Homemade Invitations

So it has been a while since I've sent the invites and I promised I would show how we made them. Like I've said before, I wanted to be a DIY bride and boy did I chew off too much with this project. But, our invitations came out beautifully and I couldn't be happier with them.

Every part of the invitation was created in Photoshop. Have I told you that Photoshop is my new favorite software? I felt like it was much easier to use than Word for a project like this.

First, I began by creating a design that had the wording and look that I was going for. I found an

image of a stamp online and put it in the image so that I had an idea of where my real stamp would go. I also added a red stripe for where the ribbon would be placed.

After Bryan and I had decided we like this look, it was time to take away the stamp and stripe and print them out. I printed them two to a page and made them slightly smaller than a 5"x 7" postcard.

Next I worked on the RSVP cards. *Fun Fact* Did you know that RSVP stands for répondez s'il vous plaît? Which means "please respond" in french. *Fun Fact* I took 3 french classes in high school. Ok, done with that. When we started planning the wedding, I fell in love with www.weddingbee.com. Mainly because it has a DIY section and is where I'm getting most of the ideas for the wedding. I got the idea of the song request there and thought it was super cute to have people suggest different songs they would like to hear at a wedding. Here is a picture of the RSVP card

Pretty!!! I'm getting excited all over again but Bryan will make that face. Do I need to show the picture again? I think not.

I was so happy with the way these turned out but it is only a small slip of paper so what could really go wrong with it?

After we were finished with these, I began to rack my brain wondering how the invitations were going to come together. I had thrown out the idea of even attempting an envelope that had pockets in it. I didn't want to dabble in that mess so I consulted my fellow DIYers on weddingbee. Of course they had great ideas that they used for their own invitations. This is where I came up with the box tie. I thought it would be perfect to hold all of the pieces together and not allow them to wiggle too much. I messed around with how it would look in the end and something didn't look right. That's when I decided to add a little square piece of paper to the front to help hold the ribbon together as it wrapped around everything.

The original idea was W + B and the website below that. I quickly printed those out because I wanted to put together a sample before we went to my parents house that weekend.

This is what it looked like

I was so happy with these and thought they looked beautiful so I sent a picture to Bryan who was in Washington, D.C. at the time on business. Why do I ask him stuff? He said it looked like "a bad advertisement". ....... Well, that hurt. But then I came up with a new idea which was a quote from a Corey Smith song that we both really love.

I took the sample home to my mom and she loved them too. My grandmother was coming into town that weekend so it would be the perfect time to put them all together.

The stamp is probably my number one favorite part of the invitations. I also found this idea on weddingbee. The stamp is embossed on the invitation and ends up adding a glossy look as well as a raised texture.

Here is that process.

Bryan was in charge of stamping so he had to make a template first.

Then he would put the stamp on the invitation. The trick to embossing is that you have to use pigmented ink instead of dye ink. The dye dries too fast and you wouldn't be able to use the powder. I forgot the powder step in the pictures but you pour a colored powder ( or clear if you're using colored ink) over the top of the ink.

VERY CAREFULLY brush the excess powder off of the paper and this is what you're left with.

Then you're ready to emboss those puppies. This is no trick of the camera. You can actually see where the powder goes from dry to melted when you move the heat gun across the paper. Even looking at them now makes me happy.

We did the same on the RSVP cards except the stamp was turned in a different direction. We also rounded the corners of all the paper with a nifty little rounding tool from Hobby Lobby. It worked out so easily and made a pretty corner on the paper.

Here is one last look at the finished product.

Many thanks to my mom, grandmother and Bryan.