Invites: Finished Product

Now all the invites have been sent (hopefully all have been received) and RSVPs are (very) slowly beginning to arrive; I thought it was time I shared them with you all.

I have already shared with you how we came to some of our decisions, Beautiful Detail looked at the fonts and colours I have used and On My Marks explained the use of a pocket-fold invite and belly-band, but now I bring to you the full details (and dilemmas).

The outside with belly-band

I really like it when an invite comes as a complete package, when all the elements and info tie in together and it feels like a whole and we had a lot of information we wanted to pass on, as most people are coming from out of town. BH, on the other hand, prefers a simple (elegant) style invite.
Using a Pocket fold enabled us to combine both tastes as well as creating a handmade item.

The inside: all elements in their place

I knew there are lots of possible setups for pocket folds, and to make life easier I ordered a sample pack from PDA Card and Craft, who had the widest range of designs that I could find; this allowed us to physically look at the options and mock up a couple of ideas. As part of the pack we also got swatches of the paper they stock and were able to know exactly what we were buying (BH got rather annoyed as it took me weeks to decide which pearlescent card I wanted to co-ordinate with the Laid card we'd chosen)

All the elements of the Invites
You can see the stamp of the church which is hidden behind all the info sheets.

We opted for the A6 Pocket-fold in Brilliant White Laid (Contour) with matching A4 card to create the Direction and further info sheets and paper to make the sections for the RSVP, we also selected Crystal White for the RSVP folded card and A4 card to make the invite inserts, finally we chose to get matching Brilliant White Laid envelops to finish the set.

I also decided to create a 'belly-band' to hold the invite together, but also to add a decorative, crafty element to the design. The demo band was just hessian, BH felt this was too shabby for it to work with the more formal style; I then found the grey stitch grosgrain ribbon, and after a second demo, we both felt that the design was greatly improved by its inclusion.

Invites to the church and reception

As we had selected the smaller smaller size for the pocket, I chose to design two invite sections; one for the marriage ceremony in the church and the other for the reception. This meant that no element was too crowed, we could include the drinks at the church and info about photo before welcome drinks in Coventry on the relevant invite and that we didn't have to re-think the whole design for the handful of evening invite we sent.

Directions: front and reverse.
Driving, Public transport and vintage bus info
Map designed on Powerpoint

Choosing the A6 pocket had its upsides (or John Lewis gift list cards fitted perfectly tucked, hidden. behind the info sheets) and one big downside - with all the info we wanted to include I wasn't able to use pre-cut inserts and had to faff with publisher and pdf files to create the desired size and spacing in-between each element.

Further Information: front and back.
Local hotels, when photos being taken, Confetti (natural petals only),
reminder the dress warm, a note about gifts and full contact info for my Mum.

As we are providing a vintage bus for people and many of our friends have dietary requirement we decided to include a self-contained and pre-addressed RSVP card to make keeping track of these details simple.

I originally ordered the circular RSVP seal stickers from Label Amour (their ebay store), who then kindly designed and printed the coordinating address labels.

RSVP card and sticker seal
The card fold on itself has my
 parents address on the reverse

Addressed Envelope with sender address label
It took my months to practice my handwriting

Having invested in lovely envelopes I decided that I wanted the invites to look good from the minute they are picked up off the floor so I spent sometime practicing my hand writing and created guide lines for stamps and the. return address stickers.

These invites have been a real team effort, BH has guided the overall look and had some really good ideas during the design phase. He was responsible for the gluing of the pockets and all stamping, while I took charge of the cutting and assembly.

Pockets and elements ready to start assembly.

I have to say I'm really pleased with the finished result and from the feedback we've received our friends and family like them too. Now they are finished I know they were worth the time and effort, but the whole process did begin to get to me after hours of hand cutting the elements.

I have now started work on the Menu, place names and Order of Service to complete the set, but this time I am asking friends to help with the cutting.

Do let me know what you think of these.

TTFN ~Kate xxx

Save the Date

As invites are soon to go out, I thought I would share my Save-the-Dates with you.
I sent these to immediate family and very close friends.

They are slightly smaller that 3rd A4, printed on 300msg Contour white laid card and were sent in a DL envelope.

The fonts were chosen and downloaded to reflect a slight Shakespearean theme (the title font is called 'Hamlet or Not'), the fonts and use of a little purple has been replicated on my invites.

