Plan of action

[holytoastr]

I want to mail my invitations by the first week of July.

Plan A: Attempt to print own invitations

Hopefully my printer can handle the paper. Hopefully if I give the ink enough time to dry, it won't smear.

Star that was to be punched up on front of invitation can be punched out (So that silver inside paper can be seen through dark blue outside paper) or stamped with glitter.

Plan B: Find a printer that can print my invitations

Find a local printer that has the machines to print on the paper I bought.

Star can still be stamped myself.

Plan C: Buy new invitations

Find a simple, inexpensive design and roll with it.

Comments

[skwerlie.livejournal.com]

I don't know what kind of paper you're using but we printed ours ourselves on translucent vellum in an ordinary inkjet printer. The sheets did need to be left to dry a little longer (only like a couple of minutes) or they would smear, but aside from that everything worked surprisingly well. By far the most frustrating part was cutting all the pieces out and putting them together with glue and decorative brads/fastener thingies. But that was my fault for deciding that each invite needed 3 layers (cardstock for proper weight, patterened scrapbooking paper for the pretty, and vellum for legible text) and 4 fasteners (one in each corner)... > < I imagine if you recruit a friend or two to help with that part it will also go much faster (I did it all myself).

It's definitely worth a try because you can save a lot of money and as long as you take care in making them you can get a pretty professional look. BTW if you want to recreate an embossed star have you considered using embossing powder? I've never done it myself but it can look really nice... the punch out is probably easier though!

[holytoastr.livejournal.com]

Our paper isn't vellum, but has a texture of it, so that's good to know. I really hope they dry well and don't smudge.

Luckily we have no plans for fancy fasteners. It folds like a regular card so the inside paper can float freely. Yay for planned laziness.

I think embossing powder is what I was thinking of as glittery stamps. I will keep my eyes open for both so I can decide which will be the easiest. For something our guests will only look at for 30 seconds, it doesn't need to be a work of art.

[skwerlie.livejournal.com]

Embossing powder is the stuff you melt so it sort of ends up like a raised... wax or plastic looking thing on the paper. It's apparently not that difficult but I've never done it myself, it looks nice though. : )

For the paper, just try a few sheets first, and make sure to take each printed sheet out separately to dry and don't let them stack (or they probably will smudge). Home printers are generally pretty good at printing on anything that's not totally glossy so long as you let them dry for a little while though. : )

[holytoastr.livejournal.com]

Oh, then embossing powder was not what I was thinking. That sounds like too much work for something no one will really notice. I will stick with the easy stuff.

[mrsshotglass.livejournal.com]

oOoO, what's your design like? i can lend you my gocco if it would help. i also have like, four million leftover silver star brads if you have a use for them. i'm finally cleaning up all my wedding crap.

[holytoastr.livejournal.com]

Are goccos hard to use? Screen printing intimidates me. But if they are easy, you would be the most awesome person ever if you could lend it to me.

The design is:

- Invitation - Folds like a greeting card. Is two sheets of paper, outside being dark blue and inside being silver. Original plan was to have the outside embossed with a silver star and inside would have details printed.

- Envelopes - Silver for outside with a thin blue liner.

- RSVPS - Flat like a small postcard. Silver

- RSVP envelopes - Silver, no lining.

[mrsshotglass.livejournal.com]

is there design on the blue paper other than the star?

you're not going to have great results printing anything on silver paper. the shininess makes it too slick for the paper to grab on to the ink particles. i learned this the hard way. you'll need to be really anal about not smudging the ink printing and you might consider using a fixative afterwards. there's a thing called scraperfect, which is a powder filled thingy that you rub on the paper before you inkjet on it. that might help but i didn't try it.

as for gocco, it's like using a giant rubber stamp. the hardest part is alignment. our invite is actually 3 different stampings because the card is much bigger than the gocco printer's capabilities. i'm also happy to just do any of the stamping/papersourcing/design for you within your invite budget. i can be your plan B minus the local part. i just really loved making our invites. I'm also super thrifty. I even made the invites to my friends wedding too.

you're going to need to do labels for all the envelopes too. silver paper is just the devil when it comes to ink.

This is our invite:


We did the martha stewart style wrap around labels in silver (special silver laser paper) on dark purple shiny envelopes with shiny silver DIY liners. Then I ordered old hubble stamps from ebay. RSVP (postcard), and insert/map (2) were both on silver cardstock too.

i think i spent like, $80 on paper/envelopes because the scrapbook store was closing, then when you don't factor in the machine itself, maybe $20 in gocco supplies, and about $20 in labels for about 100 invites. there were probably smaller incidental expenses too. i spent way more than i needed to on stamps, but they were just so freaking pretty. They definitely fit the spacey theme of our wedding.

you can email me at mrsshotglass -at- gmail if you wanna chat more about it.

[holytoastr.livejournal.com]

Wow, your invitations look really professional! I will keep you in mind for a plan b.

And those are definitely neat stamps. If I had a larger budget, those would be perfect for mine too.

is there design on the blue paper other than the star?

Nope, that's it. We were trying to keep it simple. (Too bad my mom had to throw a wrench in that plan...)

you're going to need to do labels for all the envelopes too. silver paper is just the devil when it comes to ink.

Oh my mom will love that. She told me under no circumstances should I ever use labels on a wedding invitation. Too bad she decided not to print them for me.

Once I get my invitations sent to me, I will run a test through my printer to see how the evil silver paper goes. (Curse its pretty shininess!) If it doesn't work, I will definitely be emailing you for guidance cause it sounds like you have a good idea of what you are doing.

[amandanoelle82.livejournal.com]

There's the clear labels you can use that don't look too label-ish.

[holytoastr.livejournal.com]

On shiny silver paper, I bet they will be really noticeable. But I don't really care. Because they are just invitations. (Guests just want to know when they eat and if there will be booze!) No one will care except my mom.