Oh how I love them! My DIY invites!

[EricaR]

They look GREAT!!!

 

[SarahLovesJS]

They look wonderful, great job!!

 

[ladyciel]

Thank you, ladies!! I can''t wait until they''re all done and mailed. I hope our guests like them as much as all of you!! I think I figured out how I can print the addresses directly on the envelopes without crinkling them (turns out my laser printer has a feature I never knew about that lets you feed the paper straight through front to back instead of it curling it and spitting it out the top

), so my next project will be fighting with word to get the right placement on the envelopes. Do you think it''s worth the effort to print the return address on the back flap rather than on the front? It would mean sending each envelope through the printer twice instead of once (there will be ~80 of them).

Date: 6/20/2008 5:08:10 PM
Author: Amandine
Oh, wow, are they stunning!

Where did you puchase the stock vector art from?

I didn''t realize you are in Ann Arbor! My sister went to Concordia University there. I miss being able to attend the fantastic art fair!

Hi Amandine! I got the stock art from istockphoto.com, specifically from an artist who goes by Tolchik. You can see her portfolio here. I really like the site - you purchase points, and then different images cost different amounts of points to download. You can buy as few or as many files as you need - really friendly to a one time DIYer compared to some of the sites that want you to buy a subscription or make a similarlly large commitment.

Haha, and as for art fair, it is definitely awesome, but MAN does it make getting around town nuts. I''m a grad student, and the building I work in is is on one of the fair streets. I seriously think AA''s population doubles or triples. I''ve never been to Concordia, but I''ve driven past it (a lot more lately with trips to our ceremony site

).

 

[Dreamgirl]

Ladyceil- I just had to come back and take another look at your invites. I love them so much. I would love to see your template for the pocketfolds. You cut these yourself?? How on earth are you doing that!? lol Also, where did you get the envelopes from?

 

[ladyciel]

Date: 6/21/2008 12:52:35 PM
Author: Dreamgirl
Ladyceil- I just had to come back and take another look at your invites. I love them so much. I would love to see your template for the pocketfolds. You cut these yourself?? How on earth are you doing that!? lol Also, where did you get the envelopes from?

Here is a template showing how I''m doing the pocketfolds. Let me know if something doesn''t make sense. The trick to getting a pocketfold out of the 12x12 cardstock is making the pocket half kind of short - it''s only 4" tall. You can skip or change the angled cuts on the pocket front and folder flap - just be careful that you don''t cut down too far on the top flap. If you do, it won''t cover the edge of the pocket when it''s folded closed. I ordered the envelopes from www.envelopemall.com. They''re A7 size, so 5.25" x 7.25", meant to fit 5 x 7 cards. The cardstock I used is all made by Bazzill and ordered through joann.com (they don''t have it in their store). I first spotted it in a local scrapbooking store, but they only sold it by the sheet before discontinuing it completely. The blue is called Admiral, and the plum is called Black Orchid. I would have just bought the folders pre-made, but I was too attached to the Black Orchid color.

 

[galeteia]

Those are simply stunning.

Well done.

 

[Diamond*Dana]

Wow, they are really beautiful!
Great job!

 

[Dreamgirl]

mplate! I will definitely keep this in mind for future invites.

I have a couple more questions....

You got kinkos to print out your cards. How did you get them to cut them to the size you wanted? Im assuming they printed on 8.5x11 then cut down to size? kinkos always gives me trouble when I go there to print anything. Nobody ever seems to know what they are doing there. At least at my kinkos lol! The whole shabang only cost you $50 at kinkos?

And second, what did you use to keep the cardstock folds together? Any type of special glue? Or just regular ol'' Elmers?

Thanks

 

[ladyciel]

Date: 6/23/2008 1:11:32 PM
Author: Dreamgirl

Thanks for the template! I will definitely keep this in mind for future invites.

I have a couple more questions....

You got kinkos to print out your cards. How did you get them to cut them to the size you wanted? Im assuming they printed on 8.5x11 then cut down to size? kinkos always gives me trouble when I go there to print anything. Nobody ever seems to know what they are doing there. At least at my kinkos lol! The whole shabang only cost you $50 at kinkos?

And second, what did you use to keep the cardstock folds together? Any type of special glue? Or just regular ol'' Elmers?

Thanks

Haha, I WISH the whole shabang was only 50! That was (roughly) just the cutting. All in all, to get 90 invitations printed in color on cardstock, some pages being 2-sided, and everything cut it came out to ~300 at kinkos. Thankfully there''s a fully staffed kinkos print shop near where I work that caters to downtown Ann Arbor (so a lot of businesses) and they were really helpful there. What I did was figure out how many of each card I could fit on a sheet, and I set them up on 8.5x11 pages in illustrator with crop marks showing where to cut. I then saved all the files as PDFs. My design had a lot of bleeds (design goes all the way to the edge), which meant I made my design go past where the crop marks said to cut. That way there was some room for error if the cut was slightly off. I also had pages that needed to line up front and back (the postcard and the map card), so I had to be careful when I set up my files that I got all the placements/measurements right. One of them was a little off, but the guy helping me was able to fix that problem before sending them to print. Since I had crop marks showing where I wanted cuts, they were able to cut everything pretty exactly. It took something like 36 cuts to get all the cards, and they charge 1.49/cut (blech). However, they used a hydraulic cutter thing that did a way better job than I could have done, in a MUCH faster time. Therefore, worth 50 bucks to me to have them do the cutting.

As for the glue, I''m using Scotch Quick Dry Tacky Adhesive. A friend used it for his invites and highly recommended it. I love the stuff. It''s white, so you can see where you''re putting it, but it dries clear. Doesn''t take very much at all for the paper to stick permanently, and it sticks FAST. Great for the pockets, because otherwise you''d have to hold and/or weight the pockets for a long time to keep them from popping open. Also, the bottle has a fine tip on it which lets you control the glue well. I discovered that it DOES NOT work on the ribbon I bought, but I have some good old tacky craft glue (whatever brand comes in the gold bottle) that works well for that.

 

[October2008bride]

Hi Ladyciel - your invites are gorgeous!

I''m having a small moment of panic prior to sending mine out - I also have the rsvp postcard but am worried about the paper weight.

What type of paper did you use for yours?

 

[meresal]

They are gorgeous!!! You should really do some freelance work after the wedding... that is if you have time. Seriously, you have a gift! Congrats!

 

[MissManna]

These are incredible! What a great job!

 

[musincy]

Wow, how pretty!

How did you have that nice map made up?

 

[MoonWater]

They are gorgeous! Makes me wish I was doing invitations. I loooove trees. I paint, draw, and take pictures of trees/leaves a lot. One thing I don''t get about the site, what''s the difference between downloading the imagine and just right clicking and saving (which is stealing but I''m trying to figure out how they prevent that). Is it just a better quality image?