I made invitations!

Hello!

Because of our small budget, I've been DIYing things left and right, including our invitations. I'll put pictures first and then describe the steps afterwards.

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1) First I made 40 invitations. I had seen in this book some simple ways to make invitations, including printing words on one side and embossing the other side. I thought it looked fairly simple so I decided to replicate it.

I ordered a Sizzix Texure Boutique (but I recommend that if you are doing flat cards like I did, you get an embosser that can fit cards 5.5" across, like the Sizzix Big Shot or that other popular embosser. I also ordered the Cuttlebug A2 Bird Call embossing folder.

Then I ordered this DIY Invitation Kit which came with 100 cards and envelopes about 5.5x8.5" large. However, when they came in the mail, I realized that the cards AND the embossing folder didn't fit in the Texture Boutique, so I had to cut both down to size. At that point I purchased a Martha Stewart Scoring Board, which I used on multiple wedding projects including the pocketfolds for the invitations and the grow-your-own-herb favors (see post here), and a Fiskars Paper Cutter. The paper cutter was super valuable because you get crip lines every time and it has a pop-out ruler up to 12".

After cutting down the cards and the embossing folder (with a pair of scissors), I created the wording I wanted on Apple's Pages, printed the cards out, and rolled them all through the embosser.

As a final touch, I punched all four corners of the invitations with Martha Stewart's Laurel Leaf Punch Around the Page corner punch.

2) I created 40 madlib thank you cards which had the same embossing as the invitations and were punched in the corners as well (not shown in the picture though.. I must have taken the picture before I thought to punch the corners). The reason they are madlib thank yous is because I created madlib cards for guests to fill out for the guestbook (see the bottom of my favors post).

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3) After making the 40 invitations and the 40 thank you cards, I needed to do something with the last 20 cards. I used the last 20 to make the maps (two per card). I wrote a post about that here.

4) I wanted to make something to hold all the cards (invite, map, extra info) together and I really liked the pocketfold look, so I looked up some tutorials and it seemed fairly simple. My invitations are about 5x8 and the extra cards are about 3.75" wide so I used 12x12 cardstock to make the pocketfolds.

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This is really where having a scoring board and a paper cutter came in handy. I scored 40 12x12 pieces of cardstock, then used the paper cutter to trim off the excess (shown in red). Once everything is cut, you simply fold the two bottom flaps in and then fold it up to create the pocket. I used glue dots to glue the flaps to the main part of the envelope. I used a scrap piece of paper as a template to cut a little triangle out of the pocket to make it look a little fancier. (NOTE: Step 4 should say 90 degrees)

5) All that was left was to glue the invitations into the center fold and insert the map and extra information into the pocket. I used a tree stamp to fill the extra space and on the outside used a red kanji stamp of my soon-to-be last name (my fiance is ethnically Japanese). 

I hope you find this super helpful!

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa