My invitations were probably my favorite DIY project for our wedding. I worked for weeks and weeks designing and re-designing, printing, and then starting over again. The knowledge that most people were just going to chuck them in the trash later caused me great pain!
The pocket folders are from
cardsandpockets.com in tuxedo (black).
For the invite and inserts, I created the invite & inserts in photoshop and printed onto plain white cardstock. The invite is mounted onto Tropical Pink Astro Metallics 105lb cardstock that I purchased from If It's Paper (this is the same color as the fuchsia metallic cardstock from cardsandpockets.com FYI) The Tropical Pink was $19.99 for 50 sheets. I will only need 20 sheets to create the invite mat since I can get 2 per sheet. I mounted the inserts on alternating pink and orange cardstock. The orange is clementine from cardsandpockets, I finally found it locally at If It's Paper and it's Stardreams Fuse in Flame and it was on sale for only $14 for 50 sheets!
Completed invite outside:
I originally planned to make the rsvp a postcard but after deciding to mount it onto the cardstock, I was worried they would get ripped to shreds by the PO machines. So I had to go on a hunt for envelopes they would fit in, I had a bit of a hard time because of the length I would need the envelope to be. I found these at envelopemall.com and ordered before I realized they wouldn't fit in the pocket. Instead of starting the search again I decided to simply tuck them in the belly band on the back of the invite. My favorite part is that they're orange (I may have some sort of orange problem!) I can't wait to start getting orange envelopes back in the mail!
How I made the belly bands:
I used 1.5" grosgrain ribbon that I cut the exact size as needed to go around the invite without overlapping (10" for my 5x7 invites). I printed our monogram on white cardstock by copying/pasting into word & resized so that they were 1.5"x1.5", after printing I cut them with my paper cutter, for the mats I used metallic cardstock that I cut into 1.75" squares. I ran the monogram squares through my xyron making them stickers, I used a small peice of double sided tape to attach the ends of the ribbon to the metallic mat then stuck the monogram square over top. I started out not using the double sided tape under the ribbon but it's kinda hard to hold the ribbon still on both sides while trying to attach the monogram sticker!
Inside of invite:
The flourish on the invites is a photoshop brush layered in both pink and orange. You can download the flourish for free
here it is the first brush in the file. Fonts are Scriptina and Copperplate Gothic
The inserts:
Envelopes with wrap-around labels:
I never planned on doing custom postage but after saying "I don't care what the stamps look like" I went to the PO to have them weighed and discovered it was going to cost a whopping $1.05 ($1.00 if mailed before the increase on 5/11) and the only options for a $1.00 stamp were
these NOT what I wanted to put on the invite I worked so very hard to make pretty! Rob's parents had given us a disc they'd gotten from stamps.com when they purchased a printed that had a code for 20 free stamps, I assumed it would only discount for 20 stamps at the .42 rate but to my amazement it gave me 20 free $1.05 stamps!! Thanks to this I was able to purchase the 40 custom stamps for $42, that's the same I would have paid for 40 ugly regular $1.05 stamps.
If you have any questions about how I made any part of these feel free to ask!
