|
Home ::
Homemade Wedding
Stationery Homemade Wedding Stationery
Feverishly working to plan your upcoming
wedding, you have inevitably come across one undeniable fact:
Weddings are expensive.
Chances are you would generously welcome any
opportunity to cut corners on your budget, without cutting back on
quality. There are several stages in the process of the wedding
planning where this can be done, especially if you, or someone near
you, is even slightly creative.
Making your own wedding stationery, from the invitations to the RSVP
cards to the thank you notes, is not only a good way to cut the
corners on your budget, it is also a fun and creative project for
you, and if you choose to employ their help, your attendants.
There are many ways to do this. I am going to show you how to
transform simple sheets of colored paper into elegant and classy, or
fun and flashy as it suits you, wedding stationery.
Before you get started, let’s take a look at what you will need for
this project. The first, and most important, is the paper. Look for
heavy bond paper, something similar to construction paper or card
stock, that will hold up to the abuse it is going to go through
during the creation process.
When choosing a pattern, there are a couple of considerations to
keep in the front of your mind. Make sure that the pattern covers
both sides of the paper. For example, while they come in a wide
variety of patterns and colors, papers intended for crafts like
scrapbooking are often only printed on one side.
Also, look for patterns that either only surround the borders of the
paper or that have similar colors muted into each other. This will
help your writing or printing to show up better, preventing it from
getting lost in certain colors.
The second thing that you will need is a computer and good quality
printer. Or pens. If you or someone you know has unique or even
especially good handwriting and doesn’t mind handwriting 150 wedding
invitations, that is an even cheaper route.
If you chose to go the route of handwriting the invitations, it is a
good idea to spend the extra money on two or three good quality pens
that will work well with the paper you have chosen. If you have
chosen a fibrous paper that is prone to cause liquid inks to bleed,
for example, you might want to opt for a more paste-like ink like
than that in standard ball point pens.
From this point, the sky, and more importantly your imagination, is
this limit. One idea to tie all of the stationery together (besides
the matching paper) is initial stamps. Find stamps with the first
initial of his name and yours in a font that fits the style of
wedding you are planning.
If it is an elegant, black tie affair, you might want a calligraphy
or script stamp. A comic or bubbly font may be better suited for a
casual, more laid back wedding.
Choose an ink color that blends with the tones chosen for your paper
but is a shade darker. For example if you have chosen a sky or baby
blue shade of paper, a cerulean or cadet blue stamp ink may prove an
excellent choice. Give the stamps a few trial runs on plain paper to
see where they look the best before you get started on the colored
paper.
If you are unsure what type of wedding you are having; elegant or
casual; ask yourself a couple of questions:
- How do you want your guests to dress for the event?
- How will you and your groom, as well as your attendants, be dressed?
If you are wearing a floor length ball gown with a cathedral style
train and he is in a top hat and tails, you are looking at a more
elegant, formal affair and your stationery will reflect that as
well.
Your stationery will answer the all important
question on every guests mind: what should I wear?
Another option, especially for an elegant, formal wedding, but
really for any wedding theme in which you have included a metallic
accent color, is to use metallic paint pens and stencils to make the
intertwined initial design.
Follow the same guidelines when choosing
your stencils as you did in choosing your stamps; script and
calligraphic letter styles for the elegant, formal wedding, more
relaxed “bubbly” letter styles for a casual wedding.
As I have said before, your imagination is the only limit to what
you can do when you opt to save a few dollars (and you will save a
few dollars) by making your own wedding stationery. And not only is
handmade stationery cheaper, it is a fun project for you and your
family and or attendants, and it is a great way to add one more
little personal flair to your already very personal day.
About the Author
Desiree Jensen is a successful freelance writer
of DYI articles and a regular
contributor to http://www.wedding-decoration-idea.com.
|
