Cue Cards & Pockets—I loved their large selection of colors and immediately ordered a couple of free samples to get to see the colors up close.

*Personal Pic

I ordered six samples in white, light purple, and dark purple in both the shimmer and matte types of paper. My actual selections were: matte (Snow White, Grape, and Purple) and shimmer (Crystal, Amethyst, and Violette). I would like to pick one white shade, one light purple shade, and one deep purple shade.

Matte shades are on the left and shimmer on the right.

vs

vs

vs

*All images via Cards & Pockets unless noted

I really liked all the colors I had chosen but LOVED the Violette shimmer sample! I’m definitely including it on the invites, either as an invitation mat or in the envelope. I’m unsure of whether to print the invite on the shimmer or matte white. And have yet to pick the other purple colored paper (it will be either the Grape or Amethyst).

Should I go all shimmer or all matte on the invites, or should I mix it up using matte invites and envelopes with a shimmer mat, or shimmer invites and envelopes but a matte backer, or…etc., etc.

Have any of you used Cards & Pockets supplies for your invites?

Did you use matte or shimmer paper? A combination of both?

Help?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Our invitation suite was a DIY affair…and it ended up taking longer than I thought (which is how it always happens, right?!). I’ll break the whole process down for you, but it’ll probably be easy to do in pictures.

The first step was to create the invitation suite. As much as I loved all those modern invitations I kept talking about so many months ago, I really wanted something that looked fresh, but ultimately traditional. I spend all day, every day designing hip, modern things…for our wedding, I decided to follow my little designer-heart and create something that I loved, even if it wasn’t exactly “cool” and seemed traditional. That was my inspiration…

That and I really wanted an invitation suite with multiple pieces. I don’t know why, but I wanted our invitation to have a whole bunch of pieces for people to read and look at. This is also why I didn’t want pocket fold; I wanted just pieces everywhere. Weird, I know. I made the pieces a few different sizes so they’d “stack up” nicely.

And lastly, I wanted something that could dictate the look of other printed materials for our big day (table numbers, programs, escort cards, etc). Having one look I could essentially “re-use” over and over made things easy, and look cohesive. But more on that later!

I designed the whole set in Adobe Illustrator, using the fonts Burgues Script and Mrs. Eaves (for the small caps).

We didn’t have a theme, but since I used hearts on our save the dates, I carried hearts over into the invitations.

The Invitation (5×7″), RSVP card (3.5×5″), and Reception card (3.5×5″).

Our Map (4×6″) and Accommodations card (4×6″).

Next, I cut out belly bands while Mr. G embossed the flap of our envelopes with my Cuttlebug.

I believe Mr. G said at this point, “Now, you can’t say that I haven’t done anything for this wedding ever again.” Haha.

Well…after I got all our invitations printed (through gotprint.net), Mr. G took off for his Bachelor week of skiing/camping with our Best Man. Luckily, the Giraffe Parents picked up the slack!

The photo above shows how I used our not-theme of “hearts.” You can click the photo to make it larger and see more clearly, but there were hearts everywhere! The address labels were heart shaped, as were the return address labels, and every belly band had a heart tag  around it that listed our guests’ names.

The labels on the front of our envelopes were printed on my parents’ HP printer, and the cut out with my Cricut (the same goes for the labels on the back). Our labels on our RSVP envelopes were smaller versions of the ones you see here (but with our address, of course!).

The back with our return address labels and Cuttlebug embossing. Gotta love those metallic envelopes!

I made the envelope liners using the heart-gyle, I had designed for our website. I bought a ream of 11×17″ blue paper from OfficeMax, and was able to print 3 liners per page…of course, I also bought a ream of blue paper from Staples so I could compare the “blueness” of each. Needless to say, 6 months after the wedding, I still have a ton of blue paper.

I stacked all the pieces of the invitation from big to small (with a small wallet sized e-photo of us on the top), wrapped a belly band around it, wrapped baker’s twine around that, and attached a heart tag with the twine.

Okay, okay, Daddy G did the stacking and tying, but I put them in the envelopes!

There were so many! The DIYing went on forever!

So there they are! They whole kit and caboodle (…until recently, I thought it was ’kitten caboodle’). I’m pretty happy with the final product and I head a lot of nice things from our guests, and that’s what counts.

If I did it all over again, I probably still design my own invitations, but I don’t know if I’d go through all the work of doing the extra pieces! I spent a looooooong time trying to set up my Cricut to cut the hearts correctly and I got super frustrated at times. I loved how it looked, but I don’t think I needed all that stress at the time.

Did you take on the daunting tasking on DIYing invites? Would you do it again?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Stationery by Holly Hollon Design and Calligraphy
Photos by Jessica Wright

See more of Hannon and Cameron’s wedding right here!

