Wedding Blog
Whew! With only a few weeks to go, things have been uber-busy in the Pomegranate residence! I’ve been working on finishing up a few big projects - namely our CD favors - and I’m rather excited to show them to you. Our Jewelboxing kit definitely made a complicated project much less difficult to complete - but I must warn you, before you take on creating 150 of these puppies, I will say it’s not for the faint of heart. Let’s just say I could really empathize with Miss Shortcake and her Letter to the Printer.
Our CDs are finished!
Printer-hating aside, it’s been a really fun project and I’ve been able to watch many of the movies that I’ve been dying to catch up on while punching out the pre-perforated templates that Jewelboxing provided. Sadly, I managed to skip taking any photos of the printed templates, but I assure you, for an Illustrator-friendly person, they were super easy to use. For those unfamiliar with Illustrator, they do provide you with templates for InDesign2, InDesignCS, PageMaker, Photoshop, iWork Pages, Freehand, QuarkExpress and PDF as well. Just keep in mind, they are truly blank slates that will allow you to make sure your designs fall within the perforated boundaries - because honestly, do you really want to be cutting out the corners, curves and slanted edges yourself? I think not!
I created a design for the front-to-back piece that fit underneath the CD, peeked out on the side of the spine and when flipped over, itemized the song list. You could really do some fun things with the interior of this piece - the templates are so exact, you could easily hide a photo of a pet or secret message to be revealed when the CD is removed. We chose to use our favored damask pattern in moss green to create a contrast with the bold stripes of the booklet cover.
The fun pattern in the tray beneath the CD.
You have to press the side of the case to open the CD. As this technique is not very mainstream, we chose to put “PRESS TO OPEN” on the side - but you could put a fun message here.
The back of the booklet provided us a nice space to explain the story of the song lists. We placed our two-page Liner Notes section inside, explaining why we chose each of the songs and what they meant to us. We also highlighted the songs that would be used in our ceremony. I had originally intended on using this space to thank our guests for coming - but to avoid clutter or too small fonts, I found a way to incorporate that into the CD label design.
The interior of the CD.
A close-up of the outside of the CD booklet that explains the story of why we chose to give CDs.
The CD labels were the last to be completed. We decided to hire out a local company (recommended by our resident media expert Mrs. Penguin) to duplicate the CDs for us, instead of burning all 150 via our laptops. This would have proved to be a lengthy task, so when we found out how economical it was to hire it out ($126 for 150 un-labeled CDs with shipping) we were sold. Once we received them - in record time (3 days) - labeling them was a snap. We used a Memorex label applicator - and after two episodes of Monk, we were done!
The labels are super thin, so they almost look like professionally printed CDs. To add a splash of fun here, I used the lyrics to our song, “Brighter than Sunshine” by Aqualung, along the curve of the CD.
These CD organizing boxes were purchased at Ikea for a mere $6.99 per pack of two. I snagged two boxes of each to hold the favors that will double as our escort cards. I’ve purchased these CD dividers to help organize the favors by last name.
Pretty CDs all lined up in a row!
Black and White CD Organizer Boxes
$6.99 per pack of two @ Ikea
A - Z CD Dividers
$25 @ Uncommon Goods
Once our seating chart is finalized, the final transformation will commence. I’ll create seating card semi-permanent stickers using vellum and my Xyron. They will be applied to the CD spines and will guide each guest to their seat. Hopefully, I’ll have some final photos for you soon!
If you’re interested in making similar CD favors, beginning tomorrow September 16, Jewelboxing is offering weddingbee readers their friends and family discount when you check out using the code “ISAWTHEBEE”!
Is anyone else giving their guests CDs as wedding favors?
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Wow, I love how those turned out! We initially thought we might do CD favors, but decided to go with something else. Yours have me completely second guessing that decision, though!
What an awesome project! Love it! I’d do it, but I don’t think most people would care for my taste in showtunes (and those who would already HAVE everything!) 
Have you told us what songs you chose and why in another post (ie did I forget?) Or is that still coming?
I thought you were cool before, but wow!! Those are great. What songs did you put on them?
We did CD favors/escort cards too! Yours are so beautiful!
Those look GREAT! We too, will be rocking the CD favor — I can only hope that they come out a fraction as lovely as yours did!
Gorgeous!
Miss P - What font did you use on the CDs? The part that says “Thank You” and “With Love”?
We did CD favors too, but used the slim line jewel cases and a veeeeeeery simplistic cover for the front. And we lightscribed our monogram onto the CD itself. When you post the final product, I’d love to see your song-list too! Yours look really amazing! Great job
i know i’ve posted this before in the boards and was met with lots of unhappiness, but i really would like to warn brides that unless you receive a license and/or permission from the music publishers, it is illegal to make duplicate copies of any copyrighted music. I work in the music industry and really feel the need to educate people on the legal issues of copyright infringement…. Yes, it’s highly unlikely that you will ever be caught and sued, but I would just like to make you all aware of the issue
That said, Pom, you did a great job with the design! Super cute.
These are stunning! So thoughtful and fun. We’d thought of doing CD favors, but it seems a bit too much work. Yours are fab.
Yeah!!! They turned out great…3 weeks and you’ll be a Mrs…oh, and your spare room will be a spare room again. =)
Miss Pom, you’ve blown me away again. I love our favors, but you’ve got me trying to figure out what non-wedding related event I could give CD favors out at.
