I love stationery. I buy it constantly and mail it to friends occasionally.
But, mostly, I just hoard it.
So when the time came to decide on invitations for our upcoming wedding party, I thought making our own would be a great way to use some of my cute cards, clean out some clutter and work on a fun project with Zach.
It took a lot of willpower not to order custom letterpress invites, though. In the hierarchy of my addictions, letterpress products would be No. 2 (below sugar), if it were as cheap and easy as picking up massed-produced thank you cards at T.J. Maxx. (If I had gone the professional route, you better believe I would have commissioned Aubri Duran. Aubri is an incredible designer who used to work with me on Little Rock Family, and also crafts beautiful wedding invites, Christmas cards and more.)
Obviously, Zach and I were also enticed by the idea of saving a little money. We mostly used items we already had, and probably spent less than $50 total on the project. Plus, we figured DIY invites would set the perfect tone for our casual, backyard shindig.
So, here’s how we made them:
- I picked out all of the blank cards in my stash that had colorful, bold designs on the front. We also cut up some trendy scrapbook paper (a Christmas gift) and made cards from scratch.
- After a failed attempt at running a card through my old-school typewriter, we decided to use modern technology. We downloaded a typewriter font and simply wrote our cheeky message in Microsoft Word. Then, we ran the cards through our home printer.
- Zach is an artistic fellow, and for Christmas he made me an ink drawing titled “The Wedding Portrait of Bear and Fox.” I loved it so much that I asked him to make a stamp for the party invites. He carved the critters in their wedding clothes on a Speedball carving block with a multi-blade carving tool, both available at craft stores. Then, we stamped the quirky drawing at the bottom of each card.
- We also ordered a custom stamp of our address in the same typewriter font to make the addressing process a little faster. The handy stamp came from the Etsy shop, NoteTrunk.
Zach and I had so much fun throughout the process, and are pleased with the end results. We hope the homemade invitations reflect our personalities and the vibe of our party — a little kooky, kind of a mess and a whole lot of fun.
Newlywed Blair Neel, a Malvern native and NYU journalism graduate, is the managing editor of Little Rock Family magazine. She’ll be blogging about her adventures in wedding planning for Arkansas Bride right here, each week. She welcomes your comments below or via email at BNeel@ABPG.com.
