DIYers, any advice for printing envelopes?

[ellaila]

Hi,

To all you who have printed your own invites, did you have problems printing your envelopes?? Our printer at home curls around (you know, the paper goes in at the bottom and then makes a u-turn and comes out on top), and though it''s OK for the invitations, it''s doing a number on the envelopes -- leaivng all sorts of roller marks on them. The paper is pretty thick, and since the envelope is basically double the size of the paper, I guess it''s just too thick.

We tried using a laser printer somewhere else with a straight feed, and the paper went through OK -- but it smudged the ink.

We''re now trying to find a print shop that will do it, but since it''s such a small order (just like 20 invitations), I don''t know if anyone will do it. FedEx/Kinkos won''t do it -- apparently they only do jobs bigger than 8.5x11 (?).

Any advice? At this point, I think our only option is labels. Which is fine, I guess (I did read the other thread on this!), but it''s not my first choice. But if any of you have found a way to deal with this, I''d appreciate advice!

Muchas gracias!

 

[Tybee]

Hi,
Believe it or not. I wrote out addresses on all of our envelopes. My FI and I had a writing contest to see who''s writing was the best... I guess I won (or lost.)
It really stressed me out a LOT! We made a little insert for the envelope that had lines printed on it so that my writing wouldn''t slant. All in all, it wasn''t that bad, it was more my stressing out about doing it, and sometimes F***ing it all up because of my nerves. Since you don''t have that many, have you considered just writing them out?
We seriously thought about all the invitations that we''d received in the past and realized that we never noticed the handwriting on the envelope (maybe we just said that to make ourselves feel better...)
Make sure that you have extra envelopes, though...

 

[ellaila]

Thanks Tybee! After a trip to visit a few smaller print shops to no avail, we decided to do just what you said -- write them out ourselves! I also won/lost and am the one that will be doing them ... yikes!! We just bought one of those felt-tip "calligraphy" pens and I''m about to practice like crazy!

Like you said, though, we too were thinking that we never remember what anyone else''s envelopes look like, so it''s not really worth getting TOO worked up over I guess! But after all the work we put into making them, I feel like the envelope presentation shouldn''t be the thing to mess it up, you know?

 

[Tybee]

Good luck darling!
Hey, if you can make stunning invitations... you can address them.
I''ll say a special prayer to the creativity gods for you.
It really wasn''t that bad. Make sure you take lots of breaks. I only started messing up after I got tired or lazy.

 

[tanyak]

We handwrote the guests'' addresses, and used clear labels on the backflap for the return address. I didn''t want to write my OWN address a million times...OK, more like 58 times! I also used clear labels with my address on the RSVP envelopes. They were too small to run through our printer, and honestly, they were coming back to me. What would I care if they had labels.