Making Your Own Handmade Wedding Cards

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Make your own wedding cards with stamps and techniques like masking, glittering and chalking.

Author:  Holly Craft

Usually, the first correspondence your wedding guests will receive will be the Save the Date card or the actual invitation. This correspondence sets the tone for the wedding. You want your wedding cards to be completely “you”, so what better way to make it personal, than for you to make it by hand? Handcrafting your invitations can be a way to cut the wedding costs or it can actually be more expensive, depending on your choices.

By making your own wedding cards and using rubber stamps, you can carry the same design not only throughout all the stationery, but also on your favors, place cards, decorations, and so on.

So where do we begin?
Begin by choosing the envelope for the invitation.

• You don’t want to get finished designing your invitation and then not be able to find a suitable envelope.
• You will also want to check into postage for your invitations. Many things such as shape, size, thickness, etc., of your envelope will determine the postage amount.
• Be sure to include your return address on the envelope and begin early assembling the list of addressees.
• Vellum envelopes are beautiful, but you do need to consider how you will get the address on the vellum, or if you will put the address on an insert. Vellum Writersare a great option if you choose to address them by hand.
  
• With paper envelopes, consider decorating the envelope to match the invitation, but be sure to follow the rules of the Post Office.

Designing Your Wedding Cards:
A greeting card that looks complete usually includes the background, the central image and an embellishment. These principles can also apply to an invitation.

Things to consider when designing your invitation and choosing the envelope are:

• Size
• Color
• Style (folded or not folded gatefold, trifold, etc.)
• Paper
• Images or monograms
• Embellishments (ribbon, glitter, charms, etc.)
• Wording
• Overlays, such as vellum
• Font or Calligraphy
• Will the paper go through your printer or will you have it printed elsewhere?

Designing Your Wedding Cards Based on Quantity:
So, once you have your design chosen that matches the theme, mood and style of your wedding, next you go through the mechanics of collecting the supplies and putting together the invitations.

Let’s say you are going to need a hundred invitations.

• A design that seems simple when you do one of them could feel very complicated after you do a hundred of them.
• Consider each step in the design and make sure that getting the invitations done on time and having them still be a work of love is possible.

Paper Supplies for Your Wedding Cards:

• Calculate how much paper you will need and then get some extra.
• If the paper needs to be scored or cut, you can do that yourself, or have it done at the office supply store or printer.
• You can find many companies online that have matching cardstocks and envelopes in a myriad of colors.
• Another possibility is to choose a pre-made card kit, then print your type and add your embellishments.
• It all depends on what you want and how much time and money you have to spend on the invitations.

Budgeting Your Time:
As well as budgeting the costs, you need to budget your time also.

• Set yourself up a schedule of what needs to be done when.
• As a bride, you probably already know how many details go into planning a wedding. The invitations should be mailed so that the guests get them six weeks before the wedding.
• If it is around a holiday, they should receive them even sooner or a Save the Date card should be sent.

Creating Your Wedding Cards:
Once you have assembled all your supplies, begin working on the invitations by using the assembly line method. If doing a series of steps to all one hundred seems too daunting and boring, work in groups of tens. As your stacks of tens begin to mount, you will feel a sense of accomplishment.

Let’s look at an example of some handmade coordinated wedding stationery.



Here we have an invitation, thank you card and place card, all stamped and colored to match.

These use the techniques of stamping, masking, chalking and glittering.

The type was created on the computer for the invitation, the thank you stamped and the name on the place card hand written.

Masking on your Stamped Wedding Cards:
Masking may seem complicated, but once you understand the basics it will make sense, and gives amazing results.

First, you stamp the images to be masked onto a sheet of masking paper, and then cut them out with a pair of sharp-tipped scissors; Honey Bee Scissors are great because their non-stick coating won't get gummed up with the masking paper adhesive.

If you don't have any masking paper, use a sticky note so that some sticky is behind the image.



The images that you stamp first will go to the background once you mask them and stamp additional images overlapping the first image. The unwanted ink will go on the mask.



Chalking on Your Handmade Wedding Cards:
Chalking is one of the easiest and fastest methods to color images.



You can see here that you simply apply the color that has been chosen from a chalk palette, using the included pom pom and holder. It has a nice, soft color and it is okay to color a little out of the lines with this medium which makes it quicker than other mediums.

Glittering Your Wedding Cards:
Glittering is also a simple and inexpensive way to add an embellishment that will add color and a little bling to your paper crafting.



The biggest concern when using glitter is the mess.  Solve it by using a glittering tray.  It'll corral the loose glitter as you pour and help funnel it back into the bottle when you are finished.  The attached brush is very helpful as well.

Finishing Touches for your Wedding Cards:
Other embellishments that can be added include:

• Charms
• Ribbon
• Monograms
• Wax Seals
• Stickers
• Die Cuts
• and more!

Make sure that you can get enough of the embellishments you decide to use for your full number of invitations before you begin.

These are just a few ideas that hopefully will help you create just the right invitations for your wedding. It is a great idea to look on the Internet at companies from which you can order invitations for ideas. Do a search for handmade invitations. Find different techniques and elements to put together to create that one of a king invitation that will make the guests remember your special day. Then look around at your relatives and friends and enlist some help if you need it! Just remember to have fun when creating wedding cards for your special day!