Mrs. Daffodil, San Francisco/Los Angeles
Age and Occupation: 26, Nonprofit Strategy Consultant
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Resident Physician
Engagement Date: December 29, 2006
Wedding Date: May, 2008
Blogging Since: August, 2007
Venue: Church w/ floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Valley; Westin in downtown LA
About Me: I moved around a lot growing up, but consider myself a Southerner at heart. I love scrapbooking, dancing, doggies, and diet coke. I am all about personalizing everything and hence, I'm a DIY bride who is just loving the entire wedding planning process! Mr. Daffodil and I met in our college fellowship group and were "just friends" for three years before we started dating. We've been together for four years now and can't wait to get married in sunny SoCal, Mr. Daffodil's hometown.
Pretty Papers for My Pretty Gals
July 16th, 2008 @ 4:43 pm by Mrs. Daffodil
As part of my bridesmaids’ gifts, I decided to make them some personalized stationery. There is something about having pretty paper to write on that makes it so much more fun to write! I know that handwritten letters are a bit of a rarity in these days of facebook/texts/emails, and I promise this wasn’t a vain attempt to get my girls to write me (though there isn’t anything quite like receiving a personal handwritten letter in the mail 
!). I’ve just always loved pretty papers and thought it would be fun!
I made some 5.5″x5.5″ square stationery personalized with each bridesmaid’s name, for letter writing purposes…
…in four different patterns (every bridesmaid got a set of all four patterns)…
…with some memo cards to match!
It was a pretty simple DIY process to create all these, taking me about one full night.
I used:
- Paper Source cover weight Luxe paper (210g) in Blush, Glass, Frost, and Cream
- Green and Ivory satin ribbon
- Corner rounder
- My trusty color inkjet printer that I used for all of my wedding paper goods, the Canon MP530 Pixma
I first created the basic template, by creating two 5.5″x5.5″ dotted line squares flushed with the long edge of the slide. Then I added a dotted line down in between the two squares to get the perfect dimensions for the memo cards (and to use up the entire sheet of paper!).
Using the basic template, I created four different designs. The fonts I used were Bickham Script and Minion Pro. I then copied each design over 8 times (for my 8 bridesmaids!) and replaced it with their names. I made sure to order the slides such that all 8 of each design would print out before the next design, so that all I would have to do is stack in 8 sheets of each color on top of one another in my printer and hit the print button!
Once everything was printed, I cut each sheet along the dotted lines and rounded the corners. Just a warning: Rounding the corners can be very tiring when using heavy cardstock! You’d be amazed at how tired your hand muscles can get. Lucky for me, Mr. D was close by .
Using the ribbon, I then tied the squares together with some 5.75″x5.75″ square envelopes. I tied the memo cards together separately.
And here was the final product! I hope they loved them! 
18 Responses to “Pretty Papers for My Pretty Gals”
What a great idea! I’m a huge advocate for hand written letters and notes, and I love that this gives the girls something pretty, and encourages them to get writing in the process. Did you give them envelopes as well?
These are great. Your printer did a good job, I was waiting to read “Gocco” in the tutorial lol.
Do you just use regular scissors to round the corners? Or do you have a special tool?
I’ve tried doing it with scissors but I always get uneven corners. I’m like a kindergartener with scissors, I swear. Can’t cut in a straight line (or curve, apparently) to save my life!
This is a really beautiful and thoughtful gift!
LOVE. I’m so keeping this post to inspire me around Christmas time!! You may be getting questions from me in Nov/Dec 
What did you create the template in? Word or a fancy printing app?
Yes I was also waiting for ‘Gocco’. They look stunning!!
What program did you use to create the template? I’m a loser and only have Word…how do you get cool fonts like the two you used?
@jilian: @rynkramer: I can’t believe I forgot to mention the program I used! I did them in powerpoint…I just started with a blank slide, went to page setup and made sure the paper was set to letter size paper (8.5″x11″), and then I drew the rectangles as mentioned above!
@Miss Avocado: yep, I included envelopes for the square paper…5.75″x5.75″ envelopes that I purchased from envelopemall (i’ll let you in on a secret…the envelopes were left over from my invitations!)
@Miss Cherry Pie: oops, just realized you were asking about the corners! I used corner rounders to do the trick…basically you just stick the corner in, punch, and voila, the corner is rounded! The link to the save-on-crafts one is above, where I list what I used for everything!
These turned out beautiful! I’ve done the same thing for my bridesmaids, except with my gocco, and I honestly think that the printing turned out much better than my gocco cards did! Sometimes, putting the gocco away is the right thing to do - nice work!
What a great idea! And very DIY and wallet-friendly! They turned out lovely, BTW.
Once again…another awesome DIY project from MRS. Daffodil!
Also, your bows were so perfect!
very very nice indeed!
Mrs. Daffodil, I love everything about your wedding and me too wishes that I was your BM!
This post is so inspiring! A fabulous gift idea… and I might even make a few for myself 
