The invite suite:

I probably went through 10 different design concepts before coming to this one. As a designer you have all these ideas in your head, all of them excellent (obviously!) and out of those you have to decide which one is ‘you’.  Eventually we decided that we wanted something clean, classic, and not too girly.  We chose grey and marigold as our colors. (I later added in shades of pink)  I use Adobe Illustrator for all of my designs.  The main font used is called Bodini Svty Two SC ITC TT Book. I am not sure where I got that font… but when I am in need of a font, whether it is super classic or super silly, I always hit up Dafont.  It is also a great resource for widgits, as is Briar Press.

Save the dates:

These were the only things, besides the napkins, that I gocco’d.  I really wanted the white on color look, and the only way I could DIY that was with the gocco.  And even though the white was not as bright as I wish it would have been, it was so easy to do and I really enjoyed the process. I would recommend a gocco to anyone and everyone, except I am pretty sure they are hard to come by these days. I am hoarding my supplies for new projects. I feel like Elaine, hoarding her sponges. Like, is this project gocco worthy? Ha oh man.

The invites and rsvp’s:

I bought all paper and envelopes from Paper Source. I bought the marigold yarn from this etsy seller (and we wrapped the bridesmaids bouquets in the grey) and I bought full page labels for the address labels. I used my Epson Stylus Photo R220 to print them all.  I love this printer because of the many borderless sizes it prints, but it is time to upgrade to an all in one. Any suggestions?

Rehearsal Invites:

I threw these together last minute, more as a fun thing to design than a necessary piece of information. I used Fortuna Dot for the pink font and Filosofia Regular for the grey.

Rehearsal Menu:

Shower Thank You’s:

These were a lot of fun to make. I am in love with the font, MA Sexy, it is just so girly and fun and worked perfectly for this project. The kitchen utensils are actually widgets, and the font name is DJ Kitchen.

Programs:

The programs went through a few looks before coming to these. I incorporated the circles from the little invitation seal, as well as the yarn.

Kids Activity Books:

The activity books were fun to make and proved to be a hit at the reception!  I honestly can’t remember all of the sources for the images, which is why I am not selling these at this time. I just googled anything related to Kids, Weddings and Coloring and took from here and borrowed from there. I then tweaked each thing using Illustrator to fit my needs and color scheme.

Reception Paper:

For the reception paper I gocco’d napkins as well as made cake descriptions and a bar menu. Again, it was all printed on my photo printer using paper from Paper Source.  The white frames were from Ikea and the napkins were from Party City.

Tips: If you enjoy designing things on the computer, then try doing your own invitations. If you don’t have a good printer, go to Kinkos.  You can save so much money doing these on your own. If you don’t enjoy designing, well, then hire me to do it for you!

But really, if you want to get more into it I would recommend finding a design program that works for you. Like I said, I use Adobe Illustrator, but you can use InDesign or even Photoshop if you had to. A good photo printer that can print borderless is key. My Epson has been good to me and I would recommend the brand to anyone.

Use sites like Dafont and Briar Press to your advantage. Just be careful not to steal anyones work (You will see the distinctions on the sites.)

And have fun with it! Look around at designers sites, find inspiration and play around with your ideas. If you have any questions that I did not answer, again, please leave them in the comments and I will get to them!

Q&A:

Nicole asked: “Could you elaborate on what benefits you have found in doing {borderless printing} over regular printing with a border.”
Answer: Borderless printing is excellent if you want a design to come all the way to the edge of the page.  Here are some examples:

This way you don’t have to trim off the sides to get that ‘printed to the edge’ look.
Nicole also asked: “How do you rate your Epson? Have you tried printing with it on different types of paper products?”
Answer: I love my Espon, although in it’s old age (5+ years) it is having a bit of difficulty feeding the paper though. I would definitely recommend the brand though. I would also recommend getting a printer that has 6 ink colors over 4. With 6 you can more accurately print the color you see on your screen.  As for printing on different types of paper products, I haven’t tested out too many things. I will say that, even before its old age, it has a little difficulty feeding through thicker, textured papers. It will do it, you just have to help each page feed, which can get tiring when you are printing 100+ invites!

Have any of you guys found a printer that you love? One that you hate? Help me out here with a recommendation!

The Program, Activity Books and Reception Paper images were all by Studio 7. The rest were by me.

Gocco’d napkins… check.

Cake descriptions and bar menu (frames from ikea)… done.

Up next: programs and rehearsal dinner menu’s.

Also, I had one reader (hello!) ask about my shower thank you cards.  Both the ‘thank you’ and the little kitchen icons at the bottom are fonts that I found at dafont.com.  They have every type of font you could want, including lots of dingbats (the icons) and a lot of them are free. I hit up dafont before every project!  I also have a photo printer, which allows me to print border less (although I did not need it for those cards) and I bought the paper (pure white 4 bar) at Paper Source.  Being crafty is something that I got from my mother and I say that even if you didn’t grow up in a crafty household, you can do it too! Take classes (Michael’s offers them, as well as Paper Source and I am sure other places do too) buy craft books like Martha’s new one and just practice

This weekend involved working on a few different wedding projects.

Testing out different mixtures of my ink to find just the right color for the napkins:

Folding a ton of tissue paper flowers and photographing it along the way (once I complete one I will do a how-to post ) :

Aaaand, we went to Paper Source to get the paper for our invitations! I printed the invites and the RSVP’s. All that is left is the directions card and labels and we will be set!  I have given myself a May 1st deadline for getting them done… We will see how that goes

How was your weekend?!  Productive? Lazy? Busy? I vote for 3 day weekends every weekend… I am pretty sure no matter how your weekend went, you wish you had just one more day, I know I do

Also in the ‘on it’s way to being done’ category, the design that will be gocco’d on the napkins

This is what my dinner table looked like for the better part of the day:

I gocco’d ivory and pink napkins for Kilee’s upcoming wedding with chocolate brown ink. They turned out lovely and now I can’t wait to do my own!

We also created a kissing menu to be placed at each guest’s dinner plate. On one side is a ‘thank you for coming’ kind of note and the other is the kissing menu. So sweet!

The kissing menu details Kilee got the idea from a real wedding she saw on another blog, and then reworded it a bit to fit her needs

Fun fun!  

Weeelllll… last week I received an email from bride-to-be Kristin who took this idea and made it a reality for her save the dates!  Here is what Kristin had to say about making them:

I printed them with a gocco (I’m not even crafty, and I could do it.) The key was made from a rubber stamp store near my area who cut die-cuts for us (My mom investigated for me).  You could do the same with any die-cut machine, as long as you have the master key. For us, having it cut was much cheaper.  The key is a combination of purple card stock and decorative paper (from Paper Source) stuck together. (My dad had a fancy machine for this, I forget what it’s called. But you can’t even tell that they are two different sheets of paper!)  Then he helped me glue magnets on the back of the keys.  I gocco’d the envelopes, got the stamps from the online postal store, and we sealed it with a wax heart (also from Paper Source).  The type came from my aunt’s old typewriter, it’s the typewriter my mom learned to type on, and my mom typed out every single address for me.

And here they are, aren’t they awesome?!

A big thanks to Kristin for sending them to me! They turned out amazing!!!

Go check out the details here.