My invitations... 5 months in the making!

They look amazing! Great job

Sarah

I really do love your invites and have been trying to figure out how to do them, and I do not want to spend a ton of money on the custom made invites I've seen offered online. Like I said earlier, I want to make them for about 20 guest and I am completely clueless when it comes to craft projects. So any step by step guide would be sooo appreciated. This has been a great site as everyone has given me really great ideas. Unfortunately, with working full time, school part-time and my daughter and his son I have not had much time to spend on here as I would like to. So again, I would absolutely LOVE any form of guidance you can offer. Thanks so much!

 

they look great!

Wow, those are beautiful! Your guests are going to love them!

Wow those are amazing! Your guests are going to love them! They turned out great, you did an awesome job.

Sorry to tell you that I got those boxes from a friend of FI's father who is in the clothing distirbution business, but they are just like the boxes a lot of girls got online. I think you can easily find them on websites such as this one: Jewelry Boxes - Uline


Here you go:

As I mentioned earlier, these were “semi-homemade†(I sound like Sandra Lee from the Food Network). Here is exactly what I did:

Paper:
1.Went to Paper Source and picked out paper and sizes. This part was super important because you want to make sure the paper size you use corresponds to the size of your boxes. Mine didn’t, so I ended up buying 8x11 card stock and having my printer cut them down. I used boxes that were 9x6x1½.
2.Paper: I purchased glossy cardstock as the base for my invitations and textured paper for the text cards from Paper Source. I then order the woven paper from Decorative paper, Handmade Paper for invitations, cards, scrap books, collage and paper crafts. The woven paper comes in large sheets that you have to cut down (my printer did this too).
3.Here are my paper sizes for the actual invitation:
a.Base card – 7 ½ h by 5 ½ w
b.Woven paper – 5 ¼ h by 5 ½ w
c.Text card – 6 ¼ h by 4 ¼ w
4.Here are my sizes for the other cards included with the invitation, all from paper source:
a.Welcome dinner card – backing was 4 ½ by 6 ¼ and the text card was 3 ½ by 4 7/8
b.Response card and travel info - was 3 ½ by 4 7/8
c. Response envelopes - matched cards (can't remember size)
Everything else:
1.starfish – I bought them from ebay; look for “4-6 inch pencil starfishâ€
2.ribbon – 1 inch thick organza brown ribbon from Michael’s
3.raffia – 3 packages of raffia would have been more than enough for my 100 invitations. I cant remember where I order this, but here is a website that sells it: Raffia - Natural 8 oz Bag
4.fill – I bought a box of brown “fine cut†paper fill from Packaging Supplies - Fine Cut Shredded Paper
5.box labels – white return address labels and address labels (I don’t remember the dimensions but the Avery # was 5164) from Staples
6.box seals – I just used clear return address labels as “tape†over the corners of the boxes to keep tem closed which I bought from Staples
7.Double sided permanent tape – ¼ inch thick from paper source (it’s the best stuff!)

After I got everything printed back from the printer, I began assembly:

Invitation:
1.Apply double sided tape to the 4 sides of the woven paper and attach to the glossy backing. Make sure you smooth out any bumps and press down for a couple of seconds because the woven paper lifts sometimes.
2.Do the same thing to attach the text card to the woven paper.
3.Do the same thing to attach the welcome dinner text card to the glossy backing
4.Wrap strip of organza around invitation and double side tape in the back
5.Wrap raffia around the organza twice and knot in the back. Make sure you don’t tie it too tightly otherwise it will be hard to slip off.
6.To attach the starfish, apply a small piece of double sided tape to the starfish and press against the raffia

Response card:
1.If you want, number all your response cards (this helps if someone forgets to write their name on it before sending it back to you).
2.Tuck the response card into the response card envelope (which should have your address printed on the front with a stamp)
3.Wrap both with raffia and tie in a bow.

Assembling the box:
1.Put a little fill on the bottom, and the place the response card with envelope, the travel card, and the welcome card on the bottom.
2.Place invitation on top.
3.STUFF fill into all the corners and sides of the box. This not only protects your invitation, but also helps keep the shape of your box.
4.Once you have one box completed, you should take it to the post office to get it weighed for stamps. I had custom stamps from stamps.com, but they are totally unnecessary… any stamps will do Just remember, its definitely better to put too much postage than not enough!

Once all your boxes are filled:
1.Use 4 clear return labels to seal the box
2.Affix your return label on the top right
3.Affix your address label right in the middle
4.Affix your stamps on the top left

I think that’s everything… let me know if I forgot something or you have questions I know this posted without formatting, so if you want me to email this to you let me know

Wow! Those are amazing! I can't believe you did those yourself!

Where did you get your invite boxes?

This is such a late response, but thank you sooo much for the detailed instructions! Just finished the semester, so now I can catch up on wedding planning..YAY!

absolutely beautiful!