Weddingbee
Last week, we announced our DIY project contest, and all this week we’ll be featuring some of the best submissions. On Friday, we’ll poll readers to determine the winner for the week, who’ll then go on to the semi-finals!
If you’ve got a project to submit, please send it to guest@weddingbee.com.
And now for today’s entry–Tanya’s beautiful silk-covered pocketfold invitations:
Hi! I’m entering my silk-covered pocketfold invitations into the contest. First I got the cardstock cut into custom-sized sheets, which I sprayed with adhesive and covered with scarlet dupioni silk bought on eBay. Then I cut the cardstock into the appropriate dimensions, painstakingly covered each cut edge with liquid adhesive to prevent fraying, and scored and folded them.
I designed the invitations in Photoshop, using the scanned image of a cherry blossom rubber stamp, which I manipulated to make all the floral designs. Each insert has a unique motif on it. Then I sent out the design to a printer to have it thermographed in black and metallic gold onto ivory linen-textured cardstock. The invitation and all the inserts fit on one 8.5 x 11″ page, which I then had cut at Kinko’s. I layered it with gold paper and bronze stardream cardstock, attached it to the pocketfold with gold photo corners, and closed the pocketfold with brown grosgrain ribbon and a seal customized with the name of each guest (except for my own invitation, which has our names and the date on it).
The envelopes were a matching ivory linen paper, and I used the original cherry blossom rubber stamp (and a tiny blossom one I picked up to match for the RSVP envelopes) to emboss the back flaps with gold embossing powder. I printed them out with fonts matching the invitation.
I was so happy with how these turned out!
Tanya
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These are breathtaking — I LOVE the red dupioni silk!!
Gorgeous, Tanya! Can I ask what printer you used for the thermography? I’m looking for one myself.
Absolutley the most beautiful invitations I have EVER seen. Hands down.
I would love to know how much those pocketfolds cost to make! They’re beautiful!
Wow! This is way above and beyond what I would ever attempt for my wedding (I say that now, but who really knows the lengths that bride will take :)) These are absolutely inspiring! May I ask how much the approximate cost of each invitation might be?
Rzblna– I used NW Printed Solutions, at http://www.nwprintedsolutions.com. They were really accommodating, and even caught a few typos before they printed!
Beth– Unfortunately they cost a small fortune (to me, anyway)– just over $6 each. It was the printing costs that weren’t in my original budget; I was initially going to use the rubber stamp to hand-emboss the design on each invitation, but after I made a prototype I realized it just wasn’t feasible. Then I got fixated on raised metallic gold, which can only be done with metallic gold thermography powder (instead of the clear they use on colored ink), so it cost more than expected. If I’d gone with flat ink or a dull gold, it would’ve cut at least a dollar off each invitation.
Wow!! Very impressive.
Absolutely beautiful, Tanya! I love your eye for details and how wonderful everything blends together. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Wow…those are just gorgeous! Wow.
Those are incredible! I can’t believe you made them yourself. Absolutely the most stunning invitations I have EVER seen!
WOW, I love these!
Tanya- Holy crap those are beautiful! Can you share your resource for the cardstock, and which one you used? Your resource and any additional advice would be a big help for those (me) who want to try this sort of project!
I got the red cardstock at http://www.anchor-paper.com (click the Anchor Paper Express link on the sidebar and email them to request free samples of, say, all their red 80-lb-plus cardstocks), and the rest of the cardstock (ivory and bronze) at http://www.envelopemall.com, along with all the envelopes.
And for anyone who’s curious, I got the dupioni silk on eBay!
Those are some of the most beautiful invites I’ve ever seen! You are inspiring me for my programs. 
Was is difficult to work with the cardstock/silk?
Wow, those are really incredible! I can’t believe how crisply you got the silk to lie! It looks soooo professional!!
Also, do you have any tips on how you attached the fabric? How did you get the edges looking so clean?
I’m impressed with how the invitations look so neat and professional. I’ve worked with silk dupioni and the way the fabric frays and loses threads on the edges is unbelievable. Good job with the edges of the silk!
Re: silk edges
Here’s what I did:
1) Adhere the silk with spray-adhesive to a piece of cardstock at least 1″ bigger on every side than you’re going to cut it. (if it’s any less, it’ll pull away from the cut piece, not having enough resistance to the blade)
2) Once the adhesive is dry, use an exacto-knife and a straight-edge to cut through the cardstock and fabric in one swipe. Make sure it’s a sharp blade. You probably will not be able to use a paper-cutter unless it’s really, really sharp. The big one at Kinko’s didn’t work for me, but my little one at home did… sometimes. Safer to use the exacto.
3) When you’ve cut out about 4 or 5, get some glue (I used Tombow MonoAqua, which is clear and pretty runny) and use your finger to smear it along the cut edges. This will keep them from fraying and/or peeling off the cardstock. You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly.
If I had to do it again, I’d experiment with using FrayCheck instead of the glue, because it dried a little darker than the fabric and occasionally showed up if I used too much.
Oh, about scoring and folding: I’d score the pieces after I’d cut the long sides, but before cutting the short sides. That way, you can score and fold, and THEN cut the ends, just in case the folding causes the fabric to pull away from the edges.
Hope this helps!
WOW! What an amazing job! It may be expensive by your definition but I paid $9 an invite so you’re still cheaper than mine and far more beautiful! Great job!
Beautiful! I’m speechless.
[...] My favorite - these pocketfold invitations by Tanya: [...]
[...] reminded us of these gorgeous red diy invitations submitted by Tanya in our diy contest earlier this [...]
Gorgeous. I was thinking of doing the same thing.
How do you make sure the fabric doesn’t pull away when you fold it?
Help a beginner diy’er.
thanks!
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