TTFN ~ Kate xx

Invites: On My Marks

I have had this post drafted for a while now, and have wondered whether it would give too much away for my guests, but as they will be recieving their invites soon, I thought I'd share some of my basic ideas.

A selection of the invites we have received in the last couple of years

We are about 4 months until our wedding and I have spent the last few weeks going cross-eyed as I cut the different elements so I can soon start assembling our invitations.
For each package there are 4 sheets that form the invites and additional info, 3 parts to the RSVP and 2 decorative parts, times that by 75 and its a lot of cutting!

The invitations has been one thing that has been a true compromise between BH and I, as we have rather different tastes:
He would have something very simple, elegant and traditional, he doesn't like calligraphy looking fonts and he wouldn't bother with additional info, rather send an email. Where as I want the invite to be very hands on with lots of detail and handmade design and I LOVE calligraphy looking text.
So coming up with the final design took a few redrafts. A few months ago I shared with you the fonts, colour and paper we had chosen.

We now have a final design:
We have chosen a pocket fold case; the center, flat part will hold the invite to the service.; simple black text on pearlescent card secured with photo corners so it can be removed and put on a shelf/mantelpiece.
The pocket will hold the reception invite, directions and an additional info sheet: providing local hotels, information about photography, confetti, dress code, gifts and full contact details for my mum.

Clockwise from Top left: Portrait Grey and yellow, Landscape Baby Blue, Brown with ribbon tie,
Grey with blue & yellow details, Square Pale Blue & Turquoise with titled inserts, Yellow invite with red leaf details,
A5 Christmas themed invite with tartan and ribbon detail, Fir cone detail with a woody brown detail,
Green with Paisley design and Red 3 section, duel language pocketfold invitation

To create the decorative/crafty element, and to satisfy my 'Bridezilla' tendency that the invite has to reflect us and have something handmade, we have decided to add a 'bellyband' around the folded card. This also allows me the opportunity to add some rustic texture to an otherwise formal item.

Clockwise from top left: 'M 'monogram floral fabric and ribbon, Yellow 'French Country' solid band with vintage framing,
Modern Grey with wedding date, Yellow bubbles with initials, Simple white and featuring couples story, Baby Blue Bow

As well as the bellyband I am adding a crafted touch with 2 stamped details.

As we know we have several friends and family with food allergies and also need to know if people would like space on a bus, we are including an addressed (but not stamped) RSVP card to make life easier for guests and our parents.

So here is my invite sneaky peak; these are the materials for our invitations:
2x custom cling stamps & acrylic bloc
Hessian fabric
Natural Charms grey stitch ribbon
Pocket fold in laid card
3 fold card in pearlescent card
Purple and petal paper
RSVP sticker
Matching card in laid and pearlescent for inserts


Once we sent all our invites i will provide a more detailed post with lots of photos of the final design.

TTFN ~ Kate xx

Pages of Style #2: Books in Bloom

Welcome to the first post looking at ways that I can turn pages from a Shakespeare play into beautiful decorations for me, and hopefully also inspire some of my wonderful reads to give paper crafting a go.


When I began the search for what I could do with old copies of the comedy, the first idea I came across was  to turn the pages into flowers; they offer a great range of options, especially as they would be suitable for both ceremony and reception.

Paper rose
made with individual petals

Clockwise from top right: 1) Carnation,
2)Big orchid style flower, 3) Lilies, 4) Tulips,
5) Daisy with buttons, 6) Little flowers with bead
7) Cone flowers

There are plenty of options if you want to include paper flowers in a wedding,

An early decision would be what type of flower you want to create; Do you want a real looking design or opt for a more styled choice? Are they going to take the place of all flowers, contrast or mirror you living choices? It is also worth considering how big you want your flowers: life-sized, mini, over sized or a mixture?

There are plenty of ideas and types of flowers online:

Roses, tulips, lilies,carnations, daisies, orchids - a bit of time and you can find a way to recreate most flowers.

You also need to consider available time and artistic ability, different styles and sizes would involve different techniques.

Roses

I really want to include roses during my wedding and I have discovered that there are 3 basic ways to create a rose from paper: By cutting and gluing individual petals, cutting and gluing a circular spiral and origami.

My handmade rose gift box.

A few weeks ago I wanted to make a rose as a decoration as part of a gift for a friend. At first I tried origami and I discovered a new level of confused.
I then tried the individual petal technique, with which I did succeed and was rather impressed with the result.

