Wedding Inspired Wednesday {No. 8}: DIY Wedding invitation Class!

         More Photos to Come!!

          Since I have slacked a bit on my Wedding Inspired Wednesday blogging, I decided to make up for it a bit by posting TWO this week! Enjoy {No.7} listing a few fabulous country/Texas country first dance songs & this one, {No.8}!

          This past weekend I had the pleasure of taking a DIY Wedding Invitation Class at Paper Planet with my fabulous in-law family - Blondie {Mother-in-law-to-be}, Audrey {Sister-in-law-to-be/bridesmaid}, Megan {Cousin-in-law-to-be/bridesmaid} & Terri {Henry's aunt twice removed hehe}. These women are some of the most fun women to be around! They are laid back, go-with-the-flow, down to earth, sweet, funny as can be women! Now to my knowledge, none of them are really in to DIY crafts - with exception of Megan. I am pretty sure if it weren't for me pestering them, they would have been perfectly content NEVER taking this class or any class of the sort. However, they love me sooooo much they were willing to give it a shot, cough up $50 and suffer through the class with me. :-)
          Marissa, our instructor for the class, gave each of us two bags - bag one was filled with various kinds of paper. Marissa went over each kind of paper, what it was good for, what you needed to be careful for ie. smudging etc. and ways to use them with each other. Bag two was filled with 5 different invitations/ribbon that she was going to use to help us construct 5 different invitations using various techniques/papers/bows/etc. It also had a tiny notebook - this notebook gave you the tools you needed to calculate exactly how much paper to use for whichever card design you chose, so you wouldn't waste paper or spend excessive money. It also included ribbon sizes for the various bows/knots we would be tying, as well as explained all the different envelope sizes so you could cut your paper to fit the envelope accordingly. VERY HELPFUL INFORMATION!

Audrey & Megan - Say Cheese! - Waiting with their two bags for us to begin!

          We started with the "Love Knot" pre-made pocket invite. It was rather simple, using two equal size ribbons. Hot glue the ends of one together, loop the second ribbon through and glue those ends together, then wrap around the edges of the envelope. VOILA! Oopsies: We used hot glue - well don't press those ribbon ends together with your hands - OUCH! haha - then don't press the ribbon ends together using a boning stick on top of paper - paper glued to the ribbon LOL

Hot-glueing the ends of one ribbon together - Audrey glueing on paper - pressing the ribbon together with a boning stick, Megan using her fingers - we were all guilty of one or the other.

Terri with her perfect "love knot" ready to be glued to the card

Left Invite: Love Knot on the back side of the invite

Left invite: Front side of Love Knot invite - Ribbon was hot-glued to the silver pocket invite, followed by a blue, sheer, tissue-like, glitter paper glued to the invite with a glue stick, and finally the cardstock paper hot-glue on the very top

          Next was a simple knot - well not so simple as it looked when Marissa did it. haha We eventually got it down, and then it was easy as pie! We were able to use this knot on two separate invitations. Then we learned the use of a boning stick to create straight folding edges. Being a huge scrapbook-aholic, WHY HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE??? Makes crafting a lot easier and opens so many doors for ideas! haha We also learned here which paper was ok to use hot-glue and which ones you needed to use the extra strength glue stick.

The simple knot, cut on the ends in a "happy bow" as Marissa put it haha I never thought of it before, but it makes sense

The simple knot used again - This invite was one of my favorites! I love the fabulous patterned paper with subtle metallic accents. We used the boning stick to crease the patterned paper at 1 1/2 inches, we then hot-glue hot pink paper up under the crease, followed by the ivory cardstock on top of the hot pink - THEN we hot-glued the 1 1/2 of creased patterned paper on top of the ivory paper. Get it? Kind of confusing, maybe? We were then able to hot-glue the center of the simple knot in the center, wrap the edges of the ribbon around and hot-glue the ribbon ends to the back of the patterned paper. FINALLY, we hot-glued the maroon cardstock paper to the back of the patterned paper and TA-DA! DONE-SKIS!

Group photo of the finished card! The top colorful paper was creased perfectly with the boning stick, then our finished bow placed on top! This was such a fun, colorful card!

           The final knot was actually a beautiful green bow. With it being St. Patty's Day we HAD to make a green invitation! :-) This was rather hilarious to make. Left over right, pull left under, pull the two bows and ribbon ends at the same time to get the middle knot tight and the bow just right! Whew! I can't wait to use this idea for a future baby shower! The bow was super cute in the end.

Terri with her ribbon left over right

Pull all four to get bow nice and tight

Terri's beautiful bow!

Blondie's beautiful Bow!

Myself and my bow! To finish it off, hold the invitation where the bow is verticle (bow on left side if you are right handed) and cut the ends with scissors straight up, parallel to the bow itself. You get a perfect bow!

           The second to last invite was one we all loved. Henry's mom is even going to replicate the outline to make rehearsal dinner invites. I was so excited after the class when she said she wanted to make these! Audrey even mentioned wanting to make lingerie/bachelorette party invites! YAY! I mean we went from non-crafty in-laws, to them being so inspired they wanted to make more! I was beyond ecstatic! Below is the one we made in class - the one actually made for the rehearsal dinner will be the same format, but different colors :-)

This was a simple 3-layered invite. We were able to hot-glue one end of twine to the back of ivory cardstock, wrap the twine strung with a horseshoe charm around the cardstock in any fashion we chose, followed by hot-glueing the other twine end to the back of the cardstock. Hot-glue the ivory cardstock to the brown textured paper, followed by hot-glueing the brown textured paper to espresso brown cardstock and you are done! Lovely right? This is perfect for a rustic wedding/rehearsal dinner/shower/party - whatever you choose! Not to mention you could easily change the charm. Since we will be using horseshoes in our wedding, it was perfect!

            The final invitation was one they custom made to help me make my actual wedding invitations! I told them I wanted a 5x7, double pocket invite. Julie, the owner, cut all the pieces for me - then Marissa showed me how to properly piece them together, how to cut the paper in the right spots to prevent bulky edges, & gave boning measurements for folding the pockets up and for folding the invite itself. They were amazing!

Marissa giving the boning measurements

Marissa providing more measurements

I am pretty sure I just burnt myself - haha - The outside ends of the pockets were glued down first

Then the inside fold of the pockets were cut to prevent too much bulkiness when folded and the inner side of the pocket glued

The basic invite finished!

            When all the invites were assembled and photos were taken, we all decided on paper we thought would be appropriate for the rehearsal dinner invites and wedding invites. Marissa then did all the calculations so we could order the hand-made paper in batches to ensure colors were the same across the board. After all the layers of paper, envelopes, ribbon, charms etc. were picked for both invites & rsvp cards we paid around $350 total - that was for 25 rehearsal invites, 125 wedding invites, 125 rsvp cards - plus all corresponding envelopes, etc. That is not bad at all - to me. That still leaves me $200 in our stationary budget to buy paper for ceremony programs, name tags, menus, and thank you cards. Sweet! Not to mention, we will make some wonderful memories assembling these together when we come back in April once the paper orders are delivered. I can't wait! You can bet your bottom after ours are mailed, I will be posting a DIY tutorial!

My three favorite invitations made that day! Notice the green bow is cut! If you hold it vertical can you see what I meant by holding it vertical and cutting the ends? Ehhhh? I will be recreating these. Kind of considering making cards for every event possible for the rest of my life! haha

All the invitations except one! Standing in front of the giant hand-made paper wall!