or something and that would be really hard to format yourself. Michael''s also has a website called www.invitingideas.com where you can find all the products they sell (blank invites, etc) and they also have downloadable templates there!

And yes, my price includes an outer envelope for mailing. They don''t come as a set, but I''m just ordering A7 sized(5.25x7.25 inches) envelopes for the inner, and A9 sized envelopes for the outer (they''re 5.75x8.75). The only thing is, I think my inner envelopes will have the adhesive glue on them...I''m going to ask if I can get the inners without the glue. But if not, it''s a minor thing.

Envelopemall does have sets of inners and outers that come together. I almost bought my envelopes from them...the only thing was I really liked how the ones at paperandmore were the warm white linen paper, so they totally matched my warm white linen cardstock!

 

[HOUMedGal]

Oh, and MS, the way I found out whether my printer would print on the paper is just by giving it a try...I have an el cheapo HP printer (it was like $30) and it did beautifully!! It even did well with the little 3.5x5 RSVP card, even though it''s stiffer.

 

[gingerBcookie]

Date: 2/7/2006 1:03:53 PM
Author: selflove
Flopkins--thanks for that info! Very helpful!! I''m so glad that it''s okay to not use the outer envelope, that will make it much easier for us if we DIY.

Ginger--I LOVE that idea and design! I wonder if I could pull that off...

We are working on the bilingual invitation and trying to fit it all on one side of standard invite size of cardstock. The 50 invite/50 envelope/50 RSVP/50 RSVP envelopes kits are on sale at Michaels'' for $19.99 right now with a silver border, and I could take a piece of pink vellum and silver ribbon and try something like ginger''s idea. Actually, if we can get this bilingual design all on one side of an invite, then maybe we could do these professionally...my mind is cluttered with all these ideas, UGH!

LOL...that was the original reason (besides cost) why we were going to DIY...we need tri-lingual invites! THe company we ended up ordering from was sooooo awesome...the totally worked with us and we have three completely diff sets of invites (due to different etiquette per culture -- yes, our invites were a nightmare to format

) in three languages at no extra cost. Quite a few comapnies refused as soon as they heard I needed some in Vietnamese (roman lettering but a TON of accents and markings--very tedious to try to type). We used www.notfromabox.com and Heather was our consultant -- she was sooooo patient with all our editing.

woah...sorry to hijack with a vendor rave.

not a shill

 

[selflove]

Thanks Ginger! Tri-lingual!?!?! OMG!!! I actually went to the website and started browsing, and I then I started to glaze over and feel overwhelmed (kinda like starting my taxes!). This happens to me EVERY SINGLE TIME i visit a stationary website. So, finally recognizing that this is a problem for me, I contacted them directly (via email). Maybe if I just explain to a professional what I need, they can take over. At this point, screw any cost savings, I just want someone to do it for me!!