As a girl who spent many years creating mixed tapes and CDs (with crafty packaging) for any reason I could think of, it saddens me to think iPods are taking over the world. There’s a whole generation that will never know the beauty of liner notes. 
I love these. I know that I have nowhere near the patience required to do this, but I wish I did!
Awww! Thanks guys! They were a LOT of work, so I’m glad you liked them.
@RachLynn: The font I used is called Copasetic.
Are you worried about your legal rights to distribute the music, or did you use music you own the rights to?
holy impressive. this is just insanity. you have the luckiest guests on the planet.
whoa - i’d love to do this too, but i don’t think am since i’m not even a DIY novice. =(
These look better than most CD packaging from popular bands! Great job;)
i took on the CD favor project for my wedding. It was alot of fun.. but the one thing that i did a bit different was to personalize the CD a bit more by taking into account the person’s music taste.. so i had different playlists on each CD.. it was a FEAT! But worth doing if it meant that the person on the other end would keep listening to the CD.
Wow! Pom you’re amazing! I love how your colors and pattern run through everything! Gold Medal for favor awesomeness
@lucy: I have to say, that’s super impressive! I hope your guest list wasn’t too hefty.
miss pom, these came out so well. i love the idea of sharing music with your guests. and the years we all spent making mix tapes, then mix cd’s before mp3s and ipods is wonderfully nostalgic. i’m sure your guests will love it. and i really like that they will double as place cards with the dividers — double duty is the best!
They are gorgeous! We are doing cd favors for our guests as well. Although, I’m not nearly as talented as you, so our covers are much more basic. We’re getting married in just over a month (Oct 18th) and our entire wedding has the Fall theme going on, so the cd covers have a fall leaf and then a line for us to write the guest name in and a line to write their table number. The cd labels were done by my uncle, with fall leaf stamps and our names and wedding date in the circle pattern, like yours. And then on the inside of the cd cover we have a short thank you to our guests, as well as the song list of all of the songs we included on the cd - as well as a tiny reason why that song was chosen (fav band, “our song”, first dance, etc)
They look great! We’re also doing CD favors but we’re sticking to slimline cases because I just didn’t have the patience to open the backs of those classic ones! We ended up going for a mix that people would enjoy driving home to, but that may be new to them.
@Mrs. Onion: It’s a shame that cassette tape players aren’t really around anymore, otherwise I’d totally do that a la Rob Gordon from High Fidelity.
WOW! Thse are so beautiful! They look very professional!
We are doing CD favors as well and are in some major printer-hating fog. We are just creating the cd label and putting the cd’s in a cd envelope, no jewel case. It takes ten minutes for the printer to spool before it prints out the labels (2 per page). This has taken more time than it may be worth!
Yours look fabulous. I love the jewel case and the cd box to keep them organized! How neat looking!!
@Mrs. Onion: Thank you Mrs. Onion! The double-duty allowed me to combine the budgets for two projects and keep costs down.
@Tiffany: Those sound really beautiful as well! During the design process, I had to keep reminding myself that simple is better! It’s easy to over-do it. So your leaf stamped covers are probably just perfect!
@Cindy: Oh man, I TOTALLY feel for you right now! Seriously, I had to HAND-FEED many of the template pages as they were too thick or the wrong texture for the printer to grab them. I bought these back in July - so you can imagine it was a labor-intensive project. Hang in there!!
I so want to bite your style, but the FH says no
I’ll have to sway him somehow…
Your CD’s look so professional! Me wants!
holy crap. i had imagined pretty but this… THIS!! why didn’t you bring one to sushi so i can hold the actual pretties in my own hands??why?!?!?!
[...] want a reminder of all of the jam’s that we love? this idea CD favours courtesy of Miss Pomergranate. I so wanted to order the Jewelboxing kit, but Nick squashed that idea. I’ll find a way [...]
but did you get permission to use those songs as favors? or are they public domaine (as in the copy rights have expired ) even though you are giving the cds away it is still considered piracy. that is why i tunes only limits you to 7 downloads of a song (they figured that is a fair amount for the money you paid for it)
but did you get permission to use those songs as favors? or are they public domain (as in the copy rights have expired ) even though you are giving the cds away it is still considered piracy. that is why i tunes only limits you to 7 downloads of a song (they figured that is a fair amount for the money you paid for it)
[...] Check out this cute blog and the accompanied article HERE to learn some helpful hints on burning a cd that takes the cake [...]
I’m not sure how I missed this post but holy moley… best favors I’ve ever seen!
[...] Step Eight: Add any other text or images you want—I added a horizontal text boxt to write a quick thank you to our guests. I shamelessly stole this text placement from Mrs. Pom, who had CD favors to die for! [...]
Did you burn the CDs yourself? I love the idea and we’re thinking of doing the same.
[...] CD # of Favors: 150 Total Cost: $443.28 Cost per Favor: [...]
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Mrs. Pomegranate, Sacramento
Age and Occupation: 27, Technical Specialist
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Software Engineer
Engagement Date: August 23, 2007
Wedding Date: October, 2008
Blogging Since: June 5, 2008
Venue: R.H. Phillips Winery
About Me: Hi, I'm Miss Pomegranate and I'm a shopaholic. I have a weak spot for the chic cheap - especially anything I can re-create on the DIY. Shoes are my vice, music is my passion in life and technology is the medium by which I live and work. When I'm not scoping out a sale, I'm spending my quality time training for a marathon, playing Wii with my fiance and snuggling with my Silver Labrador and Teacup Panther - and oh yeah, planning my wedding!
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