Wedding Invitations

I was fortunate to be asked by a friend to create marriage celebration invitations with a nature theme. After looking on Pinterest, I decided on a craft background and printed the invitation information on the kraft card stock to create a few samples.  They came over and picked their favorite.  

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 1 was just printed with various typestyles and then stamped with wreath elements. 

Sample 3

Sample 2 was a bit more involved (and would have been a lot of work to assemble 150+). I used a cream cardstock for the invitation and layered it on kraft, then added a gorgeous olive green burlap ribbon with a stamped and embossed leaf attached with hemp twine.  This one was my personal favorite.

Sample 3 was sized for a #10 envelope, and some of the space above and below the doily was intended for stamping, but it didn't pass the first selection round.  The doily was a card sleeve tied on with hemp twine and a scalloped heart punched tag.  I think it was perhaps too girly for them.

The winning choice -- which I didn't get a picture of -- was a simple and clean look, which completely reflected their love of nature.  

The final product.

After printing the final invitations, reply cards and gift notes, I had them trimmed at Kinko's.  That is completely worth the $2 per cut charge, as opposed to hand-trimming 150 invitations.

Three of us set up an assembly line for the final assembly.  Each of us stamped 1 or 2 leaves [ Inkadinkado Stamping Gear Leaves] for the base layer, then set them aside to dry.  Although the pattern looks random, we spent a lot of time deciding the color and placement of each leaf. We used CTMH Pear, English Ivy and Sweet Leaf inks, and Stampin' Up Old Olive ink.  The first layer of ink must dry before embossing or else the embossing powder will adhere to any other wet ink and it will not be only on that portion of the design you want.  

After a bit of drying time, we started the heat-embossing.  One of us stamped the leaf, one added embossing powder, and one embossed.  the assembly line made 200 invitations go very quickly.  I printed enough copies to allow for mistakes.  Which we definitely had.  It was a lot of fun joking about who would receive the messed up invitations if we ran short.  

We used Stampendous Peridot embossing powder. That color is one of my faves, and I only had 1/2 jar when I was making samples.  I panicked at the thought of running out both in the midst of the project, and not having any left for my other projects, so I ordered 2 more jars online to make sure I had enough! 

After completing the embossing, we started assembling the panels onto the cream cardstock, and again, the assembly line worked very well for us.  I think we spent about 5 hours, and that included taking time out for a nice Italian meal delivered by a local restaurant! 

The only other issue was stamping on the reply cards.  I was stamping them off of the cardstock, which left ink residue on the scrap paper covering the stamping table.  It imprinted on the postcard side of the reply card, resulting in a re-do of about 60 reply cards.  It pays to have extras printed when you are adding hand-stamping!  In the end, we had plenty!

Loved making this set for a dear friend!