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Miss Margarita, Boston/Los Angeles Age and Occupation: 26, Healthcare Consultant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Doctor Engagement Date: March 21, 2007 Wedding Date: August, 2008 Blogging Since: June 18, 2008 Venue: Saddlerock Ranch About Me: I grew up in Southern California, moved to Boston for college, New York for grad school, back to Boston and now I travel the northeast every week for work. When I'm not on the go, I love to read, draw, shop, sleep and spend quality time with my fiancé, family and friends. We're long-distance planning for our "big fat brown wedding" in California and are excited to unite our Sri Lankan and Indian cultures and Buddhist and Hindu religions in a unique and modern way.
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DIY Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Programs

September 18th, 2008 @ 6:29 pm by Mrs. Margarita

Our programs were a labor of love. All in all they took us literally weeks to complete! The reason it took us so long was because I didn’t plan out the supplies very well, and since we started with only a few weeks from the wedding, I was just over it. That said, I’m SO glad we put so much effort into making them because they were a huge hit at the wedding.

Here’s the result of our weeks of work (excuse the bad quality picture - my camera is on the fritz):



We got permission from Saima Says Design to use the monogram and lotus flower from our invitation set. I then created custom art rubber stamps from Rubber Stamps.Net. The stamps came quickly and were pretty cheap.

Then I spent hours at the Paper Source trying to find inspiration. I love that store and it’s so easy to get lost among all those racks of gorgeous paper and random adorable things like butterflies and mini suitcases. I finally decided to use A7 luxe cream folded cards as the cover for our programs.

I knew that I wanted to jazz up the plain cream cover with some type of orange decorative paper to build on our color theme. I wanted to use the paper to create a binding using my Xyron a la Mrs. Lovebug. Since I’m indecisive, I went out and bought tons of sheets of paper in oranges and even reds because I was getting desperate.

I had Mr. Marg and my MOH weigh in before I decided on this gorgeous orange paper. If you ever use this paper, get ready to be covered in gold glitter. By the end of it all, Mr. Margarita, half my family and my bridal party had been bedazzled.

Mr. Marg and I drove all over town looking for ways to cut this paper into strips. Kinkos was our first stop and they said they could cut it into 2″x15″ strips. They called me 15 minutes later saying their machines couldn’t handle the paper. Turns out all that pretty glitter was really screwing up the blades on their machines. We took the paper all over town before sucking it up and cutting the paper ourselves. We needed a paper cutter and the Kinkos hand paper cutter just wasn’t cutting it (ha ha). Instead of shelling out $50+ for our own paper cutter, we made our way over to Blick Art Materials and used their paper cutter for free. They were mildly annoyed but they obliged us nonetheless.

Once we had all those strips in our hot little hands, my MOH came over every night after work for a week to emboss the 200 folded cards. I first had to measure out the placement of the monogram and take into account the 1″ border for the orange paper. Then we got a little assembly line going of stamping, embossing and cleaning up.

My bin of arts and crafts goodness:

Versamark Watermark Inkpad (Image from Papersource):

Antique Gold Embossing Powder

Embossing Heat tool (Image from Papersource):

After those were done, we ran all those strips through my trusty Xyron 900. Make sure that you have enough adhesive for this process. I ended up having to use the removable adhesive for some, which just didn’t stick as well as the permanent adhesive. I was able to get about 4 strips (2″x15″) at a time, and about 100 strips for every 40 ft. adhesive roll. That’s a guesstimation - at that point I wasn’t paying much attention to exactly how many strips I got per roll.

My MOH and I spent a few hours putting all those sticky paper strips on the programs. We eyeballed them and could actually reposition the strips if we had to without ruining the paper.

The programs then traveled with me to California since I didn’t have time to get them printed and bind them in Boston. I got the actual programs printed and cut at Kinkos on their cream resume paper. I also got 200 sheets of Stardream Antique Gold paper from Paper Source cut to serve as a cover sheet for the inside of the programs.


The last steps (I swear) were to cut all the ribbons, hole punch the programs and covers, and finally tie the ribbons. Just a warning - it takes a lot of hand strength to hold punch with those hand punches! My bridesmaid B and I had extreme hand pain by the end of the hole punching process.

