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Friday, March 28, 2008

Michaels...

I have a confession to make--I am not crafty...I am not even CLOSE to being crafty, when I was younger at birthday parties my mom use to have "crafts" for us kids--it was a running joke every year how bad the craft turned out. Don't get me wrong, we always had a great time, but these crafts were not something that would later appear proudly displayed on a mantel-- they were more likely to be found at the bottom of a trash can, if you get what i mean :).

So when FI and I started talking about making our own wedding invitations, I was apprehensive, I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted our wedding invitations to look like, at least the packaging part---A 3 fold invitation folder, made of beautiful paper, wrapped with satin ribbon, you open the folder and there is our invitation along with a pocket holding the different inserts *sigh* , beautiful. I was not willing to compromise on my "vision". Our design friend, swears that he can make a template for the inserts/invitation that would mirror any "pricey" invite out there ( he was shocked at the cost, and momentarily thought of changing careers:) ). I researched my favorite types of paper and I can buy them a lot cheaper wholesale--as for printing, even though I love letterpress, I was planning on going the "cheaper" route anyways, which can be done at Kinkos or at our very nice office printer at a fraction of the cost...the only part of the project that I was still hedging on was the pocket innovation. So last night I went to Michael's, to see if I could make the pocket invites.

After the initial feeling of being overwhelmed, I found my way to the invitation supplies aisle. I purchased some card stock/decorative paper/cheap ribbon ($1) an exacto knife, a ruler, and some tape/glue. I then went home to follow step-by-step directions. A few paper cuts/exacto knife cuts and about oh 20 minutes later, I had something "resembling" a folder invitation. Honestly, it wasn't that bad--I don't have any pictures to prove this haha but I could see the potential! However it got me thinking, what if we made everything but BOUGHT the folder pockets that's when I stumbled across this website - Paper Presentation

They offer a variety of pocket folds, by two favorite being :






^ Both of these folds come in a variety of colors! You can order 5 samples for free, so that's what I'm going to do, see If I love them, and than price out the diff btw buying supplies and making them, and purchasing them made--its about $60 more to purchase them--but it might be worth the saved time and frustration, I'll let you know :)

5 Comments:

Blogger Aricka said...

It will be worth the saved time to buy them, I just finished making my save the dates with similar insert cards. I printed them myself on the laser printer, assembled them in similar insert cards etc. and between the ruined ones I had to discard and the TIME it took to finish about 60 I would have paid $60 to have it done for me and have no wasted product as I developed a "system" and technique to master the production of invitations.

Friday, March 28, 2008 10:51:00 PM  
Blogger Hailey said...

I second paying the extra $60 to buy them already made. I just made 80 pocket folders (decorated with sparkly vellum), all the inserts for each one using Word, plus my invite. They turned out lovely, but I spent over 80 hours doing it all. The pocket folders were a witch. For your sanity, buy the folders.

Saturday, March 29, 2008 4:50:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm all for preassembled...I don't know how some women do it but I don't have patience for that type of stuff.
One thing to keep in mind...square invitations cost more to mail b/c they can't be fed through the normal postal machines. So once the price increase goes into effect on May 12th, they will cost 62 cents instead of the 42 cents for normal first class mail. Not that 20 cents is a huge difference but every little bit counts.

Saturday, March 29, 2008 10:49:00 AM  
Blogger Bsam said...

Thanks so much for your comments, and thanks for the postage heads up miss.capitol hill--after i read your responses to my FI he said "were buying them" so i feel that is the route we will go :)

Sunday, March 30, 2008 10:12:00 AM  
Blogger jenn (+ will) said...

i'm going through the same thing. i'm terrified to try to make my own invitations. i settled on http://www.cardsandpocketsstore.com, i believe it's a mom/daughter operation. the pocket folders are only .98 each! add an invitation mat, blank invitation, 3 inserts, and an envelope, and it's still under 2 bucks an invitation! anyway best of luck :)

Friday, July 11, 2008 11:55:00 PM  

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