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alybrand's Blue wedding

06/13/2008

MOH helping! love ya!

Our work station!

The INVITATION picture!

5 x 14 1/8 and hole punch

Printing before fold

After it was folded

before glue dots were placed on

invitation

the bow

Making the Invites!

So here is how I made my 120, 5x7 invites: Cost $135 (without stamps)

First I wanted the picture to be right: See picture #3

1. I placed the picture I wanted into powerpoint. Then I played around with all different fonts, colors and wording to get the text to look just right on my picture.
I found some fonts that I liked too such as 'Helinda Rook,' 'Penman Scrpit,' 'Scriptina' at: shanbritedesign. I ended up using Monotype Corsiva and Edwaridan Script.

2. When I liked how my picture and the wording looked, I adjusted the page in powerpoint to a large view, so that when I copied the picture I didn't lose quality.

3. I pressed 'Ctrl' & 'Print Screen' and opened the program Irfanview. (If you don't know what this is, it is a free picture editing program that I absolutely love, you can download it free here: irfanview)

4. I pressed 'Ctrl' & 'V' to paste my copy into irfanview. It looks confusing at first because you think you are still in powerpoint since it copies the whole view of the screen you were just at.

5. From there I cropped the image back down to the original picture size (left click and adjust to size, then press, edit: crop selection)

6. I saved my file and uploaded it to costco's photoshop online to be printed as a 5 x 7. It took me about 15 pictures (& 4 pick-up visits) to find the right one.

7. If I found the wording to be too light or the picture to be too dark, I went back to powerpoint and did this again. (I edited my picture's brightness in Microsoft Office Picture Manager).

8. Once I liked a picture I ordered all 125, 5 x 7's . (I only did a few extra pictures, because you can't really mess them up too bad when making the invitation). Cost: $50.73

Before I assembled - I got my supplies! :

1. I called a local print shop and asked if they had the heavy weight cardstock of the color terrestrial teal in the Astrobrights (Most of the time they do, but they order it and a day later it comes in). You can google all different colors in the Astrobrights online or go to the shop to get samples of the Astrobrights or other colors.

2. Ordered 160 in my color (So I could mess up, but I had a ton of leftovers) and had them cut the cardstock to the dimensions: 5 x 14 1/8 (the extra 1/8 is so the invitations can fold). With the A-7 (5 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches) envelopes the cost came to be $39.73

3. From there I bought a bone folder, small rectangle hole punch, glue dots, and ribbon in a nice contrasting color at Michaels. (I needed 41 yards for 125 invites or about 12 inches for one invite). Make sure to bring coupons if you go to Michaels as they will take coupons from JoAnns. I also had a ruler, pencil and eraser handy. Cost: $40

4. For my ceremony inserts (that I pasted in the invite), I just formatted 6 of the my design to a page. (If you want the template I used, just email me and I can send it to you). I found the design for the top at the shanbrightdesign website too. Make sure to view it in print preview, so wording isn't cut off.

5. I printed a couple samples on white paper to make sure they fit right into my invite and then printed about 19 pages (for 125 invites) on my computer using the cardstock ink option in printing preferences on the Terra Green cardstock paper in the Astrobright.

6. Went to Kinko's to get them cut (about a $1 a cut, but they do all the pages at once - I had four cuts). I made a sample with lines where I wanted them to cut, so I had even and centered inserts.

7. Did the same for the maps. I did my maps in Word in the drawing pad and used the shapes option to arrange my lines. I looked at a map from mapquest to get my lines and streets right.

Bring your girls to come help!:

1. First I printed my wording in the front of my 5 x 14 1/8 pages on my printer in the cardstock printing option. (I did this before I folded). See picture # 5 for how it looked before I folded it.

2. Then I whole punched little rectangles into the top parts of the paper. See picture # 4

2. Then time to fold. Measure and mark with a pencil 3 1/2 inches with the ruler on the top and the bottom. Place the ruler down against the marks and take the bone folder pointy edge to make a crease along the ruler. Erased the little pencil marks. Then fold the paper and slide the large part of the bone folder along the crease to make a nice crisp crease. Did the same thing for the other side. Make sure the 5 x 7 picture fits in the opening. See picture # 6

3. Take the glue dots and place them on each corner of the picture. It should fit exactly in the center. Once the glue dots are down there is no return. On one side I placed the ceremony insert with glue dots and on the other I placed the map with the glue dots.

4. From there I cut 12 inches of ribbon to make 120 or so strands.

5. Placed the ribbon through my hole punched holes and tied a bow.

DONE

So that was basically how I did it. You can always email me if you are still unsure about something?! Well, I hope this helped inspire and not wear you out!