Mrs. Lemon, Los Angeles/Monterey
Age and Occupation in 06: 26, Graduate Student (Public Policy)
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Environmental Consultant
Engagement Date: April 7, 2006
Wedding Date: July 7, 2007
Venue: Rosary Chapel & Monterey Marriott, Monterey, CA
About Me: My FI and I met online, but we like to tell people that we met at a "cookie shop" which is the technical location of our first encounter. He proposed exactly 1 year, 1 month and 6 days after our first date (it's the only part of his proposal speech that I remember), and we're planning long-distance from Los Angeles for a July wedding in my hometown of Monterey, CA. I have a passion for all things "cool, cute and quirky" and I enjoy video games, reading blogs (WeddingBee, trashy celeb, consumer & political) and crafting in my spare time, if I have any!
Cutting Paper, Not Cake
March 6th, 2007 @ 2:55 pm by Mrs. Lemon
QUESTION: What do you do when you fall in love with LUXE paper from Paper Source, want pocketfold invitations with too many inserts, and just can’t stand spending all of that money on blank pieces of parchment?
ANSWER: You buy gigantic flat sheets of paper and cut it yourself!
When you order flat paper they ship it in this giant mailer straight to your doorstep. I panicked for a moment when I saw the giant crease in the box, but inside my paper was safe and extra flat. If you happen to live near a Paper Source store, they can custom order the flat sheets you need and you can pick it up directly from the store without any shipping costs.
Then comes the super fun math part! (and I’m being serious here… I truly miss my math teacher days.) You’ve got to figure out how to maximize the paper to suit your needs. My pocketfold’s dimensions are 5″x7″, so I figured out how to get 4 invitations sets (invitation and four inserts) out of one piece of paper. I could have cut each sheet multiple ways and saved a sheet or two… but for the sake of my sanity and overall efficiency, I kept all of the cuts the same on every piece.
I used two paper cutters for the project, one that cut up to 24″ and another that cuts 12″. I made the 3 vertical cuts on the larger paper cutter, and switched to the smaller cutter for the final three cuts.
And after a couple hours this weekend, all of my paper is cut and ready to be printed!
Now what’s the real cost savings in that home labor? Well… let’s add it up and see!
Paper for 100 invitations:
25 flat sheets of LUXE cream paper @ $1.60 = $40
20 packs of LUXE cream A7 paper @ 5.75 = $115
(or if I settled for smaller pieces) A6 paper @ 4.75 = $95
Basically I saved at least $50 by cutting the sheets myself. I would have still needed to cut the other sheets to size to fit, so in my eyes I picked the right thing to do. I was a paper fiend long before my wedding came around, so I didn’t have the added expense of investing in paper cutters… which may be a large drawback to most brides attempting DIY invites. Now I just have to get going on that whole “print it yourself” part… *sigh*
14 Responses to “Cutting Paper, Not Cake”
That’s great! Have you tried printing yet? Are you printing at home? I was just curious how that will go with the paper being different sizes. Mr. Snow Pea and I wanted to tear our hair out after the numerous trials of printing our own engagement party invites. I wish there was an “automatic sensor button”.
Good job! As a paper fiend myself I can understand your excitement. You should have seen the package when my 26×40 80# black linen to make the pocketfolds arrived yesterday! But, I am taking it to Staples for cutting!
Miss Snow Pea
I just saw your question. My printer works fine when I tell it the size in the Page Setup. Does that not work for yours? On my laser printer at work I have to open the back so the heavier paper or odd sized paper can fall out the back rather than turn through the machine. Good luck.
Wow, I wish I would have known about this when I was ordering my paper! Could have saved a bit of $$…although I probably would have spend the amount I saved on paper cutters.
Good luck on making your invites!
Is the Luxe Cream the same color as most other cream cardstock? I love the Luxe paper and have some in White for the invite part. I was going to go with Stardream Opal for my pocketfold, but again…really love the Luxe and wonder if Cream would be an okay substitute.
One more question for ya, are you ordering your pocket folds or DIY as well?
Wow, good for you. I love designing things, so that part of the invitation was no problem. But the paper cutting–I can’t do that. I’m just too clumsy, somehow. At my job we have a fabulous old papercutter with an incredibly heavy blade with a wooden handle–even using that, I still messed up the first paper for my Save the Dates. There’s no savings there. So I ended up ordering my invitations from White Aisle. They were shipped yesterday, and I’m so excited! I’m going to DIY my programs, but those puppies are going to be standard 8.5″x11″ paper folded in half so no cutting involved. Table cards are from White Aisle, and the escort cards will be from Paper Source. I think I’ve successfully avoided any more bulk paper cutting!
Miss Snow Pea — I’ll be doing a combination of home printing as well as GOCCO printing… and so far I’ve manipulated the printing settings well enough to get consistent results. As Kathy stated, it’s really important to specify the paper size, which will help with alignment!
SueW — they actually sell the LUXE paper in 5 different colors… if you were looking for a pocketfold there might be another color that would suit your invites even better than cream! I’m DIY-ing fabric pocketfolds… but I can’t reveal my design until they’ve been sent out or else I’ll ruin the surprise!
I love the paper-source luxe paper, too. I adore the cream color - it’s just perfect. However, when I sat down and did the math, I just couldn’t part with the cash! I found another paper vendor - LCIPaper out of Massachusetts - that had some textured papers of the same color. I ordered samples of the Oxford and Linen textures in soft white and cream. Both are nearly the same color as the luxe cream and I was very pleased with the quality. I went with the linen, but I loved both textures. Others might want to check it out for themselves!
Damn girl. You crazy! 
Miss Lime, can you share what paper cutter you have pictured? I need a new one that’s reliable!
I have to say, I saved a lot of money by ordering my cardstock, etc online and then assembling them myself, but i also spent quite a bit on cutters, etc. Thank god I had planned on doing my STD, invites (wed, rehearsal, brunch, golf, tea, etc) and thank you’s using my supplies or my FH would have killed me! Did you know that my invite shop wanted about 12-14 dollars per invite for what I wanted and I spent about 2.75 per invite to do it myself? Crazy huh!
oh, and PS: more power to you on doing your own pocket folds! I told my FH I couldn’t order paper big enough, just because I didn’t want to go through that hassle! For those of you wanting the envelopments, if you go to paperbyjoy.com, every once in a while they will have a great deal like 15% off, plus free shipping on orders over $150 everyday, plus 5% off any orders of over 100 units!
I ended up taking my paper to kinkos to be cut for approx $1.50 per cut. Gave them all the dimensions and a sample, uncut paper with lines drawn on them. Saved me hours of time =)