This article was originally posted onSnippet & Ink.

I was quite pleased when I came across these on GiftWagon.com. They have a scallop edge to satisfy my need for a little something pretty, and they meet Mr. Dalmatian’s request of not having flowers on it. (FYI, they also have ones with a floral border for those of you who can convince your fiancés.)

Just to make my life more difficult (oh yeah, and also to make the save-the-dates look nicer), I decided to hand embroider a small heart in the corner of each one. The process went a little something like this:

Use a pencil to trace your shape onto your handkerchief.

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

Have you met MagnetStreet Weddings, a long-time sponsor of Snippet & Ink? Maybe you know that they offer magnetic save-the-dates, but did you know that they also offer entire invitation suites? They even have reception items like place cards and table numbers. Styles range from classic to modern, and all of their save-the-dates and wedding invitations can easily be customized with your choice of color and font. Here are a few favorites…

In addition to these styles, MagnetStreet Weddings offers pocket invitations - with coordinating enclosure cards that are neatly organized and presented, they’re the most popular style. Want to make sure that MagnetStreet is right for you? They’ll send you free samples so you can see and feel for yourself the quality, details and colors of their wedding stationery.

This post sponsored by MagnetStreet Weddings.

This article was originally posted onSnippet & Ink.

I have decided we won’t be using pictures of ourselves on our save the dates…mainly because we won’t have done our engagement pictures by the time we’ll be designing our save the dates. I was kind of bummed initially, because who doesn’t like seeing a picture of themselves on every friend’s refrigerator for six months? I kid. I was actually bummed that we wouldn’t have a save the date like this:

Image via Love vs. Design / Photo by Love Me Sailor

Can’t cry over spilled milk, right? This just means that instead of showing our smiling faces on the save the date, we will get to incorporate them into our invitation suite—yessss. I had to move past all the picture inspiration and focus on creative text and presentation instead.

Creative-Text Save the Dates

Image via Wedding Wire / Designed by West Willow

Image via Style me Pretty / Designed by Marilyn Chien

Image via the Bridal Blog / Template by Wedding Chicks

Graphic-Design Save the Dates

Image via Etsy Westwind Days on Etsy

Image via Wedding Wire / Design by inkOBSESSIONSdesigns on Etsy

Image via Minted / Design by Ashley Moura

Whimsical Save the Dates

Image via Kaboodle / Design by Emandbee on Etsy

Image via Oh So Beautiful Paper / Design by Red Red Orange

Utilizing Custom Stamps

Image via Flickr / Design by Jason Permenter Graphic Design



Image via Instructables

Save the Dates with Creative Touches

Image via This Next

Image via Postcards and Pretties / Design by Ruby and Willow



Image via Dot Girl Blog

Customized and Illustrated Save the Dates

Image via The Flirty Guide

Image via Rifle Paper Co.

Image via Swiss Cottage Designs

See the transition from simple to impossible? Much like my invitation drooling, I started basic and kept stepping up the complication level. As much as I would die to have a custom-illustrated save the date, it’s just not in the cards for the Honeys. Looking at all the other inspiration pictures, I concluded that I like three elements: a graphic background, a whimsical element, and a fun statement…all to be accented with a pretty font and our colors on a little postcard. Quite the tall order. The fact is I could go back and forth on my entire paper design for days months, but the good news is I have made progress and created a save the date that hopefully reflects our wedding vibe, shows creativity within our means (AKA Microsoft Word), and will make our guests smile.

Who else is obsessive like me and started with invitation inspiration before the save-the-date inspiration? Tell me about a must-have element for your save the dates!

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

I used Photoshop to create the design for the magnets. Then I uploaded my design on Vistaprint onto one of their magnet options. I chose one of their invitation designs and customized it with my text and font choices. When they arrived, I used a small piece of fashion two-sided tape to adhere the magnet to the back of the main card (which I included the word “magnet” on so that people would know what it was). I then tied some twine (which I bought off of Etsy) around it into a bow.

I also included a paper on lodging information so that everyone could start planning and get an idea of where to start looking and what things are going to cost.

The save the dates were only sent to the people who will be attending the wedding in Colorado, which includes immediate family and our wedding party. We’ll be sending invitations for the at-home reception to everyone else separately.

Anyone else doing their own invitations to save money?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

This pressure alone gave me a good excuse to procrastinate working on our STDs for a few months. But, I eventually got my rear in gear and started thinking about how to announce our wedding to our guests.

