DIY Invitations w/ pics (part 2)

SCzhen · September 27, 2009

Hi everyone,

I received a couple of questions on the details on my invitations so here it goes! (I know that its a late post!)

This was my orginal post: http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t45068

Supplies:

-Rectangolo Pocketfolds in Tiffany from cardsandpockets.com (I really recommend this vendor. They have a vast selection and their customer service is awesome!)

-Invitation Mat in Bronze (metallic color) from cardsandpockets.com

-Invitation paper: this can be any paper you want. I liked having more texture so I bought Classic Linen in Natural White 80lb, which is more of a soft cream color, from Paper Presention. I went to the actual store but they sell through their website as well: https://paperpresentation.com/Mercha...vc?Screen=SFNT

-Belly band: also from Paper Presentation. I chose Bronze 32lbs (also metallic) and the sheets into 1.5 inch strips

-Ivory Ribbon : bought this nice shimmery ivory ribbon at a local trimmings store.

-Inner envelope: swirl metallic envelopes from Paper and More A7 Silver Swirls Metallic Envelopes - Paperandmore.com

-Outer envelope: in Tiffany from Paper Presentation

The hardest part, for me, in this whole process was designing the actual invitation. I knew I wanted turquoise and brown and I knew I wanted pocketfolds. And both the hubby and I preferred a more simple design. I’m not a graphic designer and I’ve never done something like this before so I was stumped at first. I started out looking at clipart and dingbats from dafont.com. But nothing inspired me or caught my eye. But I was walking through the stamp section at Michaels one day and saw this swirl stamp set that I really liked. So at first I figured I could just stamp the invitation and emboss it. But the stamp was a bit small and it just looked really plain against the wording. Since the stamp came with this transparent paper that had stamped images on it, I had the idea that I could scan that sheet and then I would be able to play around with the size and colors.

Dot Flourishes - Inkadinkado

Since this was a set of 5 stamps, I was able to use a different pattern for the invitation, tag and response card (both sides), which was nice because the whole invitation became coordinated. I colored the swirls turquoise and made the large dots a dark brown. But I kept the tiny dots black cause it was annoying to make each of them brown and I didn’t know how to color them all at once. I also enlarged most of the images and flip/rotated some of them.

For my fonts, I used Pristina, Rage Italic and Segoe Print (downloadable from dafont.com). I made the invitations on excel and sized them to print on regular 8x11 paper and then I used a paper cutter and cut them to the size I wanted.