Questions about Cards & Pockets--Advice appreciated

mariegra

Did anyone here use Cards & Pockets for their invites?

Questions:
1) Who did the design, (yourself or hire graphic designer)?
2) What did you use to affix the mat to the invite?  (spray glue or other)
3) Did you mount the mat to the outer pocket or leave it loose?
4) Who did the printing?  (self, Kinkos or similar, C&P print services)
5) Any idea how much these cost to mail?
6) Any other advice?

Just trying to decide whether to use these or just go the easy way out and order invites from Carlson Craft.  Love the look of the pockets, but not really a DIY type person.....limited software, printer not so great, etc.  TIA for any advice.

dls.1215

1) Who did the design, (yourself or hire graphic designer)? I designed them in Microsoft Word.

2) What did you use to affix the mat to the invite?  (spray glue or other)  I used a Xyron machine (you run the paper through it and it makes the entire back sticky basically turning whatever you put through it into a sticker.

3) Did you mount the mat to the outer pocket or leave it loose? I actually didn't use a mat, just the printed invite mounted in the pocket because with the mat they were too heavy/thick for just one stamp.

4) Who did the printing?  (self, Kinkos or similar, C&P print services) I printed them on my laser printer.

5) Any idea how much these cost to mail? $0.61

6) Any other advice?  They definitely were a lot of work, but the finished product came out awesome so I didn't care!  To me they were worth the hassle!  Hope this helps!  Also if you catch them on a sale they are very decently priced!

dls.1215

Also I will say that I didn't just think up the design, it was a lot of trial and error to see what looked good, what I liked etc.

mrsk1112

1) Who did the design, (yourself or hire graphic designer)? myself with powerpoint
2) What did you use to affix the mat to the invite?  (spray glue or other) glue dots
3) Did you mount the mat to the outer pocket or leave it loose? to the pocket
4) Who did the printing?  (self, Kinkos or similar, C&P print services) myself with my old HP printer
5) Any idea how much these cost to mail? havent sent yet
6) Any other advice? it will take a lot of trial and error but you will get exactly what you wanted. i think it's worth it

DrPB2b13

I haven't actually done my invitations yet, but i do have some suggestions for you.  Have you ordered one of their sample kits?  I waited until there was a sale and purchased one, not only to see what the colors were like but also to check the quality and weight.  If you can find a scale to weigh your invitation with the number of inserts you'd like, you can get postage rates at USPS.com (up top, in the red bar).  This will help you determine your overall costs, and the rest of it you can calculate at their website by doing an order mock-up.

I also went through my guest list by hand and double-checked how many invitations I would actually need.  Silly me, I'd been going on the assumption that 100 guests would equal approximately 100 invitations!  After counting families, couples, etc., I discovered I'd only need about 30-40 invites, which seriously cut my initial planned budget.

Good luck!

mariegra

Thank you everyone...your advice is fantastic!  I weighed the sample that I received and contacted the post office--they confirmed that the postage would run around 61 cents, unless we use a ribbon (can't go through machine), in which case it would be 81 cents.  A family member (who is a graphic designer) has offered to do the layout for free--yea!  So we'll use her for the design and then upload the graphic to C & P and use their printing services.  When I spoke to the C & P customer service agent by phone today, she said the mounting service is 30 cents per mount, (so that's 60 cents per invite if using a mat behind the invitation).  I am about 98% sure that we'll use their printing services, but still need to get a quote.  I am concerned that if we try to print and glue them ourselves, that they won't come out right.

mariegra

Here's the sample that we received---but we're going to change the print and also change the mat from green to metalic gold.