I had no clue what I wanted, so I set out just searching for things that caught my eye. Here are a few STDs that I liked after my first few searches:

Photo and design by Molly Gaines at Dot Girl Blog

{So unique and FUN}

Image Credit: Savor the Date via Etsy

{Wine + chocolate labs? Love ’em}

Photo by Dave Bibeault / Design by Starfish / via Weddingbee

{Magnets and quotes, I am in love}

Image Credit: Go Go Snap via Etsy

{Very art nouveau}

Image Credit: Go Go Snap via Etsy

{I love this simple one}

Image Credit: Wedding Paper pas

{Notice the Location?}

Looking at my inspiration photos, a few things stood out: I wanted to incorporate magnets, I’m vain and wanted to include pictures of us, I wanted them to be fun and a little unexpected (that first inspiration photo took my breath away–so freakin’ cool), I want a dog, and I have a thing for monochromatic (I guess, I actually just noticed that right now).

While all of these designs are wonderful, they weren’t exactly what I was hoping for. I was itching to flex my DIY muscles, but I was also painfully aware of my limitations (such as a complete lack of artistic talent or graphic design skills). Undeterred, I knew I had to suck it up, make it work, and make something that would make Tim Gunn proud because time was running out.

Up next, I find the perfect idea and have no idea how to execute it.

*Back in the day (aka college), I lived with some crazy, unfiltered girls (who are now some of my awesome BMs). Instead of normal apartment decor, we had things like mannequins (a complete family with names and personalities), Halloween decorations that stayed up all year round, a George Forman cut out (who changed hats for different holidays), and a mountain of recycling (aptly named Recycle Mountain) that took up half our kitchen. But, the weirdest thing in our apartment was probably a pamphlet on STDs (of the venereal variety) that BW displayed front and center on top of our TV cabinet. Complete with graphic macro pictures. So every time I see this acronym all I think of is that unfortunate pamphlet and how BW would encourage people (ie: anyone who dared step foot in our apartment) to crack it open and pick which disease was the grossest looking. So, I do giggle at this acronym, but in a different way. Thanks, BW.

Did you know exactly what you wanted for your save the dates or did you research trying to find the perfect inspiration?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

My first source of inspiration was courtesy of the awesome Ms. Stripes. I fell in love with her bicycle-motif envelope liners:

Image via Ms. Stripes

Envelopes would most definitely have to be lined! I found some awesome bicycle scrapbooking paper at Michaels that would be perfect.

Next up, my MOH passed along a ton of crafting supplies in case they would come in handy with our invitations. Included were these little guys.

What on earth could I do with them? While shopping for paper supplies, I found this inspiration photo on Paper Circle:

Image via Paper Circle’s Inspiration Gallery

As for the meat of the invitation itself, I found my inspiration at a local bridal expo in the fall.

I loved the simplicity of it. The whimsy in the fun font. The fact that you let your guests know right away that the day you are getting married is a happy day. I also loved that it was square.

With all of these elements in mind, I purchased some supplies from Paper Circle so I could create a mock-up to see how it would all come together. Stay tuned because we’ll be revealing the Gazelle invitations soon!

Where did you find your invitation inspiration from? Did you decide to create a mock-up to see if the ideas in your head would translate to paper?

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.

We like yellow/gold for the outer envelopes but ordered some additional colors in our palette just to make the decision more difficult.

Meadow green, Tiffany blue, and lemon yellow from Paper and More are all fun, saturated colors, and they’re all a medium paper weight that feels neither too thick (driving up postage) or flimsy. Mr. P liked the green the least, and the blue isn’t a true match to our palette. Still, it’s nice to have options other than yellow.

Here is the lemon yellow (far left) against “Sunflower” from Envelopes.com and two envelopes (Basis “Gold” and “Galaxy Gold”) from Envelopes Express.com. The middle two are practically the same color and paper weight (70#); the only difference is one is an A9 (5.75″ x 8.75″) and the other is A10 (6″ x 9.5″). Neither of us is a fan of “Galaxy Gold,” as it’s too thin and veers a little too close to school-bus yellow.

The only other consideration, albeit minor, is the flap. Our preference is for the A9 (left), as it is slightly more tapered.

The paper suite I designed uses golden yellow, meadow green, robin’s egg blue, and a punchy pink. I know you haven’t seen our invitations yet, so it’s hard to weigh in. Rather than ordering the envelopes first and tweaking our invite colors to match, I’ll wait for a proof from our printer and choose the yellow envelope that’s the closest match.

Oh, as an FYI for all the brides looking for the little ways to save money: EnvelopesExpress.com offers free shipping and samples; Envelopes.com has one-dollar samples and free shipping; PaperandMore was the most expensive overall, charging 50 cents per sample and a dollar for shipping. I think being able to examine the samples is worth the nominal fee.

Which is your favorite color? Does your invitation suite feature a bold envelope?

(all personal photos)

This article was originally posted onWeddingbee.