Hole puncher (Image from A.C. Moore):

Ribbon (Image from Paper Source):

Although the process was very time consuming, it was worth it in the end. Everyone loved the programs and it was a lot of fun spending all those hours bonding with family and friends.

What was the biggest DIY project for your wedding?

19 Responses to “DIY Blood, Sweat and Tears: The Programs”

1.
Always In Style says:

Just lovely - I did a similar sort of thing with my invites & thank you cards when I got married too.

2.
elle1009 says:

I am also buying the DIY programs from Paper Source and can’t wait. Yours look amazing.

3.
Jenn says:

I am looking at my 2-hole punch here at work and I am thinking that if I make my own programs I am going to need to “borrow” it for a few nights. I know I would get carpel tunnel with the manual hole punch.

4.
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Miss Hot Cocoa says:

I love the orange paper — totally gorgeous!

5.
cannotwait says:

cropadiles cut better through multiple layers but of course cost more…they are on sale a lot lately @ the craft stores, or you can use the 40% off Hobby Lobby internet coupon

6.
linzmariedesigns says:

These look so great! Good job. Did you have to pay your invitation designer a fee for using your monogram? I’m dealing with a certain situation (as the invitation designer) and am just curious if other people charge… Thanks!

7.
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Miss Pomegranate says:

Beautiful!! I loooove the gold custom stamps. So cool. :)

8.
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Mrs. Green Tea says:

all those purdee paper… i wanna eat ‘em all…

9.
Miya says:

I was so happy to see this post, this is basically how I want to DIY my invitations! (There is a Paper-Source two minutes from my house… so dangerous.) Any regrets or suggestions about the embossing technique? I was thinking of colored ink and clear embossing powder…

10.
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Miss Avocado says:

Wow, the amount of time and work that went into these programs really makes it so special. I think it was worth it in the end. Beautiful programs!

11.
Miss X says:

Our programs have become the bain of my existence. I hope I’m as happy with ours when I’m done with them as you were with yours!

12.
Adrienne says:

These turned out amazing!!!

13.
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Mr. Mango says:

these look great! i love that u used the same emblem from your invites..very nice

14.
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Miss Espresso says:

Those are gorgeous! I love the colors! Is it too late to switch mine? :)

15.
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Mrs. Margarita says:

Thanks guys!

@Jenn: Borrow it - your hands will be so happy you did!

@cannotwait: Man I wish I knew about those when I was making these

@Miss Avocado: I tried colored ink and clear embossing powder but I didn’t really like the results as much. The end product didn’t look as rich as using the colored embossing powder. Also, my friend used clear embossing powder and colored ink on some outer envelopes for her engagement and they got a bit wet and ran all over the envelopes. I’d suggest trying out both on the paper you are using and then seeing what you like better though. :)

16.
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Mrs. Margarita says:

whoops - i messed that up. that last bit was for miya not avo

@Miya: : I tried colored ink and clear embossing powder but I didn’t really like the results as much. The end product didn’t look as rich as using the colored embossing powder. Also, my friend used clear embossing powder and colored ink on some outer envelopes for her engagement and they got a bit wet and ran all over the envelopes. I’d suggest trying out both on the paper you are using and then seeing what you like better though.

17.
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Mrs. Margarita says:

@linzmariedesigns: Sorry I didn’t mean to forget you up there either. Our designer actually didn’t charge us for the use of our monogram or lotus flower. Wish I could be of more help!

18.
linzmariedesigns says:

That’s very helpful, thank you!

19.
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Miss Meatball says:

Worth it, totally. They’re simply gorgeous. Thanks for the informative tutorial - very organized!


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Mrs. Margarita Miss Margarita, Boston/Los Angeles Age and Occupation: 26, Healthcare Consultant Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Doctor Engagement Date: March 21, 2007 Wedding Date: August, 2008 Blogging Since: June 18, 2008 Venue: Saddlerock Ranch About Me: I grew up in Southern California, moved to Boston for college, New York for grad school, back to Boston and now I travel the northeast every week for work. When I'm not on the go, I love to read, draw, shop, sleep and spend quality time with my fiancé, family and friends. We're long-distance planning for our "big fat brown wedding" in California and are excited to unite our Sri Lankan and Indian cultures and Buddhist and Hindu religions in a unique and modern way.