This rose was made from white printer paper, which I then painted with a creamy/white paint and sprinkled with glitter. I finished it with a couple of leaves made from glitter paper with a green tinge.

Alternative ways to make paper roses:
 1) Swirly Rose made from a continuous piece of paper. 2) Origami Rose

How to include paper flowers

 As I'm getting married in winter the paper option is quite appealing as it could save lots of money on out of season flowers, although I will have to careful as they can be very time consuming to make. There are many ways which paper flowers can be included during a wedding; from the traditional floral displays: on tables in the reception, pew ends, windowsills, on the altar or arch over the door in the church and as personal flowers in bouquets, buttonhole or even in the brides or bridesmaids hair. You could give them to guest as part of their place settings, as favors. 

Ways to include paper flowers: 1) Floral decoration in vase, 2) Colourful bouquet of mixed flowers,
3) Book table center with Rose and Lily, 4) Gift boxes decorated with various paper flowers

Paper rose decoration ideas: 1) Rose button hole 2) Rose hairclip 3) beautiful bouquet 4) personalised gift bags

Stylised Rose using a mix of papers

For my final pictures, I wanted to share with you two twists on the book page rose:  A beautiful fluffy rose with jewel center, made from books, sheet music, plain and decorated paper - I could see this making a lovely alternative corsage for Mum/sisters or as a hair piece for a bride or bridesmaid.

Colour stained Roses

The second being these stunning coloured roses, I assume they have simply run the cut edges over an ink pad to create the stain and then
assembled the rose as normal.

I have to say I have found this post blooming marvelous (groan...) to research and compose - there are so many beautiful creations and ideas out there, for the style of flower and their uses; I could have continued on for days.


I guess my task now is to go away and have a go, I want to try and make some big (ish) roses from book pages to see how they turn out - I will share my results and maybe my method (if it's successful) with you soon.

TTFN ~ Kate xx

Invites: Beautiful detail

Stationary is a really important element for me, especially the invites - not only do they set the theme, establish the level of formality and make sure everyone has all the relevant informatin, but they also offer the first (well, second after the save the date) chance for me to put my creative stamp on the day and pour my passion into the detail.

The original plan for Save the Dates was that where possible we would sent an email with a jpg attachment, people would benefit from all the design, we would save on printing and postage and our guests would always know where it was - in their inbox! We would print and send a few hard copies to people, in particular our grandparents and siblings etc, people who we knew either didn't have email or who would like to keep a copy.
However this plan was thrown out the window, and it was heavily suggested that we 'should' print & post them to at least one family & if we had to do it for some then I was going to do it for all.

After a brief think, I decided that this would not mean a change of plan - the save-the-dates would remain computer designed with no hand crafting other than cutting up the paper. Which left me with a bit of a problem: How do I produce save-the-date cards exclusively technologically, but still provide continuity with the handmade invitations to follow?

So we came to the first decissions on details for our day: If we chose a couple of fonts that were not standard issue, and purchased beautiful paper and had one colour accenting all elements, then the stationary will coordinate beautifully, especially as all the invite content would have to be produced on the computer - as much as I love doing things by hand, I do not have the time nor the calligraphy skills to hand write 70(ish) invites.

The colour used to accent the designs

So after some fussing and moaning - BH doesn't like fake handwriting fonts, where as I do and felt they would work as we are having the reception in a medieval building.
There was some workings about what colour to use with what will be a very neutral pallet on the day.
And then then was the conversations about what paper; fortunately I had done a table plan for his work and had used some laid paper which he liked the texture of, I also bit the bullet and using the samples from pda cards I ordered some card and examples of the type of invite I would like to make.

We had come to some agreements. We went for white laid paper (some irridecent will also be used in other stationary) a font which looks a little bit like calligraphy and a lovely simpler font - both downloaded especially, and a shade of purple.

The two fonts we will be using for our staioary

I also wanted some sort of picture on the save the date - one design featured a Scottish thistle and for another I took a photo of the church and played with it in Picasa until it created a lovely scetch effect. When I consulted with BH he really didn't like the thistle.

So here we are, the Save the Dates have been put in the post to family and friends who have a role on the day. The decissions are set in stone (well card) and it is official the wedding is happening.

Original photo of church

Final 'sketch'

TTNF ~ Kate xxx