DIY questions

Theresa626

Those of you who made your own invites, I have lots of questions.

How did you cut the paper? If Kinko's, how much did it cost? Did you buy a paper cutter?

How did you design the wording?  Any tips for finding nice and tasteful graphics to use or can anyone send me some pretty graphics to use so it's not just words? 

How much did you spend on ink for your printer after printing all of them at home? HOw many invites did you have? 

If you had them precut, how did you design the printer to print on the smaller paper instead of the normal size paper?  Actually, I don't mean the printer itself, I mean the word program you used...

How many inserts did you do and what were they?  Did you do a map? If so, where did you have it made? 

If you used a pocketfold invite, did you use anything to hold it together like a seal or a ribbon?  If so, could you describe what you did? 

How long did it take you to glue/cut/print/assemble/address the invites? 

Thanks. 

Theresa626

One more question... How did you glue the invite to the pocketfold if you used pocketfold invites? 

Theresa626

When you use a pocketfold invite, do you need an inner envelope?  If not, if someone has a guest that you don't know, do you put it on the outer envelope?  How do you address it? 

Theresa626

Did you have your return address preprinted on your outer envelopes and your rsvp envelopes at Kinko's, etc?  If so, how much did it cost? 

squirrly

Screenshots and templates are in my bio, which should help get you started with several of your questions.

I'm doing wraparound labels for our envelopes.

I have a nice paper cutter and I'll be cutting at home, after printing on 8.5x11 piece of cardstock.

We're using pocketfolds, with no inner envelope.  I am undecided about putting "and guest" on the outter envelope.  I might do that, or I may simply include a small (business card sized) note on top of the RSVP card for those few guests who don't have an SO.  I think it's just 2 people for us, so the note is the way I'm leaning.

I spent about $180 at www.cardsandpockets.com for the paper supplies for invites, programs, escort cards, and menu cards for 65 households/125 guests.  Postage is not included in that, and I still need to buy some ribbon to do belly bands, but I've got coupons to Michael's.

I'll use double sided tape to adhere the invite to the backer, and a removeable glue dot or two to attach that to the pocketfold. 

I'm not sure about the price of ink, as I'm hoping to print tomorrow/Thursday.  Up late tonight ironing out the last adjustments. 

The graphic I used was from an etsy seller (tinybirdarts).  You can also find some really nice stuff on istockphoto.com.

I would suggest looking through www.mygatsby.com, etc., for ideas on wording, design, etc.  Then, recreate your way. 

tlv204

I cut the paper myself using a paper cutter, which was actually cheap from walgreens and awesome. I got the craft lite cutter, but also own a fiskars.

I got mine printed with thermography from a company so I'm no help with that.

I didn't do pocketfolds, I did long and thin invites with the inserts on  top with a bellyband holding them together (pics in planning bio). I just used ribbon with a cardstock label thing on front, sealed everything with permanent double sided tape, which I found to be the easiest to use out of everything I tried as long as you put the pieces of tape near the edges so it doesn't stick up and look cheap. My "inserts" were RSVP, map, and accomodations.

I don't have the page bookmarked anymore, but if you google "knot map bio" or "knot specialty bios" then find the map one on the list, there is a bio that gives great directions on how to create a map in word. That's what I used and I think it turned out pretty cute. We also used weddingmapper.com, but only the online so people could see it on our website, I still wanted a paper version.

I didn't have an inner envelope, just put the names on the outer one.

It took me forever and a day to make them, but I think it was worth it.

I actually just printed out clear labels for our return address. Not the cutest, but I was running out of time.

aerinpegadrak

Holy million questions, Batman!  Let's see...

I cut my paper at Kinko's.  I did it myself, they have a nice rotary trimmer that's free to use.  I just walked in on a slow night, sliced up the pile, and walked out.

I designed them in Illustrator even though they're just text, because it's the layout program I'm most comfortable with.  Ours are nested layers (I need to update my bio soon) with the text on the top layer, a design on the middle layer, and a plain bottom layer.  I took two photos of filmstrips off Google Image search, traced them in Illustrator, and had them made into stamps by Etsy seller BlossomArts (highly recommended), it turned out great.

Our only insert is a card directing people to our website, along with my phone number. 

I've got the supplies for about 40 invites, even though I only need to send out about 25 (I want extras in case I screw something up).  I only got as far as doing the bottom two layers on all of them and belly bands on about half before I ran out of supplies, but it took about an hour and a half.  I found a nice archival scrapbook quality adhesive at an art supply store, it's worked great for both the cardstock and the ribbon.

I'm still pricing out how much it's going to cost to get the final layer printed, because I don't think my home printer can handle my 140 lb cardstock.  But I plan on printing both the mailing and return addresses directly onto the envelope.  I might try tracing the mailing address with a calligraphy pen, we'll see.

As you can tell, I'm still midway through the invitation process.  I have until February to send them out, I just wanted to get a jump on them.

Theresa626

Thank you all, this is really helpful so far.