After months of crafting (about 7 a week
since January), the invites were finally completed about a month ago,
and they went out Friday. As crazy as it might sound to spend about
half an hour or more per invite, for 115 invites, I found it oddly
soothing as I made them. It was almost bittersweet bringing them to the
post office and mailing them away. And now since they're out the door,
it's time to unveil them here on the blog:
I
knew from the beginning that I wanted a pocket fold invite, but I knew
that it would eat up a decent amount of our budget if we got them done
professionally. Dare I undertake them myself? With enough time,
planning, and discipline, I was up for the challenge. At the same time,
I wanted to call this project my very own, so I didn't reach out for
assistance. (I also wanted them to be perfect, and lack of perfection I
could only blame myself!) I ordered all the necessary paper and things
that I'd need for the invites from Cards & Pockets. The ribbon I picked up from Joann's , and the little paper flowers I got off ebay.
I'm
going to cover the left side of the invite in this post, to be followed
by the right side in the next post. I designed the invite in Adobe
Photoshop, using Plantagenet Cherokee font (in chocolate brown) for the
main text of the invite, and Scriptina in a Tiffany blue for our names.
The cherry blossom image is clipart I found online that I mirrored,
re-angled, and retouched. The great thing about Cards & Pockets is
that its main panel card is sized perfectly, so no cutting necessary. I
just handfed it into my HP Deskjet 5550 and out it came.
Next,
I took a piece of scotch tape, and placed 3 pieces of blue ribbon
equi-distant from one another, leaving a small amount of tape left to
adhere to the back of the cardstock.
I
brought the ends of the ribbon to the back of the card and secured,
making sure that the ribbon was smooth and even on the front.
I like the slightly raised position the ribbon has, adding more to the 3D effect of the invite.
Next
I strategically added glue to the back of the card, and then using a
clean sheet of white paper, smoothed it onto the chocolate brown mat. I
did this to avoid getting prints or smudges from my fingers on the
invite.
Here
are the adhesive products I used during the process. The tacky glue is
used for the gluing of the invite to the mat board, and next I'll use
the zots to attach the little flowers.
Here's a closeup of the flowers - I tried using the deeper colored flowers to add pop to the invite.
Next I take a flower and press it onto the zot (which is still on the roll.)
Then I carefully lift the flower and zot off the roll, and place it exactly on 3 of the printed flowers.
I
tried to use either 3 different color pinks for the flowers, or two of
the same on the top and bottom, and a contrasting one in the middle.
Next up - the right side of the invite (aka the inserts!)
To be